In a recent piece published here, I wondered if Bernie Sanders, former Independent Vermont senator, who has lately become a Democrat only for the purposes of this presidential election, was actually out to destroy the electoral prospects of the Democratic Party in November. In addition to basing my conclusion on the increasingly hostile rhetoric emanating from his campaign against Hillary Clinton, current front-runner, I also formulated a theory for that conclusion. That theory was that Sanders knew what he was doing and that his intent was ostensibly to ensure that the Party lost the next election so that it could re-build from the ashes of its own defeat along patterns simpatico with Sanders’s own philosophical values.
In hindsight, that theory looks overdrawn, perhaps. I might have been lured into that formulation by what’s going down on the Republican side of things where nothing short of a civil war is waiting to explode in Cleveland. But there is no mea culpa for that theory, because the stimulus that produced it in the first place remains essentially the same. Sanders who had promised to wage a civil and positive campaign, once again veered into dangerous territory on Wednesday by ratcheting up his anti-Clinton rhetoric. Clinton, he said, was not qualified to be president of the United States. Sanders made the declaration at a campaign rally in Philadelphia. According to the senator:
I don’t believe that she is qualified if she is through her super PAC taking tens of millions of dollars in special-interest funds.
I don’t think that you are qualified if you get $15 million from Wall Street through your super PAC.
I don’t think you are qualified if you voted for the disastrous war in Iraq.
I don’t think you’re qualified if you supported almost every disastrous trade agreement.
I don’t think you are qualified if you supported the Panama free trade agreement, something I very strongly opposed, which has gave the green light to wealthy people and corporations all over the world to avoid paying taxes owed to their countries.
The septuagenarian said he was only responding in kind. Clinton, he alleged, had uttered exactly the same opinion of him to the media earlier. But it turned out the former secretary of state had made no such remark. When later interviewed by the media on Sanders’s remarks about her, Clinton, unlike her opponent, took the high road when she said she would prefer Sanders to either Trump or Cruz as president of the United States on any given day. This morning, the Vermonter walked back his statement. He said Clinton was 100% qualified to be president compared to the Republican candidates.
Truth and the welter of unfriendly public opinion had forced Sanders’s no-retraction retraction. But the damage had been done, and irremediably, too. Should Clinton become the nominee ---- and I’m convinced she will be ---- the Republicans are going to cut ads with Sanders’s litany of reasons why a woman who was once a first lady, a senator and a secretary of state, is “not qualified” to be president of the United States.
All of that is happening against the backdrop of a looming primary election in New York which each campaign considers a must-win for its own candidate in order to roar forward. Losing that primary could be both humiliating and devastating for Clinton. After all, she had represented the state as a senator for eight years. Going into New York with more money for ads than she’s got, the Sanders campaign is determined to humiliate her. So, now, you have Jeff Weaver, a pugnacious, uncouth man appear on television frequently to attack Clinton and make senseless allegations that she’s trying to destroy the Democratic Party.
Weaver has also offered the public clues about what the thinking is inside the Sanders campaign: Like the establishment wing of the Republican Party, the Sanders campaign wants a contested convention in Philadelphia where it hopes to argue that although their man has fewer pledged delegates and super-delegates than Clinton has, he should nonetheless be offered the nomination on the basis of the fact that he performs better than her in a hypothetical general election match-up against either Donald Trump or any of the other two Republican candidates.
Nice try. But there are more than a couple of problems with that bizarre argument. First, that’s never, nor will it ever be, a criterion for selecting who the Democratic nominee is.
Second, Sanders and his handlers knew the rules ever before they joined the fray.
Third, it is silly, even stupid, to think that the poll numbers you get now will remain so once the battle is joined. Besides, Sanders is the only Democratic candidate who is not being targeted by the Republicans and their super pacs, whereas the same groups are subjecting Clinton to withering fire already. Folks, put on your thinking caps and read the tea leaf correctly.
Fourth, by the end of the entire contest, Clinton should have acquired more pledged delegates and won a majority of the popular vote than Sanders. Eight years ago when she ran against then Senator Barack Obama, she was behind in pledged delegates even though she had the popular vote on her side. And because she knew what the rule was ---- as I hope Sanders and his campaign know today ---- she conceded to Obama and endorsed him with all her heart instead of hemming and hawing over some nonexistent criteria or trying to provoke a fight on spurious grounds.
Last but not least, Sanders, like George McGovern and Walter Mondale before him, is a very weak general election candidate with whom the Republicans would eat a quick and delicious snack if nominated under any circumstance. The unfortunate thing is that a vast majority of his supporters do not know this, nor will it matter a wee bit to them in the first place even if they know.
Sanders is an honorable man, doubtless. His life story and beliefs attest to that. He was so sincere when he promised to run a positive campaign. Against a pretty well-known candidate, he thought all he could do was make a mark, probably drive the agenda a little bit, and then go home and watch a football match. Sanders never thought he could come this far. And now that he has come this far, belief born of desperation has set in. This is what is producing the hostile rhetoric against Clinton, who herself has remained artfully measured in the way she handles him just so she does not offend his supporters.
But for how long?
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