I know Bernie is not going to clinch the nomination. At this point in 2008, Barack Obama staged a dramatic upset in the delegate count on Super Tuesday and we began to see shifting tides with superdelegates. This time, Super Tuesday came and gone and the status quo was preserved: Hillary Clinton will very likely become the Democratic nominee.
In successive contests, we’ve seen Sanders victories in Nebraska and Kansas and the allocation of 58 delegates to his campaign. Unfortunately, his heavy loss in Louisiana gave Clinton 51 delegates.
Washington State’s caucus is March 26, and I expect that by that time it’ll become very evidently clear that there is little to no pathway for Sanders to gain the advantage in pledged delegates. From now until then, we’ll see ten more states vote: Michigan, Mississippi, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Arizona, Idaho, and Utah. Unless the Sanders campaign can seize major victories, by large margins, the campaign is in a deep hole. This’ll be difficult in states like North Carolina and Mississippi, for example, where Sanders was beat by nearly 50-points in neighboring states.
Knowing that, I’m still going to caucus for him.
Now, I don’t believe that there is a major issue with Clinton’s “authenticity” – at least, not for me. I’m not entirely phased by a national politician’s tendency to seem inauthentic, or be a little rocky in their commitments to policy positions, or be sensitive to certain topics that may be perceived as negative to their image. What matters to me are the positions the Clinton campaign has taken, thinking that they’re adequate enough in achieving the goals that we as a country need to reach in order to broadly lift disadvantaged peoples.
On a policy-by-policy, principles basis, I align almost exclusively to Sanders. I believe that it is imperative that his campaign continue to set the tone of the Democratic primary and that his supporters aggressively lobby party leadership to pivot to priorities that mirror his. It’s important, as a party, that we make bold stands for free higher education for all Americans, for truly universal healthy, for ending policies that are at the foundation of institutional racism, for imposing heavy oversight on the most destructive industry in this country: financial services.
I know that a Hillary Clinton administration will take steps towards each of those points, but I also know that her “pragmatic” approach will be poised to concession-until-irrelevant. For example, her higher education plan has subsidies for tuition costs on a sliding scale, with certain qualifiers that a person must have until they’re able to gain those subsidies. A plan like that can be amended to death, with loopholes and exceptions, giving jurisdiction to regulatory agencies that can systemically deny subsidies to people who need it most. I don’t trust that.
I want to send a message that although I understand my candidate isn’t going to win, his message is incredibly important for moving our country forward and for reconstructing a Democratic Party that pushes for real, comprehensive solutions instead of positions to appeal to the center.