But then early yesterday evening I turned off my computer and turned on my TV and channel-surfed between news stations, and I relaxed somewhat, because, apart from clips of Bernie telling cheering crowds that it wasn't over (it's over) and Jeff Weaver, Bernie's campaign manager, doing his usual reality-challenged schtick with interviewers looking increasingly tired of him, it was as if he had dropped out: with very few, very short exceptions, nobody was talking about Bernie, everybody was talking about Hillary vs The Donald. Anderson Cooper asked Hillary if she was upset with Bernie for not having dropped out, she very calmly said no, and they went back to talking about more important things.
The die-hard Bernie supporters make a lot of noise. But you have to wonder how many of them there are. It would be nice if Bernie made nice with Hillary and called on all of his supporters to support her. But if he doesn't, you have to wonder how many people will still be paying attention to him.
Bernie's great at shouting about how things should be changed. Hillary's great at planning, step-by-step, how to actually change them. And the biggest part of those plans is about bringing as many Democrats into political office with her in November as she can. No matter who's in the White House, the majority party in the Senate and House is going to make all the difference about how much or little the President can actually do. Those 500+ superdelegates who've committed to Hillary, as against 40-something for Bernie, can see that Hillary is committed to helping them and as many other Democrats as possible take office. And they can see that Bernie, amazingly, doesn't seem to care much at all about their campaigns. This isn't rocket science, even if it actually is over Bernie's head: political parties work together. That's what they're there for. Hillary's raising money for other Democrats. Bernie isn't. Hillary's stumping for other Democrats. Bernie isn't. This is really, really simple.
It boggles the mind to think that Bernie actually can't see why all of those superdelegates are with Hillary and not with him, but it almost looks that way.
It's not rocket science. Even if Bernie never gets it, a lot of Democrats who've voted for him in the primaries will. The New York primary was 16 days ago -- do you remember it? Remember how so many people were exclaiming about how 25,000 people turned out for one of Bernie's rallies in Brooklyn? In the primary, 116,327 in Brooklyn voted for Bernie, and 174,236 for Hillary. For every person who came to that rally, about 4 1/2 voted for Bernie in the primary and about 7 for Hillary. Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx were even more lopsided for Hillary than that. If it was about the number of people who come to the rallies, Bernie would've wrapped up the nomination a long time ago. So far, 12,553,043 have voted in the primaries for Hillary so far, and 9,440,066 for Bernie. So, even leaving the superdelegates completely out of it, she's kicking his ass. Whether he notices it or not.
I think I've been unnecessarily upsetting myself, by paying more attention to hardcore feelers of the Bern than they have merited.
No comments:
Post a Comment