What Is Bernie Sanders’ End Game?
Here are my questions:
1. What is Bernie Sanders’ end game?
2. How does he unite his supporters behind Hillary?
I really don’t have an answer for these questions.
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He sounded a positive note in a interview recently with the Hill that I cite in the open thread that says he will fight for every vote in every primary, and if they are not successful in getting the nomination, they will fight for changes in the platform, and he will sit down with Hillary and talk things through. That’s the off ramp. Bernie will get victories in changing the platform and also in changing the primary process for the next election. And Clinton will likely tell Bernie that she wants him to help recruit like-minded people to fill the party at all levels so that his vision for America can eventually come about. Hillary is going to play to Bernie’s ego in their private meeting.
And then Bernie will enthusiastically endorse Hillary at his speech at the convention. And that’s how ends. From here to the convention, Sanders needs to reign in Weaver and his more fervent supporters so that a repeat of Friday’s unpleasantness in California is not repeated.
Why are you asking us? Who on this blog is close enough to the campaign to answer such a question?
These are not the questions I expect from progressives. I haven’t heard any of the Graveyard Whistling Choir talk at all about how to get her to embrace progressive policies. As far as a bunch of you are concerned, being an advocate for women and minorities is all she has to do, and she scores 100% on that card.
The rest of us are waiting for progressivism on an issue that doesn’t involve these progressive distractions. Bernie Sanders has nothing to do with it.
1. Move the Party leftward where it should be.
2. What DD said, enthusiastically endorse Clinton.
“2. How does he unite his supporters behind Hillary?”
No, how does Hillary unite the party. Fortunately, the things Hillary needs to do to win over Sanders supporters, are also some of the things she needs to do to fend off Trump.
Why are you asking us? Who on this blog is close enough to the campaign to answer such a question?
If you hadn’t noticed, this is a political blog and there is lots of speculation and projection that is involved with that discussion. That’s true for almost all of the media covering politics. If you aren’t interested in a question or topic, just scroll by.
Yes, she has to woo his voters, but he has a responsibility, too. Same responsibility us Obama supporters placed on Hillary in 2008. Remember that?
Hillary may have “pivoted to the general” but Bernie is still engaged in a primary, and he still has people in the field fighting for him. Leadership 101 is the leader always has to be committed. There will be an appropriate time for concessions, and that time will not be dictated by the Clinton campaign.
Bernie gave an interview on NPR last week where he said “So I’m going to do everything I can to stimulate political discourse in this country and get young people, working people, involved in the political process.” Which is a more than worthy set of goals, if he can deliver on that. But I am skeptical that he can.
Still, the business of “unifying the party” has its own steps — and the first step is for the losing candidate to signal to its supporters that it is over and to strongly encourage them to support the winning candidate. Work that Hillary graciously and enthusiastically did in 2008. Now that she is winning, apparently she STILL has to do all of the work.
Sanders has to be the one to get his voters to Clinton. Many of them dont trust her (fairly or unfairly), so anything she says will be written off as a lie. It will take Sanders endorsement to give that leftward movement credibility.
“As far as a bunch of you are concerned, being an advocate for women and minorities is all she has to do, and she scores 100% on that card.
The rest of us are waiting for progressivism on an issue that doesn’t involve these progressive distractions.”
It’s obviously not enough that we agree with you on economic issues. It seems we have to focus solely on one issue – the one you tell us to, not the distractions.
It has nothing to do with agreement, and I term it a distraction because the 1% certainly consider it that. It’s why Hillary talks so much about that and so little about how she accumulated $100 million over the past 16 years.
It’s about what you choose to talk about. You don’t want to talk about the topics on which you agree but your candidate has been coy. Y’all treat her candidacy as if its some precious but delicate treasure, a Faberge egg perhaps.
Meanwhile, let’s all talk about how awful Trump is. I haven’t had enough of those stories over the past 12 months, I need more, more more!
@cassandra: Pandora can fight her own battles, can’t she? Or can’t she?
This is a political blog. Trump is, at present, the Republican Presidential nominee. There will be many stories about Trump because… this is a political blog.
Yes, there will be an appropriate moment for Bernie to throw his support to Clinton. Bernie will let us know when that is. After that, Bernie can be very useful in explaining to his supporters how Hillary has addressed their concerns. Of course Hillary will have to give him enough so he can do it with a straight face.
Last time I checked the masthead, it said Delaware Liberal. Not Delaware Politics, Delaware Liberal.
There is no reason for liberals to be discussing Donald Trump, as there’s nothing to say beyond “he has a chance” and “no he doesn’t.” We can all agree on that, but a “discussion” it is not. It certainly has nothing to do with Delaware, yet it forms 95% of the comments by Team Hillary.
People who are paid to churn out copy have to write those stories or the ads will bump together. Non-paid bloggers have no excuse. Yes, Trump is awful, full stop. The GOP might not recover from this, at least not in its present form, but that’s their problem.
Meanwhile, DD actually thinks (unless he was trolling) that Hillary wants Bernie’s people to get involved in party affairs. Not bloody likely, as she embodies everything they’re fighting against, just in neoliberal instead of conservative form.
You want a question? How is progressivism supposed to move forward with a neoliberal Democrat in the White House? Obama treated progressives as an afterthought. If Hillary is Obama III, what will change?
It’s about what you choose to talk about. You don’t want to talk about the topics on which you agree but your candidate has been coy. Y’all treat her candidacy as if its some precious but delicate treasure, a Faberge egg perhaps.
The thing that you don’t get to do is to dictate what gets talked about here. If you aren’t happy with the conversation, then go where the conversation is to your liking. In the meantime, there is a primary election that isn’t done and a General that will be long and mean and nasty. Also, in the meantime, DD has actually been talking about and pointing to HRC proposed policy in Open Threads — your sole issue here is that we won’t considers your Clinton Derangement Syndrome as credible commentary.
HRC is not a perfect progressive. Neither was Obama, but he moved the ball down the field some. Whatever progressive achievements might be desired will be tempered by the fact that Congress isn’t especially progressive and won’t be in the foreseeable future.
*I* talk about how to get more progressive policy all of the time — but because that effort requires progressives to get off of their keyboards all of you just insist to me that your entitlements should be all that is necessary. I’m not wrong here and I’ll keep pointing out that the so-called progressives here can’t even manage to push Carper/Coons/Carney in any better direction, but somehow a President is supposed to perform magic.
First off, you are seldom the target of what I’m saying. You walk the walk, and I applaud you for all the good work you do.
Second, you can talk about whatever you want, but I’m going to continue to call out the people here who want to turn the blog into a pro-Hillary party organ. You talk about it, you fail to convince anyone, I mock you. Rinse and repeat.
Third, Carper-Coons-Carney is the result of the Democratic Party’s willingness to cozy up to corporations. The way to defeat that isn’t within the state party, and it isn’t by electing Hillary Clinton, who spent 16 years helping her husband build an international PAC masquerading as a charity.
I’m not interested in whether she gets anything done; I don’t expect her to, and I didn’t expect Sanders to, either. I’m interested in her agenda, because that’s what will determine the course of the next four years.
Obama failed because his agenda was bringing the country together. He said it over and over again and offered far too much to Republicans in an attempt to bring it about. We can thank the GOP, not Obama, for the fact that Social Security was not cut in a “grand bargain.”
As far as I’m concerned, any cut in SS is a conservative goal, not a liberal one. I am not the least bit mollified by her pledge to “protect” is, because John Carney, who’s dying to cut it, keeps saying he wants cuts to “preserve” the program.
What do you plan to do to keep her from bargaining that away? Or will it be OK as long as we boost the benefits for widows?
No doubt the bill that cuts Social Security will be called the “Social Security Protection Act.” And remember, Hillary opposes Republican efforts to cut Social Security.
She also pledges it won’t be privatized, an idea rejected strongly in 2006 when W tried it and not talked about since. Granted, I’m sure it will never die in the compost heap of GOP “ideas,” but that strategy was designed for four wars ago.
What do you plan to do to keep her from bargaining that away? Or will it be OK as long as we boost the benefits for widows?
And of course, the answer to this is a more progressive Congress that will help put the brakes on this stuff and a more engaged progressive base that figures out how to draw some blood for this kind of thing. So basically, not much, since the team that needs to be in the field here can’t figure out how to do this except for every 4 years.
Both Jeb! and Carnival Cruz explicitly endorsed privatizing SS while they were campaigning. Paul Ryan had this as part of some economic development vision paper be put together before being a VP candidate. While I agree that this should be politically not doable, it isn’t as though we need to be vigilant because they *will* try when they think they can and there does need to be a President who will kill the idea. But I also want a President who won’t encourage backward steps, either, like Chained CPI, higher retirement ages, revisions to spousal benefits.
Carper-Coons-Carney is the result of the Democratic Party’s willingness to cozy up to corporations
Carper/Coons/Carney are the result of Delawareans voting them in. We can argue about not having better choices, but this is who Delawareans pick when given a chance. And as long as the local progressive community isn’t especially persuasive in helping to re-orient these choices or making a case for better.
but I’m going to continue to call out the people here who want to turn the blog into a pro-Hillary party organ.
Calling out is OK, but starting off a comment with Why aren’t you talking about or It would be better for you to talk about isn’t calling out. It is trying to redirect the conversation to the one you want. Make your comments and people will talk about them or not. But if all you have to say is some form of “you should talk about”, then scroll by.
I was encouraged to read Hillary’s claim that she would “expand Social Security.” I envisioned lifting the caps to do stuff like lower retirement age to free up some jobs, or increase the amount of outside income beneficiaries could make. But all I found was something about increasing benefits for widows. Which is nice for widows – let’s do it of course – but won’t otherwise make a dent in raising incomes.
One significant benefit of not being a DINO, RINO, LINO, CINO, and PINO, is that I am not required to participate in the time honored CF in which individual purity is examined and found wanting because no one is able to successfully establish their bona fides either because they went to the movies in the evening and dared to have a bottle of non-boxed wine or because their chosen candidate walked around with their fly unzipped or sounded shrill resulting in the need for self flagellation or at the least the flagellation of someone else who fails to measure up to a standard no one actually lives by anyway.
Thank God I was born a moderate!
Oh yeah and I also avoid all the junk mail!
Fight any effort to privatize or weaken Medicare and Social Security, and expand Social Security for today’s beneficiaries and generations to come by asking the wealthiest to contribute more.
What exactly is the hill endgame? Besides become a billionaire like the rest of her pals?
@D “What exactly is the hill endgame?”
Check back here in 8 years…
And then there’s this:
“Sorry, Bernie fans. His health care plan is short $17,000,000,000,000.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/09/the-17-trillion-problem-with-bernie-sanderss-health-care-plan-2/
I’m not saying I’m against raising an additional $17 trillion to get to a good single payer system. It’s just that ‘ol BS needs to be more honest about what he’s actually proposing…
If we get to choose between Hillary’s reality vs. Bernie’s dream, the dream seems pretty darn nice. Too bad it’s just a dream…
The answer is to raise taxes on those already paying more than their share? LOL
Fight any effort to privatize or weaken Medicare and Social Security, and expand Social Security for today’s beneficiaries and generations to come by asking the wealthiest to contribute more.
As president, she would:
Fight any attempts to gamble seniors’ retirement security on the stock market through privatization.
Oppose reducing annual cost-of-living adjustments.
Oppose Republican efforts to raise the retirement age—an unfair idea that will particularly hurt the seniors who have worked the hardest throughout their lives.
Oppose closing the long-term shortfall on the backs of the middle class, whether through benefit cuts or tax increases.
To answer pandora’s questions
1. What is Bernie Sanders’ end-game? He doesn’t have one thought out (although that could change at any moment). As a politician he is a tactician and not a strategist; he improvises and reacts to targets of opportunity within a loose set of ideas about what he wants to accomplish. He still believes (ala Reagan in 1976) that even though he goes to the convention with a lot but not enough delegates that he is just inches away from breaking through. His end game is to deny Clinton the nomination by exploiting the rules while crying that Clinton is exploiting the rules to beat him.
2. How does he unite his supporters behind Hillary? He doesn’t, at least not beyond endorsing her (which is what she will require to allow him to make a major speech on Tuesday night of the convention). because he is using the Democratic Party almost like Trump has been using the GOP–as an existing vehicle he could hijack for what’s effectively an independent run for President. He doesn’t care jackshit about the Party.
Bonus question: how has Bernie hurt Clinton? By still surviving and pretending that he’s relevant beyond his “sell by” date. Who would’ve thunk that people presumed that Trump has his nomination all wrapped up before Clinton did?
@SN “Bonus question: how has Bernie hurt Clinton? By still surviving and pretending that he’s relevant beyond his “sell by” date.”
I think it runs deeper than that. Here’s the problem as I see it:
“How Donald Trump is running to the left of Hillary Clinton”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-donald-trump-is-running-to-the-left-of-hillary-clinton/2016/05/09/ebde82da-147c-11e6-8967-7ac733c56f12_story.html
Trump is making a concerted effort to go after the the less informed Sanders supporters (i.e. most of them). Without active help from Bernie Sanders himself, the ploy could actually succeed. That Sanders doesn’t see this threat or doesn’t seem to care enough to actually do something about it, is perhaps the main problem at this moment.
The answer I believe to Bernie Sanders endgame query, is that will be done when he has fully moved young people’s mindset to the left.
Interesting polls show that today, and it it attributed to his influence, more young people now say they are Democrats away from being Independents.
The number of young people who think health care should be a right has shifted from 42 percent to now approaching 50%.
The number of young people who think everyone should have a right to obtain a minimal amount of food courtesy of government services, as also shifted about the same… This change came about in the past year.
More young people now see politics as a medium for affecting change. They used to think it was something old people did. Some of the push comes from Bernie. But other influences such as the murder of black children, women and men by rogue policemen, may also have some effect. It seems that the detail that only because Blacks never voted in Ferguson was the reason they had an all white supremacist government, hit home to a lot of people.” You mean we can change things?”… is the real revolution.
Most people believe that the revolution (if one falls into the media trap of calling it that), is Bernie Sanders led… Not so. It is more of a shift, a movement. He was the person who got in front of the movement that had been looking for a leader probably since the dissolution of the Occupy movement and supporters.
Bottom line, Bernie is continuing as long as possible …. for when he stops… the message dies and disappears…. At that point we will tally and see what is the final score in the Democratic party in numbers between the old guard and new blood.
Obviously, knowing him, and knowing his supporters…. he is not going to stop as long as there is still time on the clock…. Anyone who has ever played sports, would approve and agree with his competitive ethics.
@k “Bottom line, Bernie is continuing as long as possible …. for when he stops… the message dies and disappears….”
No it won’t. Trump will be saying it all the way to the election.
The only real question is: Will Sanders’ supporters be smart enough to know the difference?
That comment makes no sense. If you mean something and are not just throwing up a glib flippant remark, you should flesh out what you are trying to communicate….. Because what you just said: was that Trump will be pushing single payer healthcare, higher taxes on billionaires, free college tuition, right up to the election…
Why would you even say that? Can you provide a clearer understanding of what you mean?
@k “That comment makes no sense.”
Trump’s general election strategy is to pretend that he’s Bernie Sanders.
He’s already started. Did you read this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-donald-trump-is-running-to-the-left-of-hillary-clinton/2016/05/09/ebde82da-147c-11e6-8967-7ac733c56f12_story.html
@k “…higher taxes on billionaires…”
Yea he just did that too:
http://fortune.com/2016/05/08/trump-raise-taxes-wealthy/
That’s the first few steps. Just wait and see him adopt more and more of what Bernie has been saying. It’s coming. Free tuition… Health care for all… Just wait.
And it makes perfect sense. His best chance to win is to try to block Sanders’ voters from supporting Hillary. He’ll do that by pretending he’s Bernie.
Good thing Hillary has already been vetted on this. I’m sure she’ll have a compelling rebuttal.
Females make up 53% of the population of the USA. Add minority males and all children to that number and then ask how you can call yourself a progressive and say the issues of a majority of human beings are a distraction. When I was in college in the ’80s I was warned by older women that male politicians would never, ever get this on their own. Sad to say the near loss of coverage for mammograms and birth control in the Affordable Health Care Act at the hands of an all-male Seanate committee and the sidelining of women and children’s issues (violence, lack of access to power on a domestic and workaday level, sexual exploitation) as somehow covered by his Economic priorities by Bernie Sanders just goes to drive home the point. I know Sanders folk aren’t up on math, but what is Progressive for women, children and minorities is good for the majority of people. That might be why Bernie is losing the national vote for the nomination.
I’ll tell you how: 30% of women are voting for Trump.
Learn some math yourself.
“ask how you can call yourself a progressive and say the issues of a majority of human beings are a distraction”
How can you fall for letting the economic elite divide the working class along gender and racial lines? Economic justice INCLUDES the issues of women and minorities. There is no trade-off. Go for the candidate who offers the fullest measure of economic justice, not some paltry status quo.
Pandora, as per some of the past days discussions…..
Cindy’s comment is why folks like myself get all bent out of shape and defensive. She called Sander’s supporters dumb (bad at math), heavily insinuated we’re driven by sexism, and seemed to pin the Republican efforts to assault women on Bernie Sanders.
Commenter Cindy (i wont say she, as i have no proof) is exactly the type of bad-faith arguer that drives the divisiveness in this debate. No one in a position that matters in Sanders campaign actually considers any progressive cause a distraction. Some just have been getting more attention recently (im VERY happy about all those gains and VERY aware of the attacks) while others…. you KNOW which issue… seem to only have been getting worse for a solid 3 decades. Case in point. 3 decades ago, we didnt allow to adults who love each other to marry. Also, 3 decades ago, a family in a house could be supported by 1 mid-paying job. I want to fight to support the former, WHILE fighting to reverse the later.
@Ben There are plenty of bad faith arguers on both sides.
to be sure. I like to think I try to call them all out.