General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Supporting the values of the Sanders movement is not "refighting the primaries". [View all]The Sand Reckoner
(194 posts)in the Democratic primary. He was not a Democrat, for pity's sake. Primaries are NOT free elections, open to the public. They are the means by which parties choose their candidate for the general election, and they can do it any damn way they please. They are under no obligation whatsoever to allow people who are not members of the party to participate in any way, nor are they obliged to conform to any outsider's notion of what's "fair". Something politically clueless Sanders supporters discovered this to their astonishment when they were not allowed to vote in closed primaries for a party they refused to be a part of.
Frankly, I don't know why the Democratic Party let Sanders, who had rejected them for decades, pull a Rosie Ruiz and cut to the front of the line. I can only imagine they perceived a threat to pull as many votes as possible away from Clinton if he was forced to run as a true independent. But having done so, they were still perfectly reasonable and within their rights to favor a lifelong Democrat over a lifelong rejector of the Democratic Party, until the association suited him.