If you don't have the support of the base, you won't be the nominee.

[Gothmog]

77. A significant portion of the Democratic base rejected Sanders for some valid reasons

The Sanders campaign did not appeal to many demographic groups (including the Jewish vote) for a host of reasons. One good reason is that Sanders repeatedly attacked President Obama which alienated a large number of key demographic groups. There is a vast difference in how Sanders supporters and Sanders view President Obama and how other Democrats view President Obama. I admit that I am impressed with the amount accomplished by President Obama in face of the stiff GOP opposition to every one of his proposals and I personally believe that President Obama has been a great President. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/clinton-sanders-obama_us_56aa378de4b05e4e3703753a?utm_hp_ref=politics

But lurking behind this argument about the future is a dispute that's really about the past. It’s a debate over what Obama accomplished in office -- in particular, how significant those accomplishments really are. And it's been simmering on the left for most of the last seven years.

On one side of this divide are activists and intellectuals who are ambivalent, disappointed or flat-out frustrated with what Obama has gotten done. They acknowledge what they consider modest achievements -- like helping some of the uninsured and preventing the Great Recession from becoming another Great Depression. But they are convinced that the president could have accomplished much more if only he’d fought harder for his agenda and been less quick to compromise.

They dwell on the opportunities missed, like the lack of a public option in health care reform or the failure to break up the big banks. They want those things now -- and more. In Sanders, they are hearing a candidate who thinks the same way.

On the other side are partisans and thinkers who consider Obama's achievements substantial, even historic. They acknowledge that his victories were partial and his legislation flawed. This group recognizes that there are still millions of people struggling to find good jobs or pay their medical bills, and that the planet is still on a path to catastrophically high temperatures. But they see in the last seven years major advances in the liberal crusade to bolster economic security for the poor and middle class. They think the progress on climate change is real, and likely to beget more in the future.

It seems that many of the Sanders supporters hold a different view of President Obama which is also a leading reason why Sanders is not exciting African American voters. Again, it may be difficult for Sanders to appeal to African American voters when one of the premises of his campaign is that Sanders did not think that President Obama is a progressive or a good POTUS.

Again, I am not ashamed to admit that I like President Obama and think that he has accomplished a great deal which is why I did not mind Hillary Clinton promising to continue President Obama's legacy. There are valid reasons why many non-African American democrats (me included) and many African American Democratic voters did not support Sanders.

In the real world, Sanders would never be the nominee and many of the groups who supported President Obama would not have supported Sanders if he was the nominee. I like living in the real world. In the real world there were valid reasons why Sanders was rejected by key demographic groups and you can not pretend that these groups would have supported Sanders