After New York comes the question: What does Bernie want?
By
John Wagner and
Dan Balz
Politics
April 20 at 6:27 PM
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Hillary Clinton’s victory in the New York primary Tuesday has brought Sen. Bernie Sanders one step closer to a series of difficult decisions that can be summed up in one simple question: What does Bernie want?
How he answers that question will have a direct bearing on how united Democrats will be heading into the fall campaign — and whether Sanders will be able to leverage his success this year into lasting power and influence.
His campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination has been more successful than almost anyone had predicted. He has generated a sizable and enthusiastic following, including an outpouring among young people and a gusher of small donations that more than matched the mighty Clinton financial network. His bold agenda has pushed Clinton to the left, a testament to the strength of the party’s grass-roots progressive wing, which has made him its hero.
But as Clinton extends her lead in pledged delegates, Sanders must now confront the reality that he has almost no chance of becoming the Democratic nominee. Instead he must decide what he will do with what he has built — starting with how he conducts his campaign over the next two months, how he navigates the party’s national convention in July, what role he plays in the general election and, perhaps most important, what happens after the November results have been tallied.
At the heart of many of these questions is another one: Will the self-described democratic socialist, who has run all his past campaigns as an independent, continue calling himself a Democrat after his presidential bid ends? (After this article was published online Wednesday, Sanders’s campaign manager said he expects the senator to be a member of the party “for life.”)
Sanders advisers insist that, with the candidate focused on carrying on his campaign through the last of the primaries in June and on to the Philadelphia convention, there have been few discussions about such questions. But his wife, Jane, offered a preview of the candidate’s thinking in an interview with The Washington Post just before New Yorkers went to the polls.
“If he’s president, he wants to keep this movement going,” she said. “If he’s not president, he’ll have to keep this movement going for a lot more reasons, because nobody else wants to accomplish what has ignited the interest of the voters.”
Asked what that might look like, she said: “We’ll figure that out, if and when. . . . Honestly, we will continue no matter what. There’s enough people that will continue it. We’ll keep that vision out there. I mean, he will not sit idly by. There’s no doubt about that.”
Neil Sroka, communications director of the progressive advocacy group Democracy for America, or DFA — which was founded by former Vermont governor Howard Dean after his 2004 presidential campaign and which has endorsed Sanders — said Sanders has several options.
One would be something like DFA. Another would be a more traditional leadership PAC, while a third would be what Sroka called a “let a thousand flowers bloom” approach — working with a variety of existing organizations to further his progressive agenda.
Whatever route he chooses, Sanders “has pole-vaulted himself into a real leadership position in the progressive movement,” Sroka said. “This movement now not only has Elizabeth Warren but Bernie Sanders. He’s going to be a powerful voice in either the White House or the Senate.”
What Sanders decides about the future course of his campaign could be crucial to how quickly the party comes together after what has become an increasingly fractious nominating battle, something the Clinton forces are keenly aware of. Sanders’s recent attacks on Clinton have alarmed her supporters. They are now listening closely for a change in his rhetoric — as there was in Clinton’s at roughly the same point in 2008 in her contest against then-Sen. Barack Obama.
"In 2008 after Hillary lost North Carolina, she made it clear that our days of attacking Obama were behind us and that we were not to do anything that would make it more difficult for Obama to win a general election,” said Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, who was then a member of Clinton’s campaign team and now serves as an adviser to Priorities USA, the pro-Clinton super PAC. “She saw the thing through but refrained from criticisms of Obama that would leave a lasting mark. That’s really the conversation that should be going on in the Sanders campaign.”
But his campaign showed no immediate signs of relenting in its improbable bid to catch her in the chase for delegates.
After the results from New York were in Tuesday night, Sanders’s campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, appeared on MSNBC in front of a map of remaining states and outlined how he thinks the campaign could still close the delegate gap. He also said that if Sanders gets close, he will start actively trying to flip the allegiances of superdelegates, the elected officials and other party insiders who also get to weigh in on the nomination. So far, they have sided overwhelmingly with Clinton.
Given that delegates are awarded proportionately in the Democratic contests, Sanders would need to not only win most of the remaining primaries and caucuses but win them by very lopsided margins to catch Clinton. Many of the upcoming contests are also closed to independents, who have bolstered Sanders’s numbers in states where he has prevailed.
The New York primary made it clear that while Sanders may not have the backing of a majority of Democrats, the affection of his supporters runs deep. In the closing days of the race, he turned out three of the largest crowds of his entire campaign, including an estimated 28,000-plus at a park Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn, where he grew up.
He was treated like a rock star as he walked the streets of New York with an entourage of aides, Secret Service agents and the press in tow, including on Monday during a 15-block stroll near the hotel where he stayed near Times Square.
"Oh, my God,” a young woman exclaimed upon seeing him. Others could be heard calling friends on their cellphones to say they had run into Sanders. People requested selfies by the dozen. And there were near-constant calls of “Feel the Bern” and “Love you, Bernie” as he passed by, along with honks of approval from cars on the street.
That kind of enthusiasm is infectious and can make it all the more difficult for a candidate to pivot to a different phase of the campaign. Former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell (D), a Clinton supporter, praised Sanders for what he has accomplished, calling it “an incredible feat” — but he said the time is coming when Sanders will have to tone done his attacks on Clinton for the good of the party. But Rendell also said he understands how hard that can be.
“He has candidate-itis, which we all who have run for office have had at one time or another,” Rendell said. “You look at the crowds, you think: ‘They love me. I’m going to win.’ You get the feedback from the crowds and you really think you’re going to win.”
When Democrats get to Philadelphia in late July, it is assumed that Sanders has more than earned a prime-time speaking slot. Beyond that, he has also made clear he will seek to influence the shape of the party platform. Aides say the more delegates he takes into the convention, the more leverage he should have to do that.
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Or is that the beltway. Hi-yo!
I'm (obviously) not the only one that's disgusted:
