Biden allies wants Sanders out, sooner rather than later

[left-of-center2012]

Joe Biden’s allies are privately grumbling that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will not get out of the presidential race, preventing the party from uniting ahead of the general election. Sanders’s decision to stay in the race has Democrats worried they are repeating the problems of 2016, when a long primary fight was seen as hurting Hillary Clinton, the eventual nominee.

“I think he should get out,” one Biden aide said. “It's a lost cause for him and everyone knows it. If you really care about beating Donald Trump, you'd get out and help consolidate the party in what is already a very stressful time for the nation. It’s not helpful to anyone to stay in period.” The aide also said Sanders is unlikely to win more policy concessions from Biden by remaining in the race.

Biden has not publicly called for Sanders to drop out. In interviews from his home, he’s barely talked about his rival at all. However, last week Biden said he didn’t see a need to participate in the final Democratic debate against Sanders, arguing instead that it’s “time to get on with this.”

Sanders does not appear to be feeling any pressure to drop out, and on Monday night he told NBC “Late Night” host Seth Meyers that he still has a path to victory. “There is a path,” Sanders said. “It is admittedly a narrow path, but I would tell you, Seth, that there are a lot of people who are supporting me. We have a strong grass-roots movement."

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/490474-biden-allies-wants-sanders-out-sooner-rather-than-later

[frazzled]

1. Does it really matter now?

There will be no debates (I hope), no campaigning to be televised, etc.

Still, he should suspend his campaign right now. Egoism is not an attractive campaign platform.

[comradebillyboy]

2. Since Sanders steadfastly refuses to reach out to anyone who

is not already a part of his base, how does he expect to get enough votes to be competitive much less 65%.

[delisen]

3. Is it costing Sanders any thing to stay in?

If there is no cost to Sanders I would think he will stay because in our current fluid situation Sanders team will be thinking that anything can happen.

[honest.abe]

6. I thought Sanders wanted to defeat Trump??

By dragging this out to for months and months only helps Trump.

[George II]

7. On Twitter his people keep dropping comments about how Biden could get sick, he's.....

.....old, not looking well, etc.

Meanwhile Sanders is a year older, is only a few months from a heart attack, and looks more gaunt than ever.

[thucythucy]

10. And they assume that Democrats will automaticaly flock to Sanders

if Vice President Biden is no longer in the race.

I personally don't see much evidence of that. It's far more likely that the party will rally behind one of the other fine candidates who HASN'T been doing everything possible to throw the election to Trump.

Assuming Sanders is somehow the presumptive heir to Biden is just another layer on the layer cake of self-delusion.

[W_HAMILTON]

9. If he and his team are stupid enough to think that Democrats...

…Democrats that have already resoundingly rejected him in two primaries now, will suddenly start supporting his candidacy just because he is the only one stubborn enough (yet again) to refuse to drop out, he has another thing coming.

He has virtually no path to win a majority of delegates on the first ballot, and every day that he stays in he only decreases the already near-impossible odds that he will ever win on a second ballot when superdelegates and other party stalwarts are able to vote.

It's over. He's running another zombie campaign whose only purpose now is to enrich himself, his family, and his campaign staffers.

[The Magistrate]

4. So Do Millions And Millions Of Rank And File Democrats, Sir

Democrats of all persuasions, from the leftmost to the most moderate, want this bungling, destructive interloper to sit down and shut up, before he does further harm.

The fact is Sanders campaigns not to gain the Democratic Party's nomination for President, but to weaken if not wreck the 'Democratic Establishment'. For 'Bernie', ousting Trump and ending the Republican majority in the Senate is barely an afterthought to this long-standing purpose. Once Sanders' supporters face this fact squarely, they may be able to decide honestly what their best course in this election is: voting against 'Bernie' in any future primary, and for Mr. Biden and Democrats all down the ticket to the lowest office on the ballot come November.

It is probably true that Sanders sees destroying the 'Democratic Establishment' as an essential precondition to defeating Trump et al, and so by his own lights he means it when he says he will do all he can to defeat Trump. But that belief is so self-serving and delusional it deserves not just scorn but contempt.

As with Trump, the only real cure is to deprive the man of the oxygen of worshipful attention. The effect would be that of a bucket of water on the wicked witch of Oz....




"From Bernie’s perspective, dropping out of a race once you have no chance of winning is peculiar behavior that can only be explained by the work of a hidden hand. For most politicians, though, it is actually standard operating procedure. Only Sanders seems to think the normal thing to do once voters have made clear they don’t want to nominate you is to continue campaigning anyway."





"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

[beastie boy]

8. In the near future, Bernie staying in the race is not Joe's problem. It's Bernie's.

The longer he stays, the more he discredits his motives and his character.

The results of the primaries keep showing that Bernie is incapable to mount an effective opposition to Biden, like he did to Hillary in '16. the vast majority of Democrats are much more skeptical of Bernie than they were in '16. The vast majority of Democrats want Trump out. A diminishing minority wants Bernie in at Biden's. With time, this minority is sure to decrease, likely to the point where they no longer represent a threat to Biden or a bargaining chip for Bernie to use at the convention. If this continues to be the case, Bernie will be forced to endorse Biden without getting anything of value in return. Not endorsing Biden by the time he is nominated would be political suicide for Bernie and his movement, and Bernie knows it.

While many Democrats find it annoying that Bernie refuses to accept the inevitable, the end game will change little, and the changes will not be in Bernie's favor. Like a poker player who keeps raising the stakes with a losing hand, eventually Bernie will have to make a call. And the longer he waits, the more he will lose.

[LizBeth]

11. The Democratic Party, the Democratic voters wants Sanders out and has for weeks now.

Sanders has lost. Losers back the winner and goes home.