Markos Moulitsas: It’s Time for Sanders to Drop Out

It's as though one day the whole town assembled in the square, and all the nobles and officials took the stage and threw off their masks. What a sight for the people — masks rising high into the air like a flock of birds rising from a tree (source; click to enlarge).

by Gaius Publius

Just passing this on. Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos and a Clinton supporter, sounds like he wants Sanders to leave the race now (note the text of the URL; my emphasis below):

Bernie Sanders went further this primary season than some might have imagined at the outset, but despite his significant accomplishments, his race to the White House is over. Democrats will head into November with Hillary Clinton as their standard-bearer to face off against Donald Trump (assuming he survives an attempted coup by his party’s establishment).

In short, there is no plausible route for Sanders to overcome the advantage Clinton enjoyed of 319 pledged delegates before Tuesday’s contests. Since the former first lady leads the pledged delegate race 58 percent to 42 percent, with roughly half of the delegates to take the nomination already allocated, Sanders would have to win nearly 60 percent of delegates in the remaining states just to tie her.

That’s just not going to happen. ...

(By the way, that March 15 Clinton lead has recently been adjusted downward, to 315. Today it's below 300. Sanders could easily knock it down by 100 delegates or more from its March 15 high going into New York. In other words, going into New York the lead could easily be less than 200, depending on the outcome of four caucus states, with lots of game after that still to be played.)

But back to Moulitsas. Aside from the fact that the rest of the map favors Sanders, that momentum shifts can sometimes be dramatic — which is why people play the whole game, not just the first half — and that Sanders wins even in "Clinton states" when you look at election-day voting results only (that is, after the "who is this guy?" early votes are subtracted out) ... despite all this, Moulitsas would like Sanders to leave. Yet he never tells us why, so we're left to wonder.

One consequence of Sanders quitting now, of course, would be to artificially swell Clinton's delegate total coming into the convention (making a nice story for the press and also reinforcing the "progressives can't win" narrative). Another would be to let her team "pivot to Trump" and also adjust her sales pitch to "moderate voters" now, instead of continuing to sell to left-leaning (and reform-minded) Sanders voters. A third would be to "disappear" the split in support for the Democratic Party, which has widened into a chasm. (Note that I said "disappear" the chasm, not close it.)

Still, we're left to guess his reason for wanting Sanders to quit, and I won't speculate. Moulitsas does issue a warning, however. It's at the end, and it starts like this:

Sanders is obviously free to stay in the race so long as his supporters keep funding his efforts. But no one should get angry when the rest of the party...

Can you finish that sentence? Stop and take a guess.

[Sanders can stay in the race, but] no one should get angry when the rest of the party ... what?

What would you imagine that warning is? Sanders supporters shouldn't get "angry" when ... what? I'll save you the click. It's not what you think. It's "...starts focusing on the Trump threat." In other words, no one should get "angry" when the Party ignores Sanders.

You're right to be confused by that. I was too. I think it would be a gift to the Sanders campaign if he were ignored by the Clinton campaign. Was that sentence, for a fleeting second, about to end differently? I guess we'll never know what the rest of it wanted to be, after the words "no one should get angry when..." were typed.

Would Pivoting to Trump Now Be a Winning Strategy for Clinton?

Would focusing on Trump now, before the primary is over, and pivoting today from more progressive policies ... would that be a solid primary-contest strategy? Would that even be a good strategy in the general election? I'm not sure Sanders supporters would welcome it. But if that's the Clinton plan, I guess we'll get to watch it play out in real time.

This is turning into quite the party-insiders vs. party-reformers battle isn't it. Nice to know who's standing where. I just hope that if those insiders do manage to swing the nomination to the insider candidate, they don't "get angry" themselves, but accept responsibility for the result they chose for themselves. Again, just passing this on.

Blue America has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president.

• Time to contribute?
• Time to phone-bank for Bernie?
• Time to make sure all of your friends come out to vote?

Seems so to me. And thanks!

GP