Two days ago, I was happy to hear Sanders’ campaign manager, Jeff Weaver (who I am not a big fan of), have this exchange on With All Due Respect:
Mark Halperin asked Weaver, “If Sen. Sanders is not the nominee, will he stay in the Democratic Party forever now?”
Weaver answered, “Well, he is a Democrat. He’s said he’s a Democrat, and he’s going to be supporting the Democratic nominee, whoever that is.”
Halperin followed up, “But he’s a member of the Democratic Party now for life?”
Weaver said, “Yes, he is. Yes, he is.”
Great news for the party. He brings an authentic voice on a lot of issues (although I hate many of his position on gun control), and he is one of a select group that bring a lot of enthusiasm (as many have mentioned in past weeks, he and Clinton are two sides of the coin in many areas, and I wish we had a candidate that brought both sides at once).
Weaver also discussed Sanders supporting Clinton if she wins the nomination:
The second big part of the interview was Weaver’s statement that Sanders plans to support the Democratic nominee. That means that if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, Bernie Sanders will be supporting her in the fall. Sanders was widely expected to support Clinton because his campaign has never given any indication that he wouldn’t support her if she won the nomination.
Also great news. One expects Democrats to come together after the primary and support the victor. Clinton did it for Obama, and now Sanders is going to do it for Clinton. Or is he? I got the disappointing news of the reversal today in The Week:
When asked if he would campaign for Hillary Clinton were she to become the Democratic nominee, Bernie Sanders said in an interview on Friday that he'd have to wait and see.
"Well, first of all, I've got to find out what her platform is, what the views are that she is going to be bringing forth, to what degree she will adopt many of the ideas that I think are extremely popular and I think very sensible," Sanders told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell.
Sanders, who has said he'll stay in the race until the convention, stressed that the process of backing Clinton in a general election would be a "two-way street."
So in 2 days a 180 degree reversal, from definite yes to wait and see. Which sadly is in line with a number of his supporters here at DK who feel that a horse trade is in order where the losing side in the primary will dictate terms to the victor. I personally believe that Sanders needs to approach this as an open negotiation back and forth, where he tries to influence the platform as much as possible. But the “two-way street” sounds more like a take it or leave it kind of offer. I hope he changes his mind. Clinton got nothing for her endorsement of Obama, and yet, for the sake of the party and the country, she gave him an amazing endorsement and she and Bill campaigned for him. I hope Sanders does the same, but initial indications are not promising given the changes in position in less than 72 hours.
Update: An alternate interpretation of Sanders’ comments was offered in the comments that he was speaking about the aggressiveness of his campaigning for Clinton rather than whether or not he would support her. Blog title updated in response.