Markos Moulitsas: Is it game over for Sanders?

[BainsBane]

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.
Clinton beat Sanders in the South on the strength of the region’s Democratic base: African-Americans. She beat him in Hispanic-heavy states like Nevada and Florida. She beat him in white-dominated industrial states like Ohio. In fact, she’s beaten him just about everywhere Democrats came out to vote in numbers — of the nine states the Vermont senator has won, five have been low-turnout, undemocratic caucuses. While Sanders has gotten an impressive 6.3 million votes this cycle, Clinton has far outpaced him, with 8.7 million votes.
Just like Howard Dean taught us 10 years ago, you can’t build a meaningful progressive campaign without the support of African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians. . . .

In short, the Sanders campaign is now making the same argument it was decrying just a few months ago — that Democratic superdelegates should subvert the choice of the Democratic electorate to hand the nomination to the primary loser. It was an absurd argument when Clinton made it in 2008, and it’s no less absurd today. And if anyone was a beneficiary of such usurpation of the will of the voters, it certainly wouldn’t be an outsider like Sanders.

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 starts focusing on the Trump threat.

http://thehill.com/opinion/markos-moulitsas/273972-markos-moulitsas-sanders-time-to-bow-out

[msongs]

1. sanders is running out of states with his only favorable demographics nt

[mmonk]

2. We're used to being ignored. That's why we are staying in

Want us to go away? Address the real and measurable issues we bring. Otherwise, put up with the inconvenience of the little people.

[BainsBane]

8. You're addressing that to me

Like I have power or something. I have one vote, same as you. The only person who can negotiate anything like that is Sanders, and he has to decide that is what he cares about. The longer he goes on, the less influence he has in that regard.

If you bother to look at Clinton's policy positions, you'll see she has for some months been addressing a number of key issues but people here insist on distorting them and have repeatedly refused to even look at her policy proposals, despite the fact I have posted this repeatedly. https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/ I don't for a nanosecond think the opposition to her has anything to do with issues. If it did, they would actually discuss her policy positions rather than projecting crap onto her.

[jfern]

22. Her foreign policy is terrible

It's led to ISIS being active in Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Those children we deported back to Honduras where she supported the coup died.

[lagomorph777]

33. The longer Bernie stays in, the more influence he has

He is demonstrating that there is a very large block of voters who actually care about Democratic values. These voters will be ignored at the party's peril.

If Hillary ultimately prevails in the primaries, she still needs Dems to turn out for the General. Nearly half of us demand more than what she seems willing to deliver; the rest will probably settle for whatever bones she wants to throw. Bernie has forced her to steer a little bit left. The sooner he drops out, the sooner she swerves back to the right, and the farther right she sill end up.

[ibegurpard]

3. it will be game over

If and when Hillary secures the number of delegates she needs outright to win the nomination.
All other notions are simply self-fart-smelling.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. another donation to Bernie is on it's way

Just cause you triangulate from "why doesnt he just drop out" doesn't make it smell less like fear

[BainsBane]

10. You keep telling yourself that

It's all you've got. Delegate math is still math, and no amount of faith can will it away. Bernie had a very good day yesterday, but he still fell 5 points below the 62% target he needed to catch up to Clinton's earned delegate lead. Each day that happens, it means his margin needs to be even greater.

For the record, I wouldn't bother suggesting he drop out. This article is an opinion piece by Markos Moulitsas. It appeals to reason and good will, something I know is pointless. Candidates who can't win drop out because they want to bring the party together rather than harm its chances in the general election. Clearly that isn't a concern for Sanders or a number of his supporters. We're dealing with people who think nothing of suggesting that the opinions of a vocal minority should take precedence over the votes of the majority of Americans, who contrive ways to eliminate the votes of the base of the Democratic Party in great swaths of the nation and continue to support a candidate whose manager openly announces a strategy to flip earned delegates and overturn elections that have already been decided. Then of course after months of complaining about superdelegates that strategy counts on Bernie being able to flip them too, though that alone isn't enough.

I think this is the most pertinent part for Bernie and supporters like you: "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 starts focusing on the Trump threat."
The fictitious media blackout you all complain about is going to becoming real, only it won't be a blackout as much as irrelevancy.

[Solid Snake1]

21. This

Very well said. Thank you.

[trumad]

26. Math

That is all.

[Ed Suspicious]

28. Math - "Texas A&M Pulled Off A 1-in-3,000 Comeback"

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-were-the-odds-of-texas-am-comeback-over-northern-iowa/

[NorthCarolina]

45. Clinton has no chance in the GE.

She cannot pick up votes of either Independents or Disgruntled Republicans. Bernie has gone lightly on her concerning Wall Street cash for favors, but the GOP will be relentless on it. If there is one thing Americas are largely together on is fighting against big money influence in politics. Hillary is awash in it. It will be her Achilles heel.

[Gregorian]

5. Quite the contrary when one of the candidates is under FBI investigation, genius.

[MariaThinks]

6. the sooner the better

[bravenak]

7. It is pretty much done

He knows it too, I imagine. Writing off the South was a mistake of epic proportions. We know where we live and can tell when we are dismissed.

http://www.cafe.com/democrats-enjoy-victories-in-states-theyll-lose-to-trump-in-november/

[riversedge]

31. Well said. Thank you. Someday some might 'get it'!

[Meteor Man]

9. Markos has sold out

Markos has gone all in for The Third Way Corporatists and neocon foreign policy hawks. War is peace. Wage slaves are free. Hillary is a progressive. Fracking preserves the environment.

Markos expects Bernie to follow the traditional liberal surrender strategy to preserve the perogatives of their corporate donors. Markos is not the first Dem to sell out in exchange for a seat at the table and he won't be the last.

[BainsBane]

11. No, something far more radical

the popular vote.

[Meteor Man]

12. The Establishment

Markos has undergone a Vulcan mind meld with the Washington Consensus.

[BainsBane]

17. The establishment

includes Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the Human Rights Council, Dolores Huerta, La Raza, the Mothers of the Movement. Apparently one can be beat up by police, face bombs and death threats, and have one's children killed by racist cops or civilians and be establishment, whereas serving in DC for 25 years isn't establishment.

In other words, the only factor that separates establishment from non-establishment is support for Bernie. The sad thing is people actually fall for it.

Math is math. Either one can add and subtract or not. Clinton has 2.6 million votes more than Bernie, and those voters are ordinary people, not "establishment." They decide the election, not a few people online who are certain no one's views but their own matter.

[trumad]

27. LOL

Markos is fact based and understands reality.

[lagomorph777]

34. I guess I'm done with Daily Kos

How disgusting and disappointing.

[Dawson Leery]

13. Berns has no mandate.

Last night he took more delegates yet lost the popular vote.

[Meteor Man]

14. Really?

Do you really want to examine Hillary's mandate?

Should we start with mass incarceration or multiple regime change failures?

[cosmicone]

16. That wasn't a cue to start repeating the debunked smears

My apologies ... no cue is needed if one is a true believer ... it comes naturally.

[Meteor Man]

18. The Truth Is A Smear

Hillary has categorically denounced Obama's TPP gift to the global kleptocracy. A "muscular" Middle East foreign policy will keep us safe. Endless War keeps us safe. John Galt laughed.

[cosmicone]

15. Sanders' campaign reminds me of that Oakland girl

Jahi McMath.

She was pronounced dead by doctors and the county issued a death certificate but her loved ones are keeping her dead body "alive" with machines and claiming that she is responsive.

No amount of science and logic can convince them that it is over.

[Meteor Man]

19. Sanders Campaign Reminds Me of Paul Wellstone

You know. An Old School Democrat.

[renate]

20. how frickin' generous--"Sanders is obviously free to stay in the race"

He certainly is. Thank you, Markos, that's very big of you.

I don't disagree that it is increasingly unlikely that Bernie will win the nomination. I can do math.

But I also don't think that Bernie is in this primarily to become President. He wants his message out and he wants to enfranchise the disenfranchised. And I think he's succeeding, wildly beyond even his own expectations.

So hell yes Bernie can and should stay in it. If Hillary's supporters are so cocky about her eventual nomination they should just get on with their lives and stop fussing at him and us about how he should drop out. Some of us are still paying attention to what he is saying and are very happy that he's saying it. I'm surprised so many Democrats aren't.

[coyote]

23. Bernie just beat Clinton by 60% in Utah and Idaho

tell me why he should drop out again?

[workinclasszero]

24. Bernies done and he knows it

[Hortensis]

25. I'm not sure he does. I have him pegged as

something of a tunnel-visioned left-wing extremist. Insight into their own limitations is not their strong point, to put it mildly, and the election process does not exactly encourage balance and moderation in people naturally lacking in both.

[potone]

32. Hardly!

The fact that you can describe him this way just shows how far the Democratic party has strayed from its core beliefs. Bernie is an FDR Democrat. With the rise of the DLC and the candidacy of Bill Clinton in 1992, the Democratic party made a decision to move to the right and denounce big government. In the short term this was wise. But Clinton also ran on a relatively progressive economic program that he largely abandoned once in office. What we have seen ever since is a redistribution of wealth upward, a criminalization of the poor and shredding of the social safety net combined with a huge loss of retirement income as a result of Wall Street speculation and the movement away from guaranteed pensions to 401K plans. All of this has been accompanied by a disinvestment in education, a steady onslaught on unions and public employees and a destructive war on drugs. And that is not even to mention our disastrous foreign policy and the weakening of our civil liberties.

Can Bernie win? Probably not, but as long as he stays in the race the issues that he and his supporters care about are still being discussed. If he were to drop out now, not only would his supporters feel betrayed, but he would lose any leverage he might have going into the convention to get his and his supporters' issues addressed.

What so many Hillary supporters do not seem to realize is that Bernie represents the views of a large part of the country that is alarmed at the direction that our country is going in and want to see it change for the better for everyone. To claim that Bernie is only in it for himself, as some Hillary supporters do, is to misunderstand the man and his supporters.

[Hortensis]

37. No. I am an "FDR Democrat." Bernie is very different

from me. Back in FDR's day, the "Bernies" gave FDR hell, ended bitterly disappointed in FDR's failure to go for the genuine revolution they felt was critically necessary, and split off and ran their own Bernie against him. Who lost.

No, I know the picture is appealing, but Bernie's far left followers would not have supported FDR, and absolutely Bernie himself would not have.

[potone]

39. You must not have heard his speech on this topic.

He described himself as a New Dealer, FDR Democrat. Nothing he has said contradicts that. And I don't know where you get the idea that his followers would not have supported FDR, since that is the kind of Democratic Party that we want. If you think otherwise, you should post information that backs up your claim.

As for the assertion that Bernie is in it for himself, nothing could be further than the truth. He would have run for president years ago if that had been his goal in life. He is only in the race now because things have gotten so bad for most of the country, and he doesn't see any other candidate addressing the issues that matter most to him and those who support him. Hillary has modified her policy proposals significantly since he joined the race. Do you really think she would have done so if it were not for the pressure from him? I think that that defies credulity.

At any rate, I hope that there won't be any more threads telling Bernie to drop out. It is inappropriate while the primaries are still going on, and suggests a disregard for the wishes of Democrats who haven't had a chance to vote yet. It would be nice if we could get back to debating the issues and policy positions of both candidates, rather than bashing the supporters of either candidate. It would also be nice if we could distinguish between genuine political differences and voting records and candidate-bashing, but I think that feelings are running too high for some people to be able to do that. (And no, I don't mean you specifically.)

[Hortensis]

41. Bernie's a politician running for office. How would

you expect him to inspire America? Compare himself to Henry Wallace? Who?

History isn't something you just make up. It happened. Go read about it. FDR was very, very much a member of the establishment, a very elite establishment, as a matter of fact. Francis Perkins' background was upper middle class establishment, and she accomplished amazing things by working within the establishment and persuading establishment leaders in politics, business, etc., to work for change.

As for those who believed, as today, that the "establishment" caused the national disasters and needed to be replaced, well, there's a reason Bernie can't use any of their names. They're long forgotten.

These are from a good article on the subject.

In my examination of the historical record, it is clear that Roosevelt endured vicious, unrelenting attacks from his left that often exceeded the level of vitriol directed at President Obama, and correspondingly, Roosevelt was not viewed by liberals of his day with the adulation and reverence liberals view him today.

In fact, it's pretty remarkable how closely the attacks Roosevelt experienced from his left echo the attacks that liberals make against Obama today. There was criticism of Roosevelt for being too close to Wall Street, criticism of the New Deal's pragmatism and non-ideological approach, criticism of the New Deal for not going nearly far enough, criticism of the New Deal and Roosevelt as preferring conservatism to liberalism, and so on.

Disillusionment with Roosevelt ran deepest and most dangerously on the left, especially among jobless workers and busted farmers, among reformers and visionaries who had been led to giddy heights of expectation by Roosevelt's aggressive presidential beginning, and among radicals who saw in the Depression the clinching proof that American capitalism was defunct, beyond all hope of salvation or melioration. (Kennedy, 219)

Appraising the New Deal in the fall of 1934, he concluded that it had been a failure in recovery and a failure in reform. "Mr. Roosevelt up to now," Flynn wrote," has been using the rich resources of his political talents to preserve the capitalist system intact and he has insisted in every possible way any attempt to make any breaches in the shaky walls of that system." (Schlesinger, The Politics of Upheaval, 160)

And speaking of Social Security, in a manner reminiscent of the dissatisfaction many liberals had with the health care reform bill, the Townsendites, named for their charismatic leader, Dr. Francis Townsend, who were the most prominent advocates of old-age pensions (or what would be called social security) were utterly disappointed with the social security legislation that the administration passed in 1935.

Like the public option supporters of today, part of the reason why the Townsendites opposed social security was genuine concern over its adequacy and effectiveness. The Townsend Weekly denounced the social security bill as "outrageous", and Dr. Francis Townsend called the legislation as "wholly unfair, inadequate and unjust."

The far left was frankly mostly a nuisance to FDR because he was not one of them and did not share their goals. He tried to work with them, and some were initially involved in New Deal planning -- until they dropped him in frustration and rage. He even chose one to be his vice president at one point, but that didn't work out either. They fought him and lost, fought Harry Truman and lost, and disappeared into the murk of history.

That is why Bernie doesn't try to inspire by talking about some of the many people of those days who shared his beliefs -- like VP Henry Wallace. Who? They rejected the New Deal and so ultimately it happened without them.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/11/891631/-

[potone]

43. You didn't answer my question.

Did you hear his speech on that topic? Apparently not, because you don't address it. Instead you go back to talking about those on the left who opposed FDR. That is the exact opposite of Bernie's positions. Once again, you smear him by associating him with people that he has never expressed approval of, rather than citing any evidence that he shares their views. If you can't provide evidence, all you are doing is slandering him based on your intuition of what he really believes. That is only in your own mind.

[merrily]

29. Fuck Markos. He needs to stop the propagandistic faux perseverating. Sander is in and

Markos knows it. His articles are nothing but transparent efforts by a CIA toad to depress the vote for Sanders.

[CreekDog]

40. Markos has raised more for candidates who support single payer

than Sanders has.

Markos has worked harder to get people who support single payer elected than Sanders has.

[HumanityExperiment]

30. Troll bait...

HRC supporters throwing this out again?

Just how afraid are these HRC supporters of allowing voters in states that haven't cast their votes yet?

Obviously is must be of a larger concern then they care to admit for all of these trolls to be tossing all these similarly 'themed' OPs out here...

[AZ Progressive]

35. So says Markos Zuniga, a sympathizer of the right wing government in El Salvador during the 80s

His family had connections with the Salvadoran government, and he has admitted that he supported Reagan in the 80s. The Zuniga family is a wealthy family in El Salvador.

A website is dedicated to exposing him: http://truth-about-kos.blogspot.com/2007/08/indictment-of-markos-ca-moulitsas-ziga.html


An excerpt from an article in the Washington Monthly:

Moulitsas was born in Chicago to a middle class, ethnically-Greek family from El Salvador (his uncle, an architect, had briefly been that country's education minister). The family moved back to El Salvador when Moulitsas was four and was on the right-wing side of the Cold War proxy fight there. But as that war's intrusions became unbearable--Moulitsas talks about stepping over dead bodies--the family returned to Chicago, where he grew up, in his own words, "a loudmouthed nerd."

After high school, Moulitsas, then a Reagan Republican thanks largely to the White House's support of the Salvadorean government, spent four years as an army artillery scout, mainly in Germany.

[CreekDog]

38. how progressive of you to criticize him for where he was born

[LexVegas]

36. Yeah, its game over. nt

[Cali_Democrat]

42. K&R

[SidDithers]

44. Yup...

Sid