What Will Hillary Do To Earn The Votes Of Bernie's Revolution?

A couple of days ago, Mark Halperin, one of TV-PoliticalWorld's hackiest hacks, asked Bernie's campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, if Bernie would remain "a Democrat." What's a Democrat? A party registration? A package of values and principles? But, yeah, said Weaver, Bernie will remain a Democrat whether he wins or loses the primary. But what Halperin and the rest of the ones like him all want to know is if Bernie will "deliver" "his" voters to Hillary if she gets the nomination. LOL.

I suppose there are some Bernie supporters-- maybe many-- who will have no problem either embracing Hillary with some degree or other of enthusiasm or, at least, seeing her as very much the lesser-of-two-evils. Others are serious about the revolution, which is not a revolution against Trump or Cruz or Ryan or the Republican Party; it's a revolution against a system that is as represented by the career of Hillary and Bill Clinton as anyone in American politics. Those votes are NOT deliverable.

I've been enjoying D.D. Guttenplan's essays at The Nation lately. Wednesday he was urging Bernie to stay in the primary (as though the Clinton campaign's-- and it's captive media operations-- caterwauling made it a real question whether he would or not. Guttenplan wisely recognizes that Bernie's campaign is inspiring "a movement and upend the 'pragmatic incrementalism' that marks the limits of conventional politics. It also makes no sense to walk away in the middle of a debate that Sanders is winning on every issue, from a $15 minimum wage to the disastrous legacy of pro-corporate trade deals, to the need for massive reinvestment in our inner cities, to the rejection of a foreign policy founded on regime change. Workers who have seen their jobs shipped overseas; all those left behind by the Clinton-era boom, as well as the millions who lost a home in the Bush recession or remain excluded from the skewed Obama recovery-- they still need a voice, and a champion, in this election."

Winning the White House was a thrilling dream. Winning power-- durable power, the kind that makes laws and holds elected officials to account-- is a longer, more grueling fight. That, however, is the task we face now. In the coming weeks, Sanders and his supporters will need to make clear exactly what he’s fighting for, both inside the Democratic Party and beyond. As his campaign officials rightly point out, Sanders’s support keeps growing. He may well win more states, and will arrive at the convention with enough delegates to push not just for a progressive platform but for procedural changes-- such as an end to superdelegates or a ban on PAC money in primaries-- that could level the playing field for the next generation of insurgents. He could also demand the appointment of party officials less addicted to corporate cash. In the meantime, he could direct a lot more of his attention and money to candidates down the ticket who share his politics.

An inside strategy alone, though, will never deliver political revolution. As Dan Cantor of the Working Families Party told me, “You can’t occupy the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party will end by occupying you.”

The WFP model of fusion politics-- using the opening created by New York’s election laws to build an independent power base by endorsing progressive Democrats without playing a spoiler role-- may not be the answer nationwide: Thousands of WFP members worked hard for Sanders, but in New York’s closed primary, many of them couldn’t vote for him. It’s not a bad place to start thinking, though, about how to heal the terrible racial fissure that split progressives in what is arguably the most progressive state in the country. We need to ask ourselves why a movement candidate in a movement moment still fell short, and Sanders and his supporters need to be at the center of that conversation, listening as well as leading.

Finally, the tone of the campaign needs to change-- on both sides. Sanders needs to keep fighting hard on the issues, and Clinton needs to pivot-- not away from Sanders supporters but toward them. She may gain the nomination by defeating Sanders, but she won’t win in November without embracing his issues and convincing his supporters that she, too, feels the Bern.

These people at the thermometer below feel the Bern and will bring the revolution to Congress if they get elected. It's worth helping them. But to answer the question in the title... maybe Hillary should forget about a neoliberal running-mate like Julian Castro. Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Merkeley, Barbara Lee would all be much better ideas.