I have written a number of blogs about the likelihood that the Democrats’ national convention – to be held in Philadelphia July 25-28 – is likely to be a war.
And this one is no exception.
From Nicholas Riccardi and Catherine Lucey’s article for the Associated Press, talking about the ingoing anger of Bernie Sanders’ supporters:
…their nerves are raw now over the Democratic Party’s perceived slights against the insurgent candidate and they are clinging to a bygone hope that Sanders can wrest the nomination from Hillary Clinton despite her overpowering lead in delegates.
As these super-fans chant “Bernie or bust,” Democratic officials are growing increasingly worried about dissent, especially after a recent state convention in Nevada turned raucous. Some of the Sanders backers who are going to the convention as delegates for him — and there are more than 1,400 — give party officials little reason for comfort.
Sanders delegates, in more than a half-dozen interviews, say that while violence is not their goal for Philadelphia, party unity isn’t their priority, either. They don’t believe he has been treated fairly by the party establishment.
“Anything can happen,” said Jesica Marie Butler, 25, a Sanders delegate from Hawarden, Iowa…
Who would have thought this could happen?
Months ago, Donald Trump was despised by most Republican politicians as he attacked, antagonized and insulted his way through a field of 16 other candidates, while Hillary Clinton’s only opposition was a nobody from a small state who wasn’t even a Democrat until he decided to run. Then, when the political pros and their media pals talked about the upcoming conventions, they “knew” that Democrats were goingto be unified and Republicans were gearing up for thermonuclear political war.
Well, that’s not exactly the way things are turning out, are they?
Is it possible this will somehow reverse again? Yes. In politics, anything is possible. But it sure doesn’t look that way now.
What can Hillary Clinton and her people do to placate Bernie Sanders supporters who feel they are being cheated by a corrupt systemm which has used its corruption to win her the nomination?
History has shown us what happens when the true believers -the purists – demand nothing less than purity.
In the Republican Party it was people like Sharron Angle in Nevada, Richard Mourdock in Indiana – hard, take-no-prisoners right wingers who upended more more centrist alternatives in their senate primaries, but whose positions were unacceptable to many Republicans and a large majority of just about everyone else. Result? Two lost senate seats. (FYI: Ms. Angle is angling for another senate run this year).
Bernie Sanders supporters look more and more like the Democrat version of the Angle and Mourdock people. Rule-or-ruiners.
Should Hillary Clinton be worried about this – not just for the the convention but for the general election?
I know I’d be.
