fractured Democratic Party threatens Clinton’s chances against Trump

A

anatta

100% recycled karma
When Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont took the stage this week after falling short in the Kentucky primary, supporters of Hillary Clinton wondered if he would finally soften his tone and let her move on to a general election against Donald Trump.

They didn’t have to wonder for long.

Sanders credited Clinton’s victory to
“a closed primary, something I am not all that enthusiastic about, where independents are not allowed to vote.” He commanded the Democratic Party to “do the right thing and open its doors and let into the party people who are prepared to fight for economic and social change.” And then he promised that he’s staying in the race until the convention. “Let me be as clear as I can be: We are in ’til the last ballot is cast!”
Click to expand...

The performance prompted cheers across a crowd of about 8,000 in Carson, Calif., highlighting the mistrust and alienation that Sanders’s most ardent fans feel about Clinton, the Democrats and their “rigged” system. Yet the whole spectacle also sent shudders through those supporting Clinton, who are growing increasingly irritated by Sanders’s ever-presence in the race — and nervous that he is damaging Clinton.

All of it seems to have come to a head in recent days, as bitterness on both sides has boiled over and prompted new worries that a fractured party could lead to chaos at the national convention and harm Clinton’s chances against Trump in November. Two realities seem to be fueling it all: The nomination is, for all intents and purposes, out of Sanders’s reach, yet his supporters are showing no signs of wanting to rally behind Clinton.


“If you lose a game that you put your heart and soul into, and you lose squarely, you can walk off the court and shake someone’s hand and say, ‘Well done,’ ” said Rep. Diane Russell, a Maine legislator and Sanders supporter. “If you don’t feel like the game was working fairly, it’s hard to do that.”
Click to expand...
On the other side is this view: It’s also hard to win a general election with a protracted, divisive primary battle that won’t go away. “The way he’s been acting now is a demonstration of why he’s had no support from his colleagues,” said former Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank.

[Trump’s appeal stretches to suburbs that had been trending blue]

Sanders’s supporters are crying “fraud” over delegate selection and threatening to sit out the election. They have promised to press their case to the convention floor. It happened in 2008 in the final throes of Clinton’s failed bid against Barack Obama; what remains unclear is whether this year’s divisions will go deeper or longer.

An explosive weekend convention in Nevada, where Sanders supporters turned on the state party chairwoman for overruling their challenges and seating Clinton delegates, exposed the depth of the acrimony. In his statements since then, Sanders has made no attempt to heal it.

Sanders is also keeping his supporters riled up by making what many Democrats consider an unrealistic, and even dishonest, view of his candidacy given Clinton’s large lead in delegates.

“There are a lot of people out there, many pundits and politicians — they say Bernie Sanders should drop out, the people of California should not have the right to determine who the next president will be,” he said at the rally Tuesday, insisting that the state had enough pledged delegates to put him over the top.


Increasingly, Sanders’s most passionate supporters claim that the primary has been rigged. A Reddit user’s chart comparing the first wave of exit polls with Clinton’s stronger-than-expected performances has been circulated — most famously by Sanders surrogate and actor Tim Robbins — as evidence of election fraud.

Clinton’s 16-point victory in New York is explained by the state’s onerous registration rules and by the still-unexplained purge of Brooklyn voter rolls. Anyone questioning her lead of three million votes can find solace in an article at Counterpunch titled “Clinton Does Best Where Voting Machines Flunk Hacking Tests.”

“Do these people read newspapers?” said Bob Mulholland, a California superdelegate and Clinton supporter who has accused Sanders supporters of harassing his peers. “Are they reading some chain email with bogus numbers? I hold Sanders somewhat responsible for this, because he comes across on TV as a very angry old man, riling people up.”

As Kentucky slid away from Sanders on Tuesday, some of his supporters saw a culprit in Alison Lundergan Grimes. The secretary of state and 2014 candidate for U.S. Senate, a longtime supporter of Clinton, even went on CNN to declare Clinton the winner.

“
Hillary doesn’t even care anymore,” wrote one Sanders supporter, tweeting a link to a story about alleged fraud in Kentucky.
“Yet another state we would’ve won if everyone could vote,” wrote another supporter on Reddit.

“Better watch out for illegal conduct by Grimes since she said electing Clinton is more important than doing her job,” tweeted another
Click to expand...
.

The evidence for the last claim was a video clip from a rally with Clinton and Grimes, where the secretary of state said she was “not only here to do my job” but to back her candidate. It was cut and distributed by America Rising, a conservative opposition research firm adept at finding wedges between Clinton and the left.

As Sanders has fallen behind Clinton, more conservatives have looked for ways to exploit the angst. On Tuesday morning, Fox News sent one of its morning-show hosts onto the streets of New York to ask voters if the primary had been rigged for Clinton. Dan Backer, the conservative attorney and treasurer of the pro-Trump Great America PAC, has egged on Sanders supporters on Facebook with pep talks like “Bernie will win the most primaries and can still take the most pledged [elected] delegates while narrowing the total vote gap.” Trump himself has announced a kind of snarky solidarity with Sanders, telling voters and Twitter followers that the senator should bolt the party over his foul treatment.

“Bernie Sanders is being treated very badly by the Democrats — the system is rigged against him,” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning. “Many of his disenfranchised fans are for me!”
Click to expand...
The Sanders campaign has endorsed none of this — but it hasn’t tamped it down. Sanders’s sympathetic response to the Nevada convention fracas angered the state and national party, with DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz comparing the worst scenes there to the violence at Trump rallies. Asked if there had been any actual fraud in the primaries, Sanders’s spokesman Michael Briggs suggested that the Democratic Party’s infrastructure had been sabotaged in a way that hurt one candidate.

“Most state parties tried to do a good job,” he said, “but often they are short on resources and there are institutional impediments to a fair process, like super-early registration, party-switch deadlines, closed primaries, complicated party registration rules, bad voter lists.”

Sanders himself has made harder-to-argue cases against the Democratic primaries. The truncated debate schedule struck supporters of both candidates as unfair, something the party seemed to acknowledge by tacking on more of them in March and April. While Clinton is on track to win a majority of pledged delegates, Sanders has suggested that early support for her among superdelegates, the party leaders and elected officials who get an automatic convention vote but are not bound by their state’s popular vote created

It is absurd that you had 400 establishment Democrats on board Hillary Clinton’s campaign before anybody was in the race,” Sanders told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in an interview last week. “That stacks the deck in a very, very, unfair way for any establishment candidate — and against the wishes of the people.”
Click to expand...

At the same time, Sanders and his supporters argue that superdelegates should consider bolting Clinton to back him, based on polls that show him leading Trump as her favorables sink. That irritates Clinton supporters on two levels: by suggesting that the voters got it wrong and by dismissing the judgment of the sort of elected leaders whom any president would need to pass an agenda.

“If you believe you represent the people, and the people are uncooperative with your goal of winning, you have to find some explanation,” said Frank, whose appointment to the DNC rules committee sparked anger from Sanders supporters. “Look, I understand you have some disagreements, but does the overwhelming view of the black leadership, LGBT leadership, women’s leadership — does that count for nothing?”

As they contemplate Sanders’s “contested contest” at the Philadelphia convention, Clinton supporters think warmly back to 2008. By the time those primaries concluded, as many as 40 percent of Clinton voters said they could not support Barack Obama. The most dedicated PUMAs (Party Unity My A--) became TV stars; the vast majority of Clinton holdouts eventually went for the ticket. While Clinton’s favorable rating with Sanders supporters has been falling, many of his endorsers think that can be reversed.

“I want people to see this as a fair process, because I’m not in the ‘Bernie or Bust’ camp,” said Russell, the Sanders supporter from Maine. “I love this campaign, but I love my country more. And I tell the ‘Bernie or Bust’ people, if you’re angry at the end of this, you’re not going to take it out on the DNC. You’re going to take it out on the most vulnerable people — the ones we are fighting for.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...hp-top-table-main_sanders405pm:homepage/story
 
Last edited:
Sanders camp slams Debbie Wasserman Schultz for 'throwing shade'
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/bernie-sanders-debbie-wasserman-schultz-criticism-223318
The latest controversy roiling the Democratic Party showed no signs of abating Wednesday, as Bernie Sanders’ campaign put the onus of the rift splitting Democrats on Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s failed leadership, accusing her of “throwing shade” on the Vermont senator from the beginning.

The chaos that ensued Saturday in Nevada at its state convention over what some perceived as unfair delegate allocations erupted onto the national scene and has lingered beyond two additional Democratic primaries, exposing the Democratic Party to infighting as the Republican Party takes steps to unify behind its presumptive presidential nominee.
.
Sanders’ campaign fired back at Wasserman Schultz on Wednesday morning after the Democratic National Committee chairwoman panned the campaign’s “anything but acceptable” response to reports of violence and threats from Sanders supporters at the Nevada Democratic convention over the weekend.

Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ campaign manager, pointedly accused Wasserman Schultz of undermining the Sanders campaign from the get-go and called into question her leadership.

“He categorically condemns any kind of threats that went on — absolutely unacceptable,” Weaver told CNN on Wednesday before accusing Wasserman Schultz of “throwing shade on the Sanders campaign since the very beginning,” citing a limited debate schedule that featured weekend debates, the campaign’s revoked access to its voter data and a joint fundraising agreement with Hillary Clinton’s campaign that Weaver said takes money away from state parties and goes to the DNC.

“Look, I gotta say it’s not the DNC,” Weaver added. “You know, by and large, people at the DNC have been very good to us. Debbie Wasserman Schultz really is the exception.”
Click to expand...
The fracas over the weekend escalated on Tuesday after the Nevada Democratic Party lodged a formal complaint to co-chairs and members of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee over the conduct of Sanders supporters and representatives of his campaign at the convention. The state party warned that the “very dangerous atmosphere that ended in chaos and physical threats to fellow Democrats” is indicative of what could happen in Philadelphia in July — a notion Hillary Clinton’s campaign has pushed back on.

Though Sanders won Oregon and narrowly lost Kentucky on Tuesday night, Wednesday morning’s headlines have largely stemmed from Saturday’s chaos and the aftermath. With the Democratic primary in its final phases, Sanders has shown no signs of giving up before the Democratic National Convention, despite Clinton’s big delegate lead. But the intense debate over Sanders’ handling of his supporters’ conduct, as well as the conduct itself, shows the challenges that lie in unifying the party behind Clinton, its likely nominee, come July. Democrats, however, ranging from both campaigns to the White House, have been steadfast in the belief that the party will coalesce around the nominee.

Sanders released a statement before the Nevada state convention and again after speaking with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on Tuesday.



Sanders sticks it to the Democratic Party


In a statement Tuesday, Sanders condemned “any and all forms of violence” but noted that months ago shots were fired into his campaign office and a housing complex his campaign staffed lived in “was broken into and ransacked.”

“If the Democratic Party is to be successful in November, it is imperative that all state parties treat our campaign supporters with fairness and the respect that they have earned,” he said.
Click to expand...
Though Clinton’s campaign praised Sanders for condemning the violence, neither Nevada Democratic Party Chairwoman Roberta Lange nor Wasserman Schultz were satisfied.

Lange, whose personal information was published online this week, said she cringes at the escalating threats that have been lobbed at her and her family, telling CNN on Wednesday that “in the coming days we’ll decide what’s going to happen” regarding legal action and adding that Sanders’ camp has treated the incident like it’s a joke.

“I feel like the Sanders campaign thinks that kind of stuff is laughable, and to me, it’s serious. A threat to somebody’s life is serious,” she said, later noting that Sanders should apologize.

California Sen. Barbara Boxer, a Clinton supporter who was at the state convention, said she spoke to Sanders by phone. Boxer told CNN she felt threatened by a group — 50 to 100, by her estimation — of older, red-faced Sanders supporters who shouted obscenities at her and said that her Senate colleague sounded distressed and expressed shock at what happened.

“This is serious stuff,” she said on CNN. “This is not what we need going into an election. There’s no place for this in either party. No place for this.”

Boxer added that she “certainly” feels better after speaking with Sanders and expressed confidence in him going forward.

“I expect Bernie to get ahold of this whole situation,” she continued. “That’s what I expect from a leader, and Bernie has shown that he’s a leader in this country.”
Click to expand...
Appearing on CNN on Wednesday morning, Wasserman Schultz said Sanders’ statement wasn’t good enough. “With all due respect, when there is a ‘but’ in between condemnation of violence generally, and after the word ‘but’ you go on to seemingly justify the reason that the violence and intimidation has occurred, then that falls short of making sure that going forward this kind of conduct doesn’t occur in the future,” she said.

In his appearance on MSNBC, Weaver shot back that Wasserman Schultz’s remark was “ridiculous” and blasted her lack of leadership.

“It’s been pretty clear almost from the get-go that she has been working against Bernie Sanders — I mean, there’s no doubt about it — for personal reasons,” he said, again ticking through the criticisms he launched earlier but this time adding that the chairwoman “appointed really hostile Hillary Clinton partisans” to head standing committees, too.
Click to expand...
“Debbie Wasserman Schultz has really been a divider and not really provided the kind of leadership that the Democratic Party needs,” he said.

Weaver said he speaks with high-ranking Democrats at the DNC with frequency but suggested there isn’t consensus “in terms of her tactics,” calling the revoked voter data access last year a “unilateral” decision from Wasserman Schultz.

“Believe me, there was tremendous pressure inside the party structure for her to relent,” Weaver said. “I don’t really know what her motivation is, but it’s been clear there’s a pattern of conduct from the beginning of this campaign that has been hostile to Bernie Sanders and his supporters and she’s really become a divisive figure in the party.”



Wasserman Schultz maintained that the rules are “eminently fair,” arguing that the current set of rules are the same regulations that resulted in Barack Obama’s nomination.

“But regardless, it is critical that we as candidates, we as Democratic Party leaders, everyone involved needs to make sure that we can take all the steps that we need to, to ensure that the process is not only run smoothly but that the response from the supporters of both candidates is appropriate and civil,” she said. “No one should be subjected to death threats.”

Wasserman Schultz said Lange “has been essentially stalked by phone, has had to endure unacceptable feedback through violence and intimidation” and called it her responsibility as DNC chair to ensure candidates and everyone involved understand the appropriate way to respond to frustration over process is with civility.

Despite the indirect back and forth, however, both parties expressed confidence that the Democratic Party can unite behind the eventual nominee, with Weaver, who reiterated that Sanders will support the nominee and do whatever he can to prevent a Donald Trump presidency, calling what happened in Nevada a “Nevada-centric issue.”

“Let’s not confuse what went on in Nevada with some kind of broader issue,” Weaver said. “We’ve had great relationships with state parties all across this country and continue to.”

Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon credited Sanders for condemning the violence and encouraged people not to read too much into what transpired in Nevada.

“There’s been state party conventions happening quietly without much notice across the country,” Fallon told CNN. “This was really the exception, not the rule. So we don’t think it’s a harbinger for Philadelphia.”
 
Sanders isn't backing down. A campaign spokesman said Wednesday that the campaign was "looking into" whether to ask for a recount in Kentucky, where Sanders narrowly lost on Tuesday night, and he fired up his crowd in Southern California Tuesday night by calling out the Democratic establishment.

Dems' new fear: Sanders revolt could upend Democratic convention

The Sanders campaign on Tuesday did condemn unruly behavior from supporters and those who made threats to party leaders, but made clear it is sticking with its stance that the party is subverting the process in a way that benefits Clinton

These claims that our campaign is sort of fomenting violence in some way are absolute nonsense," Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told CNN's Wolf Blitzer Tuesday night, adding that the campaign "absolutely, categorically" condemns any threatening behavior.

The breakdown in civility comes after what has otherwise been a comparatively polite campaign season for Democrats, but the frustration exposes a rift in the party and undercuts the notion that Clinton will be able to march into the Democratic convention this summer with a party unified behind her.

Throughout the year, Sanders and his supporters have complained about the nomination process and ways they believe it has helped Clinton, including debates held on Saturday nights, closed primaries in major states such as New York, and the use of superdelegates -- essentially free-agent party and union stalwarts who are overwhelmingly backing Clinton.

The problem is that there are long-simmering concerns about unfair treatment out in the Nevada Democratic Party," Weaver added. "We are not going to allow the millions of people who supported Bernie Sanders to be sort of rolled over in places like Nevada by the way they handled that convention."

Earlier on Tuesday, Sanders released a statement suggesting that his supporters were justified in feeling like the party has given them a raw deal.

"
If the Democratic Party is to be successful in November, it is imperative that all state parties treat our campaign supporters with fairness and the respect that they have earned," Sanders' statement read. "Unfortunately, that was not the case at the Nevada convention. At that convention the Democratic leadership used its power to prevent a fair and transparent process from taking place."
Click to expand...
Leading congressional Democrats also pushed Sanders to rein in his supporters. Reid called Sanders' response "a test of leadership" for Sanders, and a source in his office told CNN that the Nevada senator is waiting to hear from the senator himself on the matter.

"The convention was Saturday. It's now Wednesday afternoon. And he hasn't spoken about it," the source said.

California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who spoke on behalf of Clinton at the Nevada convention, condemned the behavior.

"He should get things under control," Boxer said. "We're in a race that is very critical. We have to be united."

I think Hillary and Bernie both misunderstand this movement. I think Hillary just sees it as just a bunch of rowdy kids that at some point will just calm down and fall into line," he said, later adding, "I think Bernie actually only sees the good in his followers. I think Bernie really misunderstands there is a nasty edge to his following that he's not taking seriously enough."

Sanders fired up the crowd by calling out the Democratic leadership.

"The Democratic Party is going to have to make a very, very, profound and important decision. It can do the right thing and open its doors and welcome into the party people who are prepared to fight for real economic and social change. That is the Democratic Party I want to see." Sanders said.

"I say to the leadership of the Democratic Party:
Open the doors, let the people in! Or the other option for the Democratic Party, which I see as a very sad and tragic option is to choose and maintain its status quo structure, remain dependent on big money campaign contributions and be a party with limited participation and limited energy," he said.
Click to expand...
The crowd responded by chanting, "Bernie or Bust!" the equivalent of the Republican #NeverTrump slogan for the Democratic race.

His speech barreled through his list of Clinton contrasts, comparing his stances with her (and criticizing those stances) on minimum wage, fracking, breaking up the big banks, and her use of super PACs.


California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, however, warned that Sanders' intention to take his candidacy to the Democratic convention could spark unrest similar to the chaotic 1968 convention in Chicago and the riots surrounding it.

"It worries me a great deal," Feinstein told CNN's Manu Raju. "You know, I don't want to go back to the '68 convention, because I worry about what it does to the electorate as a whole -- and he should, too."

And Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois also said he's concerned about violence in Philadelphia.

"We saw what happened at the Trump rallies, which broke into violence, people punching one another. I don't want to see that happen at the Democratic Party," Durbin told CNN. "I call on Bernie to say to his supporters: be fervent, be committed but be sensible. Don't engage in any violence."

Weaver pledged Tuesday night that the convention will be peaceful.
 
anatta said:
When Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont took the stage this week after falling short in the Kentucky primary, supporters of Hillary Clinton wondered if he would finally soften his tone and let her move on to a general election against Donald Trump.

They didn’t have to wonder for long.

Sanders credited Clinton’s victory to

The performance prompted cheers across a crowd of about 8,000 in Carson, Calif., highlighting the mistrust and alienation that Sanders’s most ardent fans feel about Clinton, the Democrats and their “rigged” system. Yet the whole spectacle also sent shudders through those supporting Clinton, who are growing increasingly irritated by Sanders’s ever-presence in the race — and nervous that he is damaging Clinton.

All of it seems to have come to a head in recent days, as bitterness on both sides has boiled over and prompted new worries that a fractured party could lead to chaos at the national convention and harm Clinton’s chances against Trump in November. Two realities seem to be fueling it all: The nomination is, for all intents and purposes, out of Sanders’s reach, yet his supporters are showing no signs of wanting to rally behind Clinton.



On the other side is this view: It’s also hard to win a general election with a protracted, divisive primary battle that won’t go away. “The way he’s been acting now is a demonstration of why he’s had no support from his colleagues,” said former Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank.

[Trump’s appeal stretches to suburbs that had been trending blue]

Sanders’s supporters are crying “fraud” over delegate selection and threatening to sit out the election. They have promised to press their case to the convention floor. It happened in 2008 in the final throes of Clinton’s failed bid against Barack Obama; what remains unclear is whether this year’s divisions will go deeper or longer.

An explosive weekend convention in Nevada, where Sanders supporters turned on the state party chairwoman for overruling their challenges and seating Clinton delegates, exposed the depth of the acrimony. In his statements since then, Sanders has made no attempt to heal it.

Sanders is also keeping his supporters riled up by making what many Democrats consider an unrealistic, and even dishonest, view of his candidacy given Clinton’s large lead in delegates.

“There are a lot of people out there, many pundits and politicians — they say Bernie Sanders should drop out, the people of California should not have the right to determine who the next president will be,” he said at the rally Tuesday, insisting that the state had enough pledged delegates to put him over the top.


Increasingly, Sanders’s most passionate supporters claim that the primary has been rigged. A Reddit user’s chart comparing the first wave of exit polls with Clinton’s stronger-than-expected performances has been circulated — most famously by Sanders surrogate and actor Tim Robbins — as evidence of election fraud.

Clinton’s 16-point victory in New York is explained by the state’s onerous registration rules and by the still-unexplained purge of Brooklyn voter rolls. Anyone questioning her lead of three million votes can find solace in an article at Counterpunch titled “Clinton Does Best Where Voting Machines Flunk Hacking Tests.”

“Do these people read newspapers?” said Bob Mulholland, a California superdelegate and Clinton supporter who has accused Sanders supporters of harassing his peers. “Are they reading some chain email with bogus numbers? I hold Sanders somewhat responsible for this, because he comes across on TV as a very angry old man, riling people up.”

As Kentucky slid away from Sanders on Tuesday, some of his supporters saw a culprit in Alison Lundergan Grimes. The secretary of state and 2014 candidate for U.S. Senate, a longtime supporter of Clinton, even went on CNN to declare Clinton the winner.

“.

The evidence for the last claim was a video clip from a rally with Clinton and Grimes, where the secretary of state said she was “not only here to do my job” but to back her candidate. It was cut and distributed by America Rising, a conservative opposition research firm adept at finding wedges between Clinton and the left.

As Sanders has fallen behind Clinton, more conservatives have looked for ways to exploit the angst. On Tuesday morning, Fox News sent one of its morning-show hosts onto the streets of New York to ask voters if the primary had been rigged for Clinton. Dan Backer, the conservative attorney and treasurer of the pro-Trump Great America PAC, has egged on Sanders supporters on Facebook with pep talks like “Bernie will win the most primaries and can still take the most pledged [elected] delegates while narrowing the total vote gap.” Trump himself has announced a kind of snarky solidarity with Sanders, telling voters and Twitter followers that the senator should bolt the party over his foul treatment.

The Sanders campaign has endorsed none of this — but it hasn’t tamped it down. Sanders’s sympathetic response to the Nevada convention fracas angered the state and national party, with DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz comparing the worst scenes there to the violence at Trump rallies. Asked if there had been any actual fraud in the primaries, Sanders’s spokesman Michael Briggs suggested that the Democratic Party’s infrastructure had been sabotaged in a way that hurt one candidate.

“Most state parties tried to do a good job,” he said, “but often they are short on resources and there are institutional impediments to a fair process, like super-early registration, party-switch deadlines, closed primaries, complicated party registration rules, bad voter lists.”

Sanders himself has made harder-to-argue cases against the Democratic primaries. The truncated debate schedule struck supporters of both candidates as unfair, something the party seemed to acknowledge by tacking on more of them in March and April. While Clinton is on track to win a majority of pledged delegates, Sanders has suggested that early support for her among superdelegates, the party leaders and elected officials who get an automatic convention vote but are not bound by their state’s popular vote created



At the same time, Sanders and his supporters argue that superdelegates should consider bolting Clinton to back him, based on polls that show him leading Trump as her favorables sink. That irritates Clinton supporters on two levels: by suggesting that the voters got it wrong and by dismissing the judgment of the sort of elected leaders whom any president would need to pass an agenda.

“If you believe you represent the people, and the people are uncooperative with your goal of winning, you have to find some explanation,” said Frank, whose appointment to the DNC rules committee sparked anger from Sanders supporters. “Look, I understand you have some disagreements, but does the overwhelming view of the black leadership, LGBT leadership, women’s leadership — does that count for nothing?”

As they contemplate Sanders’s “contested contest” at the Philadelphia convention, Clinton supporters think warmly back to 2008. By the time those primaries concluded, as many as 40 percent of Clinton voters said they could not support Barack Obama. The most dedicated PUMAs (Party Unity My A--) became TV stars; the vast majority of Clinton holdouts eventually went for the ticket. While Clinton’s favorable rating with Sanders supporters has been falling, many of his endorsers think that can be reversed.

“I want people to see this as a fair process, because I’m not in the ‘Bernie or Bust’ camp,” said Russell, the Sanders supporter from Maine. “I love this campaign, but I love my country more. And I tell the ‘Bernie or Bust’ people, if you’re angry at the end of this, you’re not going to take it out on the DNC. You’re going to take it out on the most vulnerable people — the ones we are fighting for.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...hp-top-table-main_sanders405pm:homepage/story
Click to expand...

Looks like the atheist liberals have never heard of the proverb that speaks of how pride goeth before the fall. :D
 
The talking heads were talking about the GOP's demise a month ago and now it looks the fissures developing in the Democrat party are worse than the Republicans. Most of the discord on the republican side has less to do with ideology than Trumps personality and the tone of his campaign. And the #Never Trump movement is on the ropes.

In contrast, the democrats are fighting over ideology and the undemocratic primary process.

This could get interesting.
 
SmarterthanYou said:
not to worry. the locksteppers will get in line just in time to prevent the disaster that will surely come about if their opponent wins.
Click to expand...
probably.. partisanship trumps critical thought..(no pun intended)
the American Sheeple are so used to being herded we want the comfort of the pack.
 
SmarterthanFew said:
do you foolishly think you know who i'm going to vote for or something? you think i'm going to 'lockstep'?
Click to expand...

Is that what I said?

Can you link up to statement of mine that says that?

203-Meet-the-Parents-quotes.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top