Time for Sanders to get the heck out of the race

There's basically only one big primary day left. I don't think he'll get out. I do think he needs to read the writing on the wall and tone down the rhetoric (which he actually has started to do, though his supporters haven't always).

There's a lot of hand wringing now about how he may be hurting Clinton by staying in, but I think it all hinges on how he concedes, how he endorses her, and how he encourages his followers to vote for her. The model, obviously, is Clinton herself in 2008. Despite a lot of die-hard Clinton supporters then who swore they'd never vote for Obama, Clinton's actions made sure that didn't happen.

One difference this time is that Sanders, unlike Clinton, has no particular loyalty to the Democratic Party. Still, I think he'll do the right thing, only if because Trump is pretty much the antithesis of everything Sanders stands for, and everything he has fought for his whole life. I think he understands that; the key will be getting his supporters to understand that.

That Trump would narrow the polls with Clinton in the short term was predictable in this month-long moment we're in now after he effectively clinched his nomination but she hasn't yet. You still have plenty of Republican elected officials and pundits saying "never Trump," but most Republican voters have made peace with the idea that he's the nominee, and taking the attitude "well, he wasn't my first choice, but he's better than Clinton." Whereas you still have a slice of the Democratic electorate holding out hope for Bernie.

Look for that to go away after Clinton clinches. Then you'll have a lot of Democrats saying "well, she wasn't my first choice, but she's better than Trump," especially if Sanders supports her in the same way that she supported Obama and talks about what a disaster Trump would be for everything he and his supporters believe in. For her part, Clinton should concede a platform spot or two, a choice speaking gig at the convention (as indeed she got in 2008); whatever it takes to get that commitment from Sanders.

She'd also pick up 99% of Bernie backers instantly and enthusiastically if she named Warren as running mate. I'm not sure Warren would actually want it, and there are other reasons why it's unlikely... but a guy can dream.

 

I agree it's time for him to get out. But if she makes the delegate count on June 7 with California and other states, then it's not too harmful for him to stay in for now. It seems like every minute hurts and counts with the way the media covers everything. But in two months, when it's all Clinton and Trump, I think this rancor will largely be forgotten.

 

Lots of Bernis supporters think he should run as the Green candidate. And that he'd win (because the election was stolen from him). He's really become a cult of personality. I remember some Hillary supporters acting pretty petulantly in '08, but Bernie's people seem worse.

 

I am afraid I have to agree.
As to his supporters. Holy cow! As liberal as I usually am; there are some folks I cannot even talk to about it. They are as tenacious as limpets.
He was in my town a bit ago and the line began at 4AM and wrapped around downtown.

 

Actually he said that's what the American people think, based on the incredibly high unfavorablilty numbers for both of them. And he's right about that.

Given the fact that he can't win, though, I do agree with you that he should step down now and support her BUT I'm not sure if it'll do much good (UNLESS he goes for VP...that might be helpful at this point).

 

The names Adlai Stevenson and George McGovern keep going through my head. They each got the nomination and look what happened!

 

Saw a poll either yesterday or today that said only 8% of Sanders supporters say they WON'T vote for Hillary. Sanders is just pushing to maintain what little leverage he still has.

At any rate, he doesn't have any ability to deliver the nation to Trump. That will be entirely up to Bill and Hillary.

We are SO screwed ...

 

The more optimistic way to look at it is that Clinton is beating Trump in the polls consistently now, with a gap that's widening - not fast enough for my taste (or that logic would dictate, but of course Trump voters aren't about logic...), but still. And that's WITH x-percent of Sanders voters not on board yet (and I've seen the percentage vary from 8 to 25% depending on the poll). So presumably Sanders will eventually endorse, will strongly urge his voters not to vote for Trump, and will deliver a speech at the convention that says something like "If you've ever believed in me or this movement, for God's sake don't vote for this man who is the antithesis of everything I've ever stood for."

And I think in the end that nearly all Sanders supporters will vote for Clinton, just like nearly all Clinton supporters voted for Obama 8 years ago, after many of them told pollsters they never ever would. The one thing that gives me pause this time is that so many Sanders supporters are very young, and therefore possibly impulsive, or at the least might take a "screw it" attitude and not vote at all since their guy didn't win, whereas most Clinton supporters 8 years ago were older and in the end did the pragmatic thing.

Still, Sanders supporters are presumably included in these current polls if they're truly random (or represent a scientific-ish cross-section), and so include that percentage that currently say they won't vote for Clinton. And she's still winning. I think she'll get a decent convention bounce after Sanders speaks and etc.

 

This may make you feel better, RT. Note this is ABC/WaPo polling, which shows a bigger lead for Clinton than other polls (and is also the one with the 8% figure), but what's probably worth noting is the trend within various polling outfits, and ABC/WaPo shows a bigger lead for Clinton coinciding with a smaller percentage of Sanders hard-liners than their own pervious polls, and other polls do too, albeit with less good numbers in both cases.

Donald Trump’s bad month just got worse, because Sanders backers just rallied to Clinton

"Well, it's June 2016, and that same figure this time is down to 8 percent already. What's more, the 81 percent of Sanders backers who are now behind Clinton is a higher number than in any poll of 2008 Clinton backers who rallied to Obama. The high that year was 74 percent, in October.

And, really, the idea that Clinton backers would cross over for McCain was probably more plausible in the first place. She was the more moderate candidate in the Democratic primary, so it wasn't unreasonable to think that her more moderate supporters might go for a moderate Republican such as McCain.

Sanders was decidedly not the moderate option in the 2016 Democratic primary. He does share some populist tendencies with Trump — which Trump has tried to leverage to get Sanders supporters to join him — but it was always a somewhat fanciful effort by Trump to woo them.

Indeed, as a Pew poll last week showed, Sanders supporters were more anti-Republican Party than Clinton backers. About 7 in 10 of them, in fact, said the Republican Party makes them "afraid" — vs. 55 percent of Clinton supporters."

 

Sanders is not running anymore, but, he does want to keep his message alive. Not all of it, but, usually when you have extreme sides you end up in the middle and that would be a good thing right now. Anyone with a working brain cell knows that practically nothing that Sanders was supporting would have the chance of a snowball in hell of ever seeing the light of day. Just like most of the garbage that Trump was selling.

I'm almost embarrassed to say that one of my daughters is an avid supporter of Trump. I don't understand it at all. She has drunk the kool-aid big time. She believes that he can build that wall and that Mexico will pay for it and the congress will just bend to his wishes. Most of them are not that stupid but somehow Trump and his supporters are convinced that if elected he can just do whatever he pleases and nothing can stop it. Thankfully, our government, flawed as it is, was set up different then that. He can no more make that happen then the fear that Hillary will take away all our precious guns. No one understands or even tries to understand what it takes to stop an amendment to the constitution.

As a Vietnam Veteran I also think that it is vital that we are allow to keep our guns, but, as private citizens we DO NOT have a NEED for automatic and assault weapons. None whatsoever! I don't care what the NRA says. We also need a tougher requirement for even allowing weapons to be sold. Our system of life doesn't allow us to pull people in because we think that they might have mental illness problems. It's one of our rights. So we have to be more creative in how we determine who is able to safely own weapons and who isn't. It is for the well being of all people, gun owners and the rest of us. Having a weapon handy will not do much good if a crazy person decides to shoot you in the back. People seem to think it's like the movies. Everyone faces each other at high noon and is able to draw and fire and the quickest and best shot wins. Sadly is doesn't work that way. We aren't helping the situation by calling for isolationism and bad mouthing anyone that doesn't fit our liking. That is just plain ridiculous.

I told my daughter, after she apologized to me for not agreeing with my thinking, that it was OK to have another opinion no matter how wrong it is. I also reminded her that just in her immediate family alone, her Trump vote will be voided 5 to 1. So, believe what she wants too. But, when that many people from just one small family core, disagrees with you, you might want to consider why that is. Surely, you cannot be that much smarter then the rest of us.

So once again we are voting for the lesser of evils, but, there is a wide, wide margin on this one. Hillary, with all her flaws, is not going to harm the country in the way that Orange man will. And it will be good for our country to have a woman president. It might show the world that we are as enlightened as a lot of nations in the world have successfully shown already.