Eugene Robinson - "Sanders Is Playing With Fire"
While the Wall Street Journal has been running a series of editorials that have very supportive of Bernie Sanders, folks like Eugene Robinson are arguing that Bernie's attacks on the Democratic party and the election process are not just damaging to the efforts to win the White House, but to Democratic efforts to take back Congress.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/05/20/sanders_is_playing_with_fire_130618.html
WASHINGTON -- Bernie Sanders is playing a dangerous game. If he and his campaign continue their scorched-earth attacks against the Democratic Party, they will succeed only in one thing: electing Donald Trump as president.
I say this as someone who shares much of Sanders' political philosophy; I too, for example, see health care as a basic right. He has run a remarkable and historically significant campaign, pulling the party to the left and pumping it full of new progressive vigor. His crowds are almost as big as Trump's and perhaps even more enthusiastic. Most important, he has brought legions of young people into the political process.
* * *
Given this context, Sanders and his campaign are being shamefully irresponsible. Rather than accept defeat, they claim loudly that the party's nominating process was rigged against them. They display a degree of entitlement that they have not earned.
They rail against "unfair" and "undemocratic" party processes -- unless they work in Sanders' favor. So party conventions -- such as the one last weekend in Nevada, at which Sanders tried and failed to win a couple of extra delegates through parliamentary maneuvering -- are bad. But holding caucuses, which have limited participation, instead of primaries is good, because Sanders did very well in caucus states.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Bernie & Elizabeth 2016!!!
The problem is they were never really good at hiding their maneuvers. THEY ARE NOT VERY SUBTLE.
During the very few months, the media ignored both Sanders and O'Malley. I wrote a piece here called the Big Ignore and I will never forget that time frame. The first states lines up to vote were states that would probably go to Hillary, the southern states where she was well known and had a big support community from African-Americans. During that time frame, voters in those states had never even heard Bernie Sanders' name, and probably were not familiar with O'Malley. But Sanders himself said during that time frame 50 percent of the Country had never heard his name, and it was the mission of the MSM to keep it that way as long as it could. Members of the MSM support the TPP and Sanders was the only politician openly and constantly extremely critical of it. The MSM did not like that....
Once Hillary had a series of wins in those states, immediately we heard she was inevitable. So they stage was set.
She got off to a wonderful start with a big lead with those southern states, and the battlecry was established.
However, throughout the rest of the campaign we recognized the dirty tricks. Many of us were not born yesterday.
The debate schedule was contested even though everyone but Hillary' campaign and DWS thought it was ridiculous. And it was.
There has been just too many things that have happened during this campaign (most of which I assume Brock and Penn initiated) that have been appalling.
Eugene Robinson is a wonderful columnist but he adheres to the establishment rules. Afterall, he needs to work too. He is being critical of Bernie Sanders for not dropping out before California votes and Hillary in 2008 refused to do the same thing. California was the state that turned things around for Bill Clinton when he thought he was losing, and Hillary refused to drop out before California voted. Now Bernie is doing what both Clintons did, but he is wrecking the Democratic. Right.
Sam
You know, that Facebook thing all the kids are doing. 
