Sanders lists his demands and declines to praise Clinton — but how much leverage does he have left?

[Zorro]

Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign ended with what had become his standard pitch in recent months as his odds of defeating Hillary Clinton dimmed: a long list of demands for the Democratic Party, a host of thinly veiled insults against party leaders and no recognition for the woman who outdistanced him in the popular vote and delegates en route to clinching the presidential nomination.

Sanders never mentioned Clinton’s historic accomplishment except by inference when he said that his campaign henceforth would be about “defeating Donald Trump.” He never actually said that Clinton had defeated him, or even that he was bowing out of the race, despite the fact that there are no more primaries to contest.

The absence of typical political grace by the defeated candidate was reminiscent of another insurgent inveighing against the establishment: Democrat Jerry Brown never got around to endorsing Bill Clinton in 1992 after the future president became his party’s nominee.

But if Sanders’ pitch Thursday night was consistent with his entire pursuit, it also came after his power seemed to have ebbed.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-bernie-sanders-analysis-20160617-snap-story.html

[tonyt53]

1. How much? ZIP

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. April 20, 2016.

Welcome to DU.

[MichiganVote]

2. There are two things that may not be mutually exclusive but--

Thing 1- a political convention to nominate a party candidate

Thing 2- a so called political revolution intended to sway the platform of said political party

In all my years of voting, I have never seen either major political party decline to nominate a candidate (based on the party nomination rules) in place of nominating a party platform. Hasn't happened and won't happen.

[lapucelle]

4. Sanders overplayed his hand.

Either he got good advice and ignored it or no advice from outside the bernie bubble. Sanders was trounced in the last round of primaries, so the momentum narrative was just that - a fanciful fiction. The candidates he endorsed in the Nevada Democratic primary lost this week, and his disgraceful voting record on guns was cast in high relief by the massacre at the Pulse nightclub and Sanders's much noticed no show at the filibuster.

Sanders looked petty Wednesday night, and it doesn't help that the "concessions" that the losing candidate is demanding include the very personal vendetta of removing a woman and a gay man from their jobs. So much for policy, so much for the high road. I used to admire this man. Now I see him as as cut-throat and personally ambitious as a politician can be.

[leftofcool]

5. Zero

[Wisc Progressive]

6. All the people at DU that love to put down Sanders, his supporters, and his progressive ideas

are really just proving that Hillary Clinton is essentially what the republican party was before the Koch brothers created the faux astroturf teabaggers. If Sanders has ZERO leverage as it seems is so popular to proclaim around here, it have little to do with him and his campaign and everything to do with the right-wing tendancies of their candidate.

But since there is now a D after a candidate that is against the premise of the New Deal, against universal healthcare (Medicare-for-all is supported by most Americans), against living wages (despite what Clinton argued in the debate, $12 does not equal $15 -- people that are for Fight for $15 are not fighting for $12), and against taking down too-big-to-fail banksters; it is now alright cuz its our candidate.

If you loved the financial bubble in the 1990s, you will love what's to come. Release the speeches, as they do matter even if the speaker has a D after their name.

[Ford_Prefect]

7. Well, that is the problem with low information voters - they don't read history, or anything that

raises questions about their candidate's previous actions or affiliations. They are stuck in a religious like bubble where no conflicting truths can reach them. They seem far more concerned with the labels worn by than the actions of the candidates.

We used to worry about sheeple voting Republican because they were so easy to steer based on "fear of the other candidate" and by jingoistic appeals and labels. I guess it is no longer a problem now since that's been achieved all in one party. Meanwhile the rest of us have no where to vote since our needs and our questions and our point of view on how to answer them no longer matters to the DNC and the party leadership in so many states. According to the MSM they won all the marbles so they get to tell everyone else what to do.

It has been clear from early in the campaign season that progressive ideas and New Deal, Great Society based goals are no longer fashionable or welcome in the party of the Big Tent. I see little support for those down ticket candidates who still value them nor substantial movement to retake state legislatures or governorships.

Don't rock the boat they keep telling us. We tell them we are drowning and the boat is sunk if we don't work a lot harder to turn things around. They don't seem to want to hear that. They don't really seem to understand how many people are suffering nor how much worse it's getting for us.

There once was a party that tried to enable the best in America and to raise up those in trouble and despair. I worked for that party and the hope it embodied. We didn't always win but we never gave up on the real struggles. We never told people they didn't deserve a place or a voice. I haven't seen that party in a while, certainly not since the history of the party got swept under the carpet and those of us who worked so hard to help it find places for those voices to be heard were told we couldn't afford to argue their case.

My parents and their friends and neighbors fought to stop those who felt we shouldn't rock that boat. They raised the awkward questions and started the conversations and opened the doors. They marched for Equality, for Peace, for Respect when that was a much more dangerous thing to do. My parents were Democrats all their lives. I have been since I voted against Nixon.
Now I am told by the Democratic Powers That Be not to push those doors open, that we cannot go there, to sit on my hands and be quiet in the back row. I don't think that is how we go forward, but I no longer have a voice in my party.

[Volaris]

8. I think there's 3 bubbles that will expand and then burst under a Clinton admin...

Commercial real estate, student loan debt and sub-prime auto.

[Night Watchman]

9. Zero, Zorro!

Could not resist the alliteration! Plus it's my actual opinion of Sore Loser Sanders!