Ahh, so Bernie intends to inflict a "heavy blow" on the candidate who will, without question, be the presumptive nominee on June 7th. But that's not all! His ultimate goal is to convince hundreds of delegates to change their minds at the convention this summer, simultaneously overturning the will of the voters and uniting the party behind him for the general election. Sounds easy enough, right?
Advisers to Mr. Sanders said on Wednesday that he was newly resolved to remain in the race, seeing an aggressive campaign as his only chance to pressure Democrats into making fundamental changes to how presidential primaries and debates are held in the future. They said he also held out hope of capitalizing on any late stumbles by Mrs. Clinton or any damage to her candidacy, whether by scandal or by the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald J. Trump.
Allow me to translate: Bernie has been reduced to "holding out hope" for a miracle indictment of Hillary over her damn emails. Or hey, maybe Trump will truly do some damage while the senator sits on his hands and does absolutely nothing to help her.
That's just pathetic.
After sounding subdued if not downbeat about the race for weeks, Mr. Sanders resumed a combative posture against Mrs. Clinton, demanding on Wednesday that she debate him before the June 7 primary in California and highlighting anew what he asserted were her weaknesses against Mr. Trump.
Mr. Sanders, his advisers said, has been buoyed by a stream of polls showing him beating Mr. Trump by larger margins than Mrs. Clinton in some battleground states, and by his belief that an upset victory in California could have a psychological impact on convention delegates who already have doubts about Mrs. Clinton.
Sadly, I don't think Bernie realizes that waging a destructive campaign against Hillary and the DNC in a longshot attempt at netting a few California delegates might have the opposite "psychological impact" he's hoping for.
And I guess he hasn't thought much about the "psychological impact" of a woman securing the nomination of a major party for the first time in our nation's history...before the polls even close in California.
As for debates, I don't see any reason for Clinton to agree to another one, particularly on Fox News, unless Sanders promises to stick to the issues, end the smears, and make an endorsement immediately after the final contests.
Yeah, don't count on it:
While Mr. Sanders says he does not want Mr. Trump to win in November, his advisers and allies say he is willing to do some harm to Mrs. Clinton in the shorter term if it means he can capture a majority of the 475 pledged delegates at stake in California and arrive at the Philadelphia convention with maximum political power.
Tad Devine, a senior adviser to Mr. Sanders, said the campaign did not think its attacks would help Mr. Trump in the long run, but added that the senator’s team was “not thinking about” the possibility that they could help derail Mrs. Clinton from becoming the first woman elected president.
Okay, now we're getting into truly dangerous and delusional territory. Not only is the Sanders campaign perfectly willing to harm the Democratic nominee, but they aren't even thinking about the possibility that it might help elect Donald Trump instead.
Speaking of delusional, this is why you don't let a small-town comic book store guy run a nationwide presidential campaign:
Mr. Sanders’s street-fighting instincts have been encouraged by his like-minded campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, who has been blistering against the Clinton camp and the party establishment. On Wednesday, he took to CNN to accuse Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the Democratic national chairwoman, of “throwing shade on the Sanders campaign from the very beginning.”
For weeks, some current and former Sanders campaign workers have privately acknowledged feeling disheartened about Mr. Weaver’s determination to go after the Democratic National Committee, fearing a pitched battle with the party they hope to support in the general election. The intraparty fighting has affected morale, they say, and raised concerns that Mr. Weaver, a longtime Sanders aide who more recently ran a comic book store, was not devoted to achieving Democratic unity. Several described the campaign’s message as having devolved into a near-obsession with perceived conspiracies on the part of Mrs. Clinton’s allies.
There you have it. Our worst fears have been realized.
The Sanders campaign, once so proudly issue-based and high-minded, has officially devolved into an unintelligible, conspiracy-based, slash-and-burn fiasco of the highest order.
Somewhere, Donald Trump is laughing.
And somewhere else, Bernie doesn't seem to care.
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