Clinton endorsed Obama on June 7th 2008. She did announce her intention on June 5th. The last states are voting on June 7th, except for Washington DC which inexplicably votes the following week. Let’s let everyone finish voting and those who love Hillary Clinton can start bashing people who won’t vote for her starting on June 15th.
If you want to unite the party around a nominee, let people vote in the primary first. For over a year, we have been told by the media elite, the party leadership, and a certain proprietor of a certain Democratic partisan blog that Clinton is basically running unopposed and everyone needs to get behind her. As we have seen roughly 43% of the primary voters disagreed. It might go a little higher or a little lower by June 8th but that is a pretty big number and Clinton can’t win in November without bringing the vast majority of them into the fold. Don’t insult them. Don’t shame them. Don’t unleash a million fake twitter accounts to socially pressure them. It won’t get them to the polls in November. It will harden them against Clinton.
Is there a hangover of sorts by Sander’s voters who know he is going to lose? Of course. Clinton supporters endured the same thing in 2008. Let me just suggest that calling them racists or sexists or sore losers or whiny millennials or stupid liberals or crazy leftists or violent anarchists is a losing strategy for Clinton. Booing elected officials from twenty feet way behind a line of police officers is not violence and it certainly isn’t the first time that telephone threats were called into a politician which is illegal. Just a few days ago a rather prominent Clinton supporter was arrested for assaulting a Sander’s supporter. There were no arrests in Nevada and I don’t expect Hillary Clinton to call a press conference to condemn an actor who misbehaved. Sander’s said the behavior in NV wasn’t acceptable. Claiming he didn’t go far enough is frankly propaganda intended to push a contrived nontroversy.
Shouting politicians down isn’t violence either, its just rude, but as we saw with BLM, sometimes its necessary to tell those who believe themselves your betters that it’s their turn to shut the hell up and listen. I know career politicians might dispute this, but fearing for your election is not the same as fearing for your safety. What happened in NV has been grossly exaggerated by both sides, but it is a terrible mistake for Clinton and her surrogates to push this epic media blitz over it.
I preferred Sanders over Clinton when I voted. I still do. I preferred Warren over Sanders but she wasn’t on the ballot. So I’m stuck with Clinton vs Trump and I’m not happy about either one but I know who I’d prefer. I think the vast majority of Sander’s voters feel about the same. It would be an epic mistake to make them change their minds just to win a few media cycles in May or a few points in primary contests that the Clinton surrogates insist don’t matter anymore.
The Clinton campaign would be well served not to try and make me dislike Sanders because all it really does is make me distrust Clinton. When you attack someone whose favorable ratings are overwhelmingly higher than your own, especially on integrity, it doesn’t help you. You’re not going to shame me into voting for Clinton in November, she just isn’t the inspirational leader that can win that sort of appeal. She is a talented technocrat. She is a capable manager. She isn’t the transformational, inspirational, leader I want. Neither is Sanders. I’ll vote for her because President Obama has made some good progress and I don’t want that rolled back, I want it locked-in and improved on. That is Clinton argument to win votes on the left in November.
So let me get over my disappointment and let my fellow Sanders supporters finish voting on June 7th and perhaps even those in DC on June 14th and I’ll be “Ready for Hillary” sometime around the convention. If on the other hand you want to spend now until November flooding my twitter, and facebook, and DK feed with attempts to shame me over being more liberal than Hillary Clinton in a party that is ostensibly the liberal party, well my wallet will most certainly be closed and my Tuesdays in November might be forgetful.