By Pogo, a Trail Mix Contributor
In Thursday’s Washington Post, Greg Sargent posted a piece with this title: The End is Near: Clinton and Sanders Camps Signal Resolution. It was inevitable wasn’t it? While the ultimate outcome of the race may have seemed to be up in the air a month ago, now it seems like the outcome is all but certain and it’s time for the candidates to look toward the Fall election against … Trump.
The signs are everywhere this morning: The Clinton and Sanders camps are now signaling how the Democratic primaries might wind down without too much noise, contentiousness, disruption, and anger. Could things still get very ugly? Yes. But at this point, that’s looking less likely than the alternative.
In an interview with me, Rep. Keith Ellison, a top supporter of Bernie Sanders who is also the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, suggested the Clinton camp had some work to do in order to appeal to Sanders’s supporters. But he also carefully noted that Sanders would not do anything to imperil the party unity that will be required to defeat Donald Trump.
But Ellison added: “Every Bernie supporter knows that this Supreme Court issue is looming. We’ll have party unity….everybody has a responsibility to make sure there will never be a President Trump. Bernie has been around a long time….he’s not going to hand this country over to Donald Trump.”
Ellison’s a smart guy, and I certainly hope his words are prophetic. Bernie, of all people, should know exactly what is at stake should Trump pull off a win in November. Hell, Citizen’s United has been one of his primary issues during the campaign.
On the Clinton side, the Post reports that a top Clinton backer, Senator Dianne Feinstein, is now calling for both camps to “work together, across our party, to have a platform that represents the views of Democrats.” And:
In 2008, after the divisive primary season concluded, Feinstein opened her Washington manse to host a secret unity meeting between Obama and Clinton. She said she would reprise that role for Clinton and Sanders. “I’d be very happy to offer that,” Feinstein said.
The other day, another top Clinton backer, Senator Sherrod Brown — who has great credibility among economic progressives — also offered in an interview with me to take part in any negotiating efforts to unite the camps. He even suggested that Clinton “should work with him on the platform,” and offered some areas of common ground they could reach on financial reform (an area of real disagreement), such as how to toughen up Dodd-Frank’s requirements for big banks’ plans to wind down in a crisis.
I have heard nothing of the sort coming from the Republican contestants or their surrogates. Now that Cruz has picked Fiorina as his running mate there can be no doubt that he intends to continue to tear at Trump. Tear away, I say.
More Posts by Pogo
Really, what’s not funny about the head of the family values party in the Heart of Dixie – my home state – having his comments about kissing, pulling his employee close, touching her breasts and how he loves it, loves it, loves it played out on a national cable political station? And having fired his Secretary of Law Enforcement who blew the whistle on the affair? And HE’S NOT GOING TO RESIGN! Really, is there anything in politics funnier?
I believe that structurally Bernie is done. Tuesday may tell the tale, Ohio in particular. Hillary has won 200 more delegates of the 1000 at stake thus far, counting only won delegates. Add the super delegates and the numbers just can’t work for him unless he quickly and dramatically turns around his performance in states that aren’t overwhelmingly white and don’t choose delegates in coffee klatches. He can’t string enough Kansases and Nebraskas together to do much more – those states are almost done and his sweet spot is shrinking quickly.