I want to congratulate Bernie Sanders. He has run an “amazing race” and has done better than probably most of his most ardent supporters would have expected when he entered as a candidate. He has highlighted important issues and he has moved the Democratic party and Hillary Clinton to the left. Perhaps even more important, he has moved the Overton Window in the country to the left. While the following words have become tainted in recent years, without sarcasm or irony, Sander and his supporters should say: “Mission Accomplished.”
But if everyone is being honest, Hillary Clinton is now the presumptive Democratic nominee. This statement is not bragging, but an objective observation. She has a pledged delegate lead of over 300 delegates (more than twice as big as Pres. Obama ever had in 2008) and over 58% of pledged delegates awarded to date. With about half of the pledged delegates left to be awarded, Bernie Sanders would need to exceed 58% or 59% of remaining pledged delegates to overtake Hillary Clinton. Given delegate math, that task is virtually impossible.
While Sanders likely will win all or almost all of the primaries and caucuses prior to New York on April 19th, his wins are unlikely to be big enough — and these states are not big enough — to make a big dent in Clinton’s lead. Then starting on April 19th, the map gets tougher again for Sanders. States that look more like the states that Clinton won on March 15th will be at play. And many of these states are closed primaries (while Illinois, Ohio and Missouri were open primaries) which likely gives Clinton an additional edge as she has done better among registered Democrats than Independents in the primaries to date. Making up an over 300 delegate deficit under a proportional delegate system can only happen if a seismic shift occurs in voting patterns. No evidence suggests that such a shift is coming.
Nevertheless, I encourage Bernie Sanders to stay in the race to the end — as long as he avoids doing anything to hurt Democrats’ chances of winning in November. Keep pushing his ideas and keep holding the Democratic Party’s collective feet to the fire. On an issue-by-issue analysis, I probably agree with Sanders more than Clinton. But the difference is not that great, and picking a President is not merely taking an on-line “Pick Your Candidate” survey. For reasons beyond the scope of this post, I believe that Clinton would be the better and more effective President. But I have great admiration for Bernie Sanders and the role he has played in American politics.
So I urge Bernie Sanders and all of his supporters for there to be no more attacks on Hillary Clinton. She needs to be as strong as possible for victory on November 8th. Our true adversaries are the Republicans and not each other.
I will admit that a win by less than 2% feels better than a loss by less than 2%, but from a delegate math point of view, the difference actually is negligible. But please allow me the courtesy of admitting that I feel much better today than I did a week ago. I hope nobody considers that statement as spiking the football. I believe that the time for spiking the football will be on November 9th, the day after Democrats (hopefully) win their third presidential election in a row.