The writing has been on the wall for quite some time, but tonight we received final confirmation: Hillary Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee. But the Democratic Party that she’s going to represent is a very different entity from the one that existed when she started this campaign.
Put simply: Clinton is the nominee, but it’s Bernie’s party that she’ll be leading.
I’m sure that will taste bittersweet to Sanders and his supporters, who have found an extraordinary fight over the last nine months. But it’s a real and important victory.
First things first: the bad news. It was already exceedingly unlikely that he could make up the delegate deficit, but if there was any chance of it happening, he needed to at least hold serve tonight. And that, most definitely, didn’t happen. As I’m writing this, only about half of the 800 delegates at stake tonight have been allocated. But if my back of the envelope calculations are reasonable, it looks like Clinton will finish the night having expanded her lead by another 150 delegates. With half the delegates already allocated, that means Sanders would likely need to win the remaining votes by something close to an 18 point margin. And there’s just no plausible way that can happen. He already only had a couple outs left, and those are officially gone now.
That said, this is only the end of one part of the campaign. And it’s worth noting that the next month or so is very favorable to Sanders. So not only do I think he can reasonably continue on, I absolutely think he should. This campaign has been all about giving voice to those who aren’t being heard, and that absolutely can continue – and will get a boost from the range of ‘Sanders back on the upswing’ stories that will inevitably emerge. That’s a real opportunity. But it’s one that needs to be seized for a broader effect than simply pursuing a nomination. So I hope that Sanders and his team are putting some real thought into what their going to do with all this support.
For one thing, there are lot of downticket races that could really use some excitement and mobilization by the left. But beyond that, there’s the simple fact that although Clinton is now the presumptive nominee, she remains vulnerable to the concerns that Sanders has raised this whole cycle. While she will have to (and should) tack back somewhat for the general election, it’s worth noting just how far to the left she’s been dragged by this primary campaign. And it’s very much within the power of Sanders and his supporters to hold the line on all those promises.
As of right now, there are three leaders of the Democratic Party: Clinton, Obama, and Sanders. And while the other two are far closer to the office of the presidency, in some ways he’s just as powerful as they. Put simply: they’re in charge of running the party, holding the constituencies together, wrangling the votes, managing the operations. But Sanders has staked out a genuine claim as the conscience of the party. And as the fire that keeps the whole engine running. That’s an important power, and one that I hope is used well.