It’s painful to draw any comparison between Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz. Sanders is decent, inspirational, and, you know, human. All the things that Cruz is not.
What Sanders and Cruz have in common is their position in the primaries. Both men are down far enough that they’re not going to walk into their respective conventions as leaders in the delegate count. In fact, it seems almost inevitable that they will head to Philadelphia and Cleveland only to watch their opponents receive comfortable first round victories. Winning, for either man, has come down not to taking the lead in voting, but to finding a way to stave off the results at the polls.
So it shouldn’t be surprising that, on this single issue, for this one moment, the two can sound remarkably alike.
Bernie Sanders said on Sunday that he and Hillary Clinton were heading to a “contested” convention this summer because she will need superdelegates to secure the nomination, a claim that clashes with the accepted definition of a contested convention. He also said that superdelegates who have supported her should switch to him instead.
And:
Cruz has said a win in Indiana could stop Trump from reaching the magic number of 1,237, the number of delegates needed to secure the GOP nomination…
"We're going the distance. We're competing the entire distance."
But even as the two come down to tomorrow’s tough contest in Indiana, there’s a big difference in where they stand—and where they’re going.
Let’s get rid of Cruz first. Here’s what’s going to happen: He’s going to lose. He’s going to lose Indiana by a fat margin. He’s going to bleed away those delegates he finagled at state conventions as the reality of Trump’s victory sets in. He’s going to end up in Cleveland in a state so weak that dishwater will laugh at him. Maybe he gets a few things onto the platform, but it won’t matter. Donald Trump won’t even use the platform for a bath mat. Trump is not going to run on the platform. He’s going to run on his mouth. That’s why Paul Ryan is already out there creating a non-platform platform that gives Republican candidates something to run on other than whatever nonsense ends up leaving Cleveland.
The best that Cruz can hope for is that his leave-behind network of contacts will have some value to him when he loses in 2020. Or when he loses in 2024. He’s not just done, he’s toast.
And now Bernie. Here’s the big difference: Bernie Sanders is going to lose, but he’s not going to come out of this thing a loser.
One big sign of the difference between the Sanders and Cruz campaigns at this point is what’s happening as the primaries draw to a conclusive end.
Donald Trump holds a 15-point lead over Ted Cruz in the potentially decisive May 3 presidential primary race in Indiana, according to results from a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll. ...
In the Hoosier State's Democratic contest, Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders by just four points, 50 percent to 46 percent.
Unlike Cruz, Bernie is not seeing supporters drop away. The biggest reason? Because they’re there for Bernie, not simply there against Hillary. Cruz’ support is mostly illusory—an expression of the NoTrump resistance in the party. As it becomes clear that Trump is going to sail past that opposition, Cruz finds his support dropping. Because it was never support of Cruz in the first place.
But Bernie’s numbers are real people for Bernie numbers. They don’t vanish just because Sanders is behind. They don’t even vanish when it’s clear that Hillary is going to take the nomination. Because these are people who still believe in both the man and the cause and who want to make their expression of this belief clear.
Here’s how things are going to go for Bernie: He’s going to lose. He’s going to lose Indiana with a narrow margin. Or maybe he’ll even pull off a victory. And then ...
Well, in the long term, what happens is that Bernie wins. Bernie supporters win. They win everything important: the direction of the party, the direction of the nation. They win the future.
They just don’t win the nomination in 2016. They don’t get President Sanders. That’s the only place where they lose.
Sanders’ entry into the Democratic primary was in part an expression of a deep desire inside the party (and outside) for a break from what is seen—sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly— as the politics of compromise. The politics of go along, get along. The politics that seem to start every battle on the defensive. In a sense it could have been almost anyone playing the role of break-from-normal. We got Bernie. For which we can all be extraordinarily glad. Look what they got on the other side.
So, there’s only one choice left for the Sanders campaign and for Sanders supporters. How do you want to win? Do you want to play a role in building a platform, a campaign, and a party infrastructure that puts Sanders’ ideas into play over the next eight years? Or do you value staying angry over getting to work?
You’re gonna win. It doesn’t have to be ugly.