Sanders campaign winding down.

[kstewart33]

Excerpts from the Boston Globe:

To travel with Sanders now — as his chances of capturing the Democratic nomination recede — is to see a politician in transition. He talks more about winning upcoming contests than winning the nomination that once seemed so plausible to his supporters.

Thousands still come to see him — waiting hours — even though the most fervent supporters acknowledge he’s not likely to win.

And the question surrounding him at every turn is: What’s next?

Driving through Kentucky and West Virginia this week there were no Sanders signs in lawns. The field staff in Kentucky was running low on gas money at one point.

The campaign staff has gotten dramatically smaller, with about 200 people laid off last month. Many news organizations have stopped following him.

The fund-raising shrank, too, dipping in April to $26 million from March’s jaw-dropping $44 million.

Sanders’ campaign TV advertising in West Virginia is about as faint as his chances of clinching the nomination: Federal records show that in the state’s largest town he bought a total of three dozen television spots.

The campaign took this weekend off, with Sanders returning to Vermont. He fired off a letter to Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, accusing her of “installing Clinton loyalists” in leading roles on the committees that will oversee the July convention and ignoring most of his suggestions.

Here’s the cruel reality, which was made abundantly clear this week: Even though Sanders bested Clinton in Indiana, the nomination prize actually slid further away. Before votes were tallied, Sanders needed 65 percent of the remaining pledged delegates to overtake Clinton’s edge. Afterward he needed 66 percent.

Does that math seem head-scratching? Yes. But with Indiana done, the pool of remaining pledged delegates grew smaller. That means in order to overcome Clinton’s commanding lead, he needs to win even more of the reduced pot.

The place with enough delegates left for him to overtake her is California, and by then he would probably have to win with an improbable margin of nearly 70 percent of the vote.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/05/06/bernie-sanders-campaign-transition-but-not-smooth-one/I1UW3BZwlbfCoAXX8xjAhN/story.html

[savalez]

1. Still, this part:

The campaign took this weekend off, with Sanders returning to Vermont. He fired off a letter to Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, accusing her of “installing Clinton loyalists” in leading roles on the committees that will oversee the July convention and ignoring most of his suggestions.

When he stops doing stuff like that maybe I'll care.

[IamMab]

4. Yeah, it's like every time he's forced to take 2 steps forward into reality, he lurches 1 more...

...back towards idiocy and insanity. Why does he think that the loser gets to control committees at the convention? I'd ask who gave him such bad advice, but we all know Bernie doesn't take advice, so this actually must be coming from the candidate himself.

Every time I think this senile piece of shit has reached his nadir, he rents a backhoe and keeps digging.

[Surya Gayatri]

9. Don't leave Jane out of the crazy calculation...she wields considerable influence over the Bern.

And, he pays her a hefty salary from the campaign kitty to get her valued counsel.

I'd ask who gave him such bad advice, but we all know Bernie doesn't take advice, so this actually must be coming from the candidate himself.

[72DejaVu]

14. It's not fair!

Why should Hillary get the most representatives, just because she got the most votes, most delegates and won the most states?

[yallerdawg]

2. It's over.

He just wants "the voters" to do him in.

Then it won't be "Bernie Sanders" fault, and he remains pure.

[griffi94]

3. Maybe he'll rethink his rhetoric

and knock off the talk about a contested convention.

If the zealots who have been carrying him create havoc
in Philly that's directly on Bernie.

Instead of the fire breathing about contested conventions
and flipping superdelegates he should start saying that
altho there's no path to the nomination he won't concede
until everybody has had the opportunity to vote.

It's time for Bernie to show a little integrity.

[IamMab]

5. He has appropriated the term "contested convention" to use how he sees fit, even if it's a lie.

Bernie got addicted to all that ca$h money!!

[griffi94]

6. And the fame

He's had a career of being an obscure senator
from a very small state.
Nobody paid much attention to him.
Suddenly he's a rockstar.

He seems to be having a real problem with it ending.

Maybe an intervention is in his best interest.

[savalez]

11. Yeah, I've read that there is technically no such thing

as a "contested convention" in the Democratic Primary.

He appears to have a hard time telling the truth.

[IamMab]

15. "Contested" means more than 1 round of voting, and petitioning delegates to switch between rounds.

This year, we have two candidates left at the end. It's over after round 1.

I believe Bernie knows this and yet continues to lie to his supporters.

[Her Sister]

7. Cannot answer supporter questions while wife goes to Fox News to complain"

But he couldn’t linger and answer questions from his supporters — there was an important stop coming up in Elizabethtown, which was 77 miles away.

And his wife, Jane, needed to tape an interview with Neil Cavuto, of Fox News.

She used the opportunity to blast the Democratic Party. “Bernie is bringing millions of people across the country into the Democratic Party, and yet the Democratic Party shuts the door on them and says: ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’

ALL WE NEED TO KNOW!!

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/05/06/bernie-sanders-campaign-transition-but-not-smooth-one/I1UW3BZwlbfCoAXX8xjAhN/story.html

[Satch59]

8. He'll stay in the spotlight if he campaigns for HRC...

He can be seen as a hero by helping the Dems keep the WH and take the senate and maybe the house back if he galvanizes his supporters. A unified Dem party will be a huge weapon against the fractured GOP but it seems he's in it for his personal gain...

[livetohike]

16. I don't think he will campaign for Hillary. He and his wife

seem spiteful and they hate the Democratic Establishment.

[stopbush]

10. At this point, the DNC needs to be extremely wary of Sanders.

He's not to be trusted as a surrogate for Hillary. It would all be about him and his agenda, even as he was stumping for her. He's not the kind of politician who would openly embrace policies he has railed against for months.

[hamsterjill]

12. Somewhere along the way, his message simply changed for me.

I've been a Hillary supporter all the way, but that didn't stop me from liking and listening to Bernie. In the beginning, I think his message was powerful. I know a lot of what he said resonated with me.

But when he started attacking Hillary, particularly when he said she wasn't "qualified", that just didn't sit well with me. Too much fodder for the other side to use when candidates start that kind of stuff. Then, as I examined his agenda, I realized there simply was no way for him to deliver that which he promised. So that cinched my decision early on and I was, as I expected all along, voting for Hillary in my primary.

I do believe that Hillary will, at some point, have a heart-to-heart meeting with Bernie, and because I believe Hillary is very wise, I believe she will listen to him and learn from him. That's what makes her a good political candidate. I think Bernie, if he's willing and humble enough to regain that which he had at the beginning, can add something positive to Hillary's campaign. I don't think he'll be in a significant cabinet office because I believe he'll be better used in the Senate, but I think he'll have Hillary's ear, and that she will listen and take his phone call should he call her with a suggestion.

After this year, I don't think any of us expect that elections will ever be quite the same again.

[NastyRiffraff]

21. Maybe this was once true:

I do believe that Hillary will, at some point, have a heart-to-heart meeting with Bernie, and because I believe Hillary is very wise, I believe she will listen to him and learn from him. That's what makes her a good political candidate. I think Bernie, if he's willing and humble enough to regain that which he had at the beginning, can add something positive to Hillary's campaign.

And I truly hope you're right. Unfortunately, that "humble enough" part will likely be a problem. In all I've heard about Bernie, humility is not one of his character traits. He's described as impossible to work with because it's his way or the highway, abusive and dismissive of his staff, and convinced of the absolute rightness of his cause and unwilling to even listen to alternative ideas. I think Hillary will try to reach out to him, but it's hard to believe he'll do anything but continue to make demands of her and the Democratic party.

[hamsterjill]

22. Thank you for understanding my post.

Yes the "humble" part was a condition that I thought about carefully. She will reach out to him because she is savvy, and if HE is smart, he will try to work with her in some way.

The whole Bernie platform (for me) has devolved into advocating for chaos. I realize that's overstating things to a degree, but I do not think we are realistically going to go to single payer in one big swoop. Like all things, change takes time, and in government, it particularly takes a LONG time. Likewise, I do not think that the majority of middle class Americans (like me) can afford to have their taxes increase from one year to the next by the percentages that his agenda would require. Not that I honestly believe his agenda would make it through the House and the Senate either - but simply saying this for illustration of furthering my point.

Hillary is the savvy one; Bernie is the idealist. There's nothing wrong with being either, but when there's a job to do, I will choose the savvy one every time.

[sufrommich]

13. He's on a speaking tour now,financed by

dwindling donations that probably won't last much longer.

[otohara]

17. Not Done Demonizing DWS & DNC

blame game continues.

[SaschaHM]

18. I see that they're sending Jane over to Fox News to try and work on some Trump Voters.

[Rose Siding]

19. Here's another cruel reality: Yesterday Sanders was telling them he could win

That is really cruel. Look at his nonsensical spin-

“We have now won over 45 percent of the pledged delegates,” Sanders said. “There are nine more primaries and caucuses remaining. Tomorrow [there’s] one in West Virginia — we hope to win there.”
...
“If we can win here in New Jersey and win in California and win in some of the other states, and if we can win a majority of the pledged delegates, we’re gonna go into Philadelphia and the Democratic convention and expect to come out with the Democratic nomination. So don’t let — don’t let anybody tell you this campaign is over. We’re gonna fight for the last vote we can find in New Jersey and California,” Sanders said, as the crowd began chanting “Bernie!”


Read more: http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-dem-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/05/sanders-primary-222964#ixzz48GYyBkyM

Considering the anger of some of his supporters -including some I've read very recently- and considering the plans that some factions have stated to disrupt the convention, this is just plain irresponsible. And to what end? We all know Hillary and the DNC will make every possible concession to his supporters in order to unite the party. That fight is already won so that can not be his motive.

So why preach this outlandish fantasy? Is he so wedded to demagoguery? Is it ego or money? Whatever else, it's cruel.

[Surya Gayatri]

20. Very pertinent comment from under the article:

se9705/07/16 08:46 AM

I so wish Bernie would start acting like an effective LEADER of progressive causes rather than a candidate. Progressive policy changes do not occur in one election cycle, but rather down-ticket and at a local level over multiple years.

When I hear Bernie supporters talk about voting for Trump or using all the coded Republican words to attack Hillary I think of how disappointed McCarthy supporters ultimately gave us Nixon and angry Nader supporters led to Bush (and Iraq). I so hope Bernie channels his supporters energy into positive and long-lasting progressive political involvement. But I don't have much hope that will happen.

Sadly, I fear reader "se9705" is probably right...