2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Hillary Clinton cannot win the general without Bernie and his supporters [View all]Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)In 2012, Obama's popular-vote margin over Romney was less than five million. I don't know Sanders's exact total this year but I think he's at about nine million, with several states yet to vote. Factor in that Bernie has amassed that total in primaries and caucuses, which always draw fewer people than the general election.
Obviously, Clinton doesn't need every single Sanders supporter to vote for her. Still, she needs to get a lot of us.
In the projected Clinton versus Trump matchup, there are some of us who are almost certain to vote for Clinton (I'm in that camp), and some who are almost certain not to (Trump may yet scare them enough to change their minds, though). What far too many of Clinton's supporters on DU don't seem to realize, however, is that there are some in the middle whose votes are up for grabs. They don't want to see Trump win, but they're really (and in many respects justifiably) ticked off at what's happened within the Democratic Party this year. I'm appalled when I see Clinton supporters, at the Nevada convention or on DU or anywhere else, acting in a way that seems calculated to alienate those voters.
To give Hillary Clinton credit, however, she seems to be smarter than many of the DUers who advocate for her. She's argued for her policy views, which are overall more conservative than Bernie's, but she and Bernie have both kept the personal acrimony way below what it could have been (and what it's been on the Republican side). She hasn't called Sanders supporters "sexist, racist, elitist, authoritarian bullies" (to mention but one of the phrases employed on her supposed behalf on DU). She's expressly disavowed the "Bernie drop out" clamor. In short, Hillary Clinton has implicitly recognized the truth of this OP.