Bernie! That’d show em 
I think Warren at this point sees her role to be the final nail on Bernie if he loses Michigan big and stays divisive. She won’t jump on the losing train and she will hold off on endorsing Biden until it places her as unity builder.
Again, agreed. Warren wants to remain relevant and has never fought with the mainstream Democratic party in the way Sanders has.
Yes. He’ll probably be like Hillary in 2008 trying to hang on hoping for a miracle. But I don’t think that cost Obama many or any votes. This is different, Bernie is going hard after Biden. If Bernie loses badly in Michigan and stays in, I will lose all the respect I currently have for him.
Hang on. It’s not fair to compare 2008 to 2020.
from Wiki:
(emphasis mine)
Look how close their delegate totals were all the way to June 7th. (Wiki)
So pretty much at the moment it became apparent she could not win, she suspended. And I can tell you, going on to be the SoS in an Obama administration had to be about the most bitter pill in the world to swallow, given the state of our foreign policy after GWB. Nevertheless, as a team player, she stepped up and took a horrible job after a demoralizing defeat by upstart Obama.
Contrast this with what Bernie pulled on her in 2016. Also from Wiki:
(emphasis mine)
He still didn’t officially drop out of the race until the convention on July 26, 2016.
Biden is already up 65-odd votes against Bernie this time around. It is easy to see with upcoming races, Sanders is likely to lag behind by far more than 231 votes, and much sooner.
I suspect you’re going to lose all respect for him shortly, as I did in 2016.
It’s been a long time. I remember reading on this board a thread about how Hillary should concede but the details are fuzzy, but let’s not get sidetracked. Forget the Hillary reference, Bernie has to get out soon
Agreed on all counts. Thanks for being gracious.
I have to disagree with this. Sanders on his worst day is not Trump. Sanders is the leader of a movement. The only cause Trump cares about is what’s best for Donald Trump. As far as Trump’s concerned, the Republican Party can go out of business they day he leaves office.
That said, I agree that Sanders and his movement are trying to hijack the party. They want to be the only ones steering the ship but they want everybody else to stay on board and paddle.
I think at this point it’s just a matter of Bernie volunteers working phones & hammering home that "credit card Joe’ isn’t really a strong candidate. Which he isn’t.
Joe Biden is a right-wing kind of corrupt candidate:
war on drugs, war on crime, war on Iraq
He’d move your job overseas & not let you write off your debt.
Called children of single mothers “superpredators.”
Indifferent to or unaware of the urgency climate change.
There’s already a party for that kind of thing; he’s not in it; and they have the White House now.
Bernie is the candidate of the Democratic voter. Biden is the candidate of people who don’t care who wins this fall.
That’s it. It may not work, but that’s the pitch.
Agreed.
With Bernie and Biden neck and neck now and Biden having a very vulnerable history and present, Bernie has a great opportunity.
Rich voters with some morals hopefully hate Bidens homophobia, millions of drug imprisonments, pro war record etc.
Poorer voters should hate his anti social security policies, free trade free reign attitude and refusal to support Medicare for all.
Low information voters have his apparent senility.
Bernie has grass roots support and small money donors. Those small money donors have to count for solid word of mouth support. Something corporate support can’t do.
Bloomberg’s massive waste of money has demonstrated the limits of oligarchy.
It’s one type of purity politics versus another now. Pure establishment, corporate backed interests, or the interests of regular Americans.
Bernie has a good chance.
It’s not going to happen. Those outstanding California votes are the last ones mailed, more likely to be favorable to Biden. And in all future contests Bernie isn’t going to benefit from mail-in votes that were sent before Biden’s surge.
Even if Biden keels over dead, some other establishment candidate will take his place in the race and combine forces with Biden’s delegates at the convention. His fans will squawk and gripe about it, but if a solid majority of Democratic primary voters have made it clear they don’t want to nominate Bernie, it’s ridiculous to say he gets to be the nominee just because of a fluke death.
I love this metaphor!
The problem is the popularity of Sanders’ policies compared to Biden’s. Sanders is steering the boat towards actually popular policy that will materially benefit regular Americans.
We get that the party hates that, they are scurrying like cockroaches in the light to stop him doing what they pretended to want.
If Bernie wins in Ohio and Michigan, and if he can do that convincingly, that would be a strong message. It would be particularly strong given that these are winnable states for Democrats against Trump. If either of these two candidates wants to make a statement on their electability, this week is going to be almost as important as Super Tuesday.
The truth is, Bernie’s win and California and Biden’s win in Texas are not all that important because we already know which way both states are going to lean in November. They’re both symbolic in that they are large prizes, and they are diverse states, but as great as Super Tuesday was for Biden, it wasn’t a clinching victory, IMO. But if Biden can flip the script and beat Bernie in both Ohio and Michigan, then Bernie should start talking about how to support Biden and Biden should be talking about how to convince Bernie’s delegates to support them going forward.
If Sanders’ policies were popular, more people would vote for them. Problem is, they’re not.
Yeah, the “we know what you actually want, we don’t need to listen to you” argument is…a thing, I guess.
“The party” didn’t hand Sanders his ass on super Tuesday.
It’s Sanders and supporters that insist that everyone listen to what “the people” want. And when “the people” have their say, and they don’t like it, it’s “the party” that’s to blame.
I am fairly confident that you actually believe that, that Sanders’ proposed policy ideas are much more popular than what Biden supports. But really you have to get out and listen to real people outside your Facebook friend group self-affirmation group more. It simply is not true and has not been.
Building on and expanding the ACA is more popular than revolutionarily blowing up the system and replacing it completely, for example. This is true for all Democrats and even more true for those Democrats who actually bother to vote. Polling showed this throughout the season but progressive activists and several who were running, turned a blind eye to it, instead mistaking the loudest voices for the most voices.
To some degree yes that is “what the party wants” because “the people”, those Democrats who vote in the primaries are “the party”.
I’m not yet willing to sign the death certificate for Sander’s campaign. I was pretty sure Biden was done after New Hampshire and he obviously warn’t! Before the season I had thought Harris would be a real contender, relatively early into the race was expecting this to be a Warren Biden finale, and I was thinking Bloomberg would have some chops. I don’t have complete confidence that what seems very likely at one moment is not going to be different next week. So some possible path? I’ll leave open the possibility.
Given that, Team Sanders fighting hard to live past 3/10 makes sense, including giving their going hard on negative campaigning against Biden, even if it includes some misrepresentations of his record … this is a nasty sport.
But if he fails to show that he can get up off the canvas on 3/10? Especially if he loses Michigan? He’s done. Toast. Forked. Yes, The Bernie Sanders prefers keepin’ on it’s back! Remarkable bird, id’nit, squire? Lovely plumage! But at that point he’s not pining for the fjords, he wouldn’t “voom” if you put four million volts through 'im! ‘E’s bleedin’ demised!
If at that point he does not realize it and comport himself accordingly then those who care most about the good of this world and this country need to make it clear. Warren then needs to endorse the nominee-apparent, Obama needs to start the general election marketing help, and if Sanders continues to go negative hard at that point he needs to be mocked by all mercilessly, to become a historical joke when thought of at all.
It wouldn’t be Biden flipping the script - he polls ahead of Bernie in both states. Sanders is the one with an uphill slog ahead of him.
For what little it may be worth, 538 has dropped Sanders’ chance of outright victory all the way down to 3%( with 10% of nobody getting a majority ).
This kind of “If I can’t win, I’ll make you lose” strategy will only benefit Trump.
If Sanders can regain the lead by selling himself and his ideas as the better choice, then more power to him. He deserves to win if he can do it on that basis.
But if all his followers do is try to knock Biden down then they deserve all the scorn that will be placed upon them.
Most of the strong Sanders supporters I see on Facebook already have their laundry lists of how “the party screwed Bernie” out - for example, “The party intentionally understaffed polling places with few booths for Democratic voters in states/locations where Sanders is strongest so his voters would get tired of waiting, or see the long lines, and decide not to vote.”