Fearing Trump, some Democrats up pressure on Sanders to exit
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Source: Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pressure is mounting on Bernie Sanders to end his campaign for president, with Democratic Party leaders raising alarms that his continued presence in the race is undermining efforts to beat presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump this fall.
Sanders is having none of it, frequently telling the thousands of supporters who attend his rallies that he still has a narrow path to the nomination.
"Please do not moan to me about Hillary Clinton's problems," Sanders said in a recent interview with MSNBC. "It is a steep hill to climb, but we're going to fight for every last vote."
Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/fearing-trump-democrats-pressure-sanders-exit-074218940--election.html
Your thoughts?
= new reply since forum marked as read
Oops!
standard which has slowed down alerts, since alerters can aso get Hides if their alert is denied.
I'm on every day, so my not being called can't be due to erratic site attendance.
Maybe MIRT has higher activity. 
we still LOSE.
This statement is fundamentally absurd:
"
c)an't stand that he lost"
Bernie Sanders biggest challenge has been coming to grips with the astounding level of support his candidacy has achieved. When he declared his candidacy, he hadn't but the slightest glimmer of possibility hat he could actually win. The entire point was to drive some national dialogue, if he could, and when he started pulling in crowds of thousands and donations from tens, then hundreds of thousands, he had to make some major decisions that he didn't expect to be confronting.
Now, have you ever met Bernie Sanders?
I have, 3 times. Once, about 2 years ago, totally by accident, I bumped into him in NY when he was heading for a Bill Moyers interview. He recalled me from a 5 minute conversation about 8 years before that, and I was rather flattering toward him. He had some time to spare, apparently, and we ended up chatting for about 20 minutes.
He dismissed my flattery gracefully, and I'll never forget just how down to earth he was. He didn't talk about himself at all, asked questions about me, my family, my interests.
I've met a few sitting Congressmen (literally - I've never met a Congresswoman), and 3 sitting Senators apart from Sanders. Each of them were very polite, but handled themselves just a bit stiffly, clearly on guard to ensure they didn't say something they didn't want to get around. (I've met a couple of them after they retired, and the tenor was completely different.)
But you spend 5 minutes with Bernie Sanders and it's obvious you're talking to the real person without any pretense. I've met people who I would have to say are almost certainly less ego-driven than Sanders, people who seem almost oblivious to their own psychological gratification on any level, and they've tended to be poor and uninterested in most activities. But a politician? Never.
The reason why he is continuing in the race is very simple. He made a commitment to hundreds of thousands of people who have donated a lot of money (and we're not in hedge funds or global capital management - it's real money that comes from real work) to stick. That's it. He made it clear that he wasn't just going to bail if the going got tough, and he's holding up his end.
You suggest that Bernie Sanders is somehow insulated by Jeff Weaver and Tad Devine. Seriously? Sanders is about as hands-on as you get from a politician. This is a guy who's both won and lost more elections than Hillary Clinton, and in the present context, he's nobody's fool.
I write things about my concerns and impressions of politicians like Hillary Clinton. But I don't claim to understand the inner workings of someone's mind. Sometimes I will straight out ask for opinions about what people think a politician's state of mind might be like, based on statements or behavior. But it's still all speculation.
I will say this, though. Coming from the experiences of 46 years of hard knocks, I am absolutely certain that the 'ego' of Bernie Sanders is a trifle compared to the nearly boundless personal ambition of Hillary Clinton. You'll find some way to dismiss what I say, even though, somewhere in the back of your mind, you'll recognize that this is true, but very inconvenient with respect to the overall point of view you've adopted.
And if you get beyond your own inner necessity to seek out ways of demonizing someone you consider to be an obstacle to something that you have decided matters to you, you might just discover that it's a very, very good thing that Bernie Sanders hasn't pulled out of the race.
It was interesting to hear of your impressions of political representatives and the comparison to Bernie. I also found this comment of interest: "I've met people who I would have to say are almost certainly less ego-driven than Sanders, people who seem almost oblivious to their own psychological gratification on any level, and they've tended to be poor and uninterested in most activities. But a politician? Never."
The "uninterested in most activities" is what I wonder about. Level of involvement? Some people are just not very involved or engaged in the world. I find those who are fascinating; those who aren't of little interest to me.
I've also always been interested in "ego."What is it that gives some people a big ego, while others do not have that?
Cher
He's in his forties, like me, is rather intelligent (so maybe not like me, who's to say... 
, a bit of a sci-fi/fantasy nerd (a bit like me), and is perpetually on the edge of being dead broke.
He seems to be a typical straight guy in terms of the usual basic reaction to attractive women, but seem so have no interest at all in any sort of relationship.
He's a thin guy, not much for grooming, and smokes, so he carries that funk around with him most of the time.
He accepts people 'spotting him' for a meal when out with the guys and is grateful, but any hint of 'that means you pay me back' gets a little awkward, so those of us who do spot him know that we're picking up the tab and leave it at that.
I'm in a board gaming group of a bunch of 40-ish guys who get together every few weeks for plenty of BS around a table that will feature a few of the latest games to be found among the 'board game hobbyist culture' (try www.boardgamegeek.com for a glimpse of what I'm talking about.) And if the particular friend I refer to ever wins a game, we all try to pretend it's not a major event... He learns rules, can plan ahead, but just doesn't seem interested in winning.
He's not emotionally stunted, so far as anyone can discern. His closest friend, (they go back all the way to grade school) a guy who has made plenty of money in IT through his life, is very politically liberal (except that he's a gun nut and is totally up-front about the irony), has a healthy, well balanced family that he's utterly devoted to, in all the right ways, and recently chucked the IT life to become a H.S. physics teacher (which took a lot of ambition), is convinced that he just plain lacks the basic machinery for initiative.
He's a pleasant person with a healthy sense of humor. And, although we talk a little bit about the jobs he tends to hold down for about 6 months before he 'loses' them and goes through a few months of rapidly depleting reserves before he has absolutely no choice but to track down another job, I know there's no point suggesting strategies for a more stable income-type life. It could be the best advice ever given on the subject and it'd be lost on him.
And as for 'ego,' he does seem to display signs of faux-indignation when someone ribs him, but I've never seen him take actual umbrage to anything said about him. Of course, he doesn't get treated in a way that would elicit that by his friends, but, of course, guys sometimes take things just a bit past the edge, and he's practically immune. It would be like... I don't know, repeatedly kicking a puppy (I don't kick puppies!, just looking for a comparison) that yips happily as you start breaking bones and cause internal injuries. And so you realize that, not only is there no reason in the world to kick the puppy, the psychological harm you would cause to yourself doing such a thing would cause you to stop way faster than any response from the puppy.
And for all that, I'd gladly include him in any sort of 'guy's night' activity. If he gets into real money trouble, I'm among the guys who would (have a couple of times) contribute to the bailout.
And so one thing I've learned about people over the years is that not everyone possesses the essential attributes necessary to 'better themselves' (financially speaking), make or execute long-term goals, or, really, just plain accomplish stuff. Some people are just along for the ride, wherever it takes them.
When I see some asshole bitching about how 'welfare queens' are milking the system, I know one thing - 'miking the system' in the way that they're talking about takes a lot of work for minimal return. And when the target is a homeless panhandler, who apparently only needs people to stop 'enabling' her/him so that there'll be no choice but to get a job, I think (for the very few who aren't crippled by serious psychological or psychiatric problems) that, for the people who really just aren't driven to even modest ambition, the cost among those of us who do have such drives to enable them to have at least a rudimentary level of basic needs met is so minimal that there's no point in talking about disincentives to work, etc.
The other thing I've learned is that ambition and ego often go together, but not always. I know I'd sacrifice my life for any member of my family if it was necessary to save them from serious harm or death. And I've comforted myself a little bit by thinking through that sort of thing hypothetically, the comfort coming from the recognition that hesitation based on concern for my own safety wouldn't be a factor at all. Of course, the probability of doing something like that is minimal in the extreme, but if it happened, my ego wouldn't be involved. It would be an act driven solely by my valuation of someone else's well-being at a higher level than my own. If I, and certainly many parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, etc., would act almost instinctively based on that comparison of value, how many other things that we do, which don't require such a sacrifice, are also driven by valuation of the well-being of others sometimes at a higher level of ourselves. It happens in war, it must also happen in peacetime and in all sorts of ways.
If you read all of this... I'm really sorry 
Time to get back to work - shouldn't abuse the fact that I'm the IT director of my employer's company...
establishment doesn't care if nominating Clinton costs them the election. They aim to do it anyway. Why in the hell should Sanders aid and abet such stupidity? 
Don't drop out Bernie! F those who suggest you do so.
Here are a few more
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You know a truly confident Hillary backer would have just admitted that this is a big hurdle for their chosen candidate, and outlined reasons why they believed their candidate could overcome it. Very telling that all you have is to play the "kill the messenger" card.
Since Bern and Band are not Democrats, they could give a shit less what is good for the Party.
RCP knows who is the presumptive nominee is.
totally fuck this one up (like many others in the past)and it sure looks like that's the path we're heading down.
How sad
