Lots of moaning and groaning and gnashing of teeth on all sides of the Primary… and an awful lot of sneering triumphalism juxtaposed with angry snarling.
All bad juju. All undisciplined. All immature. Stop it.
First, a basic statement: Sanders is staying in the race to the convention. He’s stated his intention to do so, and has the funds and core of support to do it. If that decision changes then the mode of operations changes.
The key things that Sanders partisans and Clinton partisans must understand regarding this determination:
1) He will pick up delegates along the way, potentially a lot of delegates depending on how things play out over the next couple of weeks. The more delegates he has pledged to him, the stronger the potential to have at least a large minority of the pledged delegates at the convention. Having these pledged delegates means the ability to propose, support, and enact specific planks into the official platform of the Party. The more Sanders delegates there are at the convention, the more Sanders people get placed into various positions of influence in the many different committees and sub-groups in the DNC and affiliated committees of the national, regional and state arms of the Democratic Party. This is important in terms of a) Determining the relative weight and timing of primaries, b) determining future debate schedules, c) determining National Party priorities, d) allocation of resources for local and state campaigns and infrastructure building for GOTV, outreach, and much more; d) determining the next DNC chair, Vice Chair, etc.; and finally… determining whether caucuses will actually still be a thing (which they most definitely should not!).
2) He will use his funds to project his message. Presumably that message has resonated with approximately 40% of the total Democratic Primary voting population (thereabouts, based on current pledged delegate numbers). That number will change over the course of the next several weeks. Sanders’ message is one that pertains to much more than simply his run for the nomination, and one that has been sorely lacking on many levels. Ignore the nonsense about the “Primary Popular Vote” — those numbers are meaningless because of the caucuses. The basic fact is that nobody knows what the “popular vote” numbers are, because a large number of states do not tally or consider the popular vote in their allocation of delegates.
3) He will continue to attempt to “introduce himself” and his brand of politics to people that have not heard it broadcast on the national stage. Sanders’ campaign has definitely made some missteps, mistakes, and tactical/strategic errors. Continuing to campaign will allow experimentation with, learning from, and evaluation of different ways to be a better populist campaigner in different regions and with different audiences with different views on the issues as those issues relate to their lives. Those lessons can and should be learned, and the next progressive populist campaign waiting on deck had better be paying attention.
4) He will continue to attack the GOP and their irresponsible policies and rhetoric, and highlight the positive direction that the Left can and will turn this nation. I think that his criticisms of Clinton’s proposals will remain, but will be shaded toward broader criticisms of the GOP candidates and their supporters. Sanders has telegraphed this alongside his statements about staying in the race to the convention. A lot of the timing of this pivot depends on MI, FL, OH, IL, and possibly WI. If he can pull a couple of rabbits out of a couple of hats, the competition, aggressive stance toward Clinton, and heavy politics stays. This scenario is a long shot, and everyone knows it on both sides. Everyone has known that Sanders was a long shot since before voting started. If the writing is truly on the wall after the middle to end of March, expect much more in the way of broad attacks on the GOP.
5) Keeping up the primary battle, especially if there is a “positive pivot” is good for Clinton, good for the Democratic Party, and good for the left wing of that party. Contested primaries bring media attention. Candidates visit towns and communities. Candidates appear with local politicians and civic leaders. Candidates showcase their programs and use local surrogates to get their message out. TV, Radio, Internet, and Print media write about the candidates. The message stays current, the “water cooler” discussions continue. The names are on peoples’ tongues and the arguments about policy always include discussions of different progressive plans, as opposed to only talking about the GOP clusterf**k.
6) Continuing the primary fight keeps the energy of local party members and local party organizations up. Down-ticket races for everything from Senator to School Board benefit from “star power” as Clinton and Sanders show up to broadcast their different visions. It cannot be emphasized enough that nothing proposed by either candidate is going to happen unless the composition of the Senate (possible), the House (oh please oh please oh please), and the State Legislatures and Governors’ Mansions change. We should really be looking to engineer a wave election, take advantage of GOP disarray and chaos, and take advantage of the incredibly odious, frightening, and mean bunch of idiots on the GOP side. This is a historic opportunity, and having BOTH candidates “competing” in the same place (even if it’s Kabuki) is a good way to Maintain that energy going forward.
Message Discipline, and how YOU can make this work.
The continued bickering, ankle-biting, baiting, triumphalism, sneering, and shit-slinging has got to stop. On both sides. Very soon. Even if the contest continues to be a serious battle for the nomination, we have got to get ourselves under control, grow up, learn to cooperate for larger purposes even if we disagree about almost everything else.
You are responsible for building a degree of shared purpose. The way to do that is to be self-critical. Couch your message in a positive way. If you cannot do so, then leave that message out of your post until you figure out how to say it in a way that does not invite immediate and hostile rejection.
You are your candidate’s emissary. You are your candidate’s proxy. Your unsourced smear, your outrageous claim based on a rightwing propaganda rag, your overstatement of a criticism, your broad-brush smear of entire constituencies based on individual cases of bad or stupid behavior… each and every one of them hurts your candidate, harms your reputation, degrades the discussion, and makes it that much harder to NOT HAVE TRUMP OR CRUZ BE OUR NEXT PRESIDENT.
Source your claims. Cite your research. Be logical. Be measured. Be clear. Be disciplined.
And overall, be joyous.
We are fighting over whether we will choose an accomplished, tenacious, highly-intelligent, in-the-system brawler with liberal social stances and moderate technocratic economic stances… or if we will choose a bulldog champion of social justice and equality, a brazen and unafraid Democratic Socialist who wants to transform the US economy into a Scandinavian-style system, and wants to use the power of the President’s bully pulpit to engage popular opinion directly, in the streets of DC, in-your-face pressure on the Revanchist Right.
We have a choice between (as my teenage daughter says) good and better. Some choose the good option because it’s safer. This is understandable. These are allies. We disagree, but they have a right to be cautious of big promises from a relatively unknown source. Others choose the big promises and large-scale push for major change
In making that choice as a large and diverse party, and in advocating for our choice as a smaller but vocal (and growing!) group within that party, we must always remember the larger picture.
Never lose sight of the starker choices that face us. There are wolves at the gates, my friends. The racists, bigots, and nativists are energized, enraged, and off the leash. They are bidding fair to shatter the GOP, and in doing so are gathering momentum that it is clear that the most powerful forces the Elite Right has to offer (Koch Brothers, CPAC, Heritage, Fox News) are helpless to prevent or slow. We are the bulwark, and I will be god damned if I am going to let my distaste or distrust for Hillary Clinton allow fucking fascists and racists to take control of the most powerful military and economy on this planet. Zog Nit Keyn Mol
