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BlueMTexpat

(15,496 posts)
Thu Jun 9, 2016, 12:05 PM Jun 2016

BERNIE SANDERS’S POST-CALIFORNIA CHOICE

http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/bernie-sanders-post-california

Eta: Note to Mods: the headline in the article is all in Caps.

Sanders's intentions are apparently somewhat muddled and - one might say - confusing. The only clear thing is that Bernie wants it all about him, despite what he says.

"You all know it is more than Bernie,” Senator Bernie Sanders said late on Tuesday night, in Santa Monica, to thousands of supporters who were shouting his name. It would be unfair to suggest that they didn’t know that: for one thing, they cheered even louder when Sanders thanked them for taking part in a “political revolution.” And nobody could really know, at that point, if Sanders had lost California, the state that had seemed essential to the idea that the race against Hillary Clinton would undergo a late-life alchemical transformation. (Clinton won by a significant margin, but those votes were counted hours later.) Still, it was common knowledge, in this crowd and across the country, that Clinton, after winning the New Jersey primary earlier in the evening, had declared victory in the race for the Democratic nomination, a day after the Associated Press did it for her. As Sanders’s speech began, the people in the crowd didn’t know if he would agree with her, and with the inescapable delegate math. Many of them clearly hoped that he wouldn’t. And he didn’t. Sanders wasn’t ready to say that the campaign against Donald Trump, at least, was now more about Hillary Clinton than about him.
...
... The Sanders scenario goes like this: Clinton has only reached the “magic number” of twenty-three hundred and eighty-three if one counts superdelegates (this is hard to avoid, since the Democrats have more than seven hundred superdelegates), who, though they say they are voting for her now, can change their vote at any time up until the roll call at the Convention. The question is why they would do such a thing. Clinton has a majority of the pledged delegates as well, so there isn’t really an argument based on electoral returns. The superdelegates are elected officials and Party functionaries, who overwhelmingly back her and seem unmoved by polls that show Sanders doing better in matchups with Trump. Sanders argues that they could, nonetheless, be talked into it. (“We are on the phone right now,” he told Lester Holt, of NBC, on Tuesday.) Sanders alluded to this exercise in his Santa Monica speech by saying that he was “pretty good at arithmetic” and knew the road was “steep.” It is so steep, at this point, that it requires not a climb but a rocket. What is the potential fuel that the Sanders campaign is looking for—an indictment or some disqualifying scandal? It would be hard to see that as an outcome worth celebrating for any campaign.


And then there is his meeting with PBO today, after which Bernie apparently decided to use the WH as background for his latest speech. http://www.wsj.com/articles/bernie-sanders-meets-with-president-obama-over-democratic-race-1465486247

*Bernie Sanders Vows to Compete in Washington, D.C., Primary on Tuesday, Last of Cycle

*Sanders Says He Will Do Whatever He Can to Keep Trump From Getting Elected

*Sanders Calls for Statehood for Washington, D.C.

*Sanders Says He Will Meet With Hillary Clinton to Discuss How They Can Work Together to Defeat Trump


More grandstanding, methinks. I'll believe that Bernie will do whatever he can to keep Trump from getting elected and to work together with Hillary when I actually see him doing it - not simply talking about it.
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BERNIE SANDERS’S POST-CALIFORNIA CHOICE (Original Post) BlueMTexpat Jun 2016 OP
Yeah, that statehood statement today will work on Tuesday. DC voters are smarter than that. tonyt53 Jun 2016 #1
Bernie's been in DC since BlueMTexpat Jun 2016 #3
Exactly your last sentence, BlueMT.. BS says a lot of things.. Cha Jun 2016 #2
This whole meeting with PBO today BlueMTexpat Jun 2016 #4
I predicted this yesterday. His photo op with President Obama.. and it reminded me Cha Jun 2016 #6
Me too ... exactly. BlueMTexpat Jun 2016 #7
DC statehood is always used as a bargaining chip, unfortunately. displacedtexan Jun 2016 #5
You noticed that too. BlueMTexpat Jun 2016 #8
 

tonyt53

(5,737 posts)
1. Yeah, that statehood statement today will work on Tuesday. DC voters are smarter than that.
Thu Jun 9, 2016, 12:09 PM
Jun 2016

DC, where minorities are the majority.

BlueMTexpat

(15,496 posts)
3. Bernie's been in DC since
Thu Jun 9, 2016, 12:16 PM
Jun 2016

1988 and only joined the push for DC statehood in 2015.

Today he used the WH as the set for a free campaign ad. The coffers may be lower than we thought.

As you say, DC voters are smarter than that.

Cha

(305,405 posts)
2. Exactly your last sentence, BlueMT.. BS says a lot of things..
Thu Jun 9, 2016, 12:12 PM
Jun 2016

For instance that there would be "no negative campaigning" when he first stepped into the Dem party.

He forgot to mention he would be demonizing Hillary and the DNC in a short time.

And, I don't believe that he didn't have any intention of doing it in the beginning.

BlueMTexpat

(15,496 posts)
4. This whole meeting with PBO today
Thu Jun 9, 2016, 12:18 PM
Jun 2016

seemed to set up a photo-op and a forum for SBS. Bernie does not sound as if he is willing to relinquish the spotlight in any way.

I truly hope that I am wrong.

Cha

(305,405 posts)
6. I predicted this yesterday. His photo op with President Obama.. and it reminded me
Thu Jun 9, 2016, 12:23 PM
Jun 2016

of his use of campaign funds to fly to Rome in search of the Pope

BlueMTexpat

(15,496 posts)
7. Me too ... exactly.
Thu Jun 9, 2016, 12:33 PM
Jun 2016

But Pope Francis managed to avoid the photo-op. The Pope was more rightly concerned with the plight of Syrian refugees than with the comparatively tawdry concerns of a US Presidential candidate.

displacedtexan

(15,696 posts)
5. DC statehood is always used as a bargaining chip, unfortunately.
Thu Jun 9, 2016, 12:20 PM
Jun 2016

Most recently, it was used to get the ACA passed. I live in DC for 12 years, and it was really weird not to be represented, other than by the Republican- controlled congress.

What really pisses me off is the fact that BS only congratulated "her campaign." Insert appropriate expletive here.

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