Leonard Pitts: Bernie Sanders looking more like a sore loser

“You can’t always get what you want.” — The Rolling Stones

A few words in defense of pragmatism.

That ideal has taken quite a beating lately, mostly at the hands of Bernie Sanders and his supporters. The Vermont senator faces a virtually impossible deficit in his battle with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. Pragmatism would seem to suggest it’s time for him to pack it in.

But pragmatism don’t know Bernie. Or Bernie Nation.

If this weren’t clear before, it has been made abundantly so in the last two weeks, beginning with Sanders supporters in Las Vegas tearing open the Nevada Democratic convention in a protest so angrily chaotic it was shut down by security, fearing violence. But Sanders supporters weren’t done yet; they also sent death threats to party officials.

The proximate cause of this Trumpish behavior was a dispute over rules, a claim that, as Sanders’ campaign manager put it, the convention had been “hijacked” to award more delegates to Hillary Clinton. Politico rated that false.

In a Monday interview, Sanders told the Associated Press that this summer’s convention could be “messy,” though he later insisted that was not a tacit suggestion of violence.

Given the intensity of the emotions at play and the behavior of his supporters in Vegas, it’s hard to see how it could have been anything but. Which is disappointing. A few days ago, Sanders’ campaign seemed headed for an honorable legacy. But he has apparently decided instead upon a legacy of peevishness and sore losing, which is, as Frank Bruni noted a few weeks back in The New York Times, a hallmark of this political epoch."


http://savannahnow.com/opinion-columns/2016-05-25/leonard-pitts-bernie-sanders-looking-more-sore-loser

Too Easy: How Republicans Would Tear Apart an Unvetted Bernie Sanders in the General Election

Bernie Sanders should have never gotten this far.

"For nearly eight months, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was able to skate by thanks to a willing media in bad need of a horse race on the Democratic side. Sure, it would be a historic first in our country for a woman to be the first ever nominee from a major political party, but that kind of history is so boring. There's no drama in having a clear frontrunner, running a clean campaign, avoiding any major slip ups or scandals all while running against a weak, inept, and single-issue fringe candidate with no real legislative accomplishments to his name. By giving the race the sense of being a "coronation" the networks knew that the majority of viewers wouldn't be tuning it, despite that opportunity to see what the history books will eventually show as being a historical campaign. The media needed drama and the only way to create drama was to create a sense that the race was much closer than it actually was.

So like the good little Orwellian puppets that they are, our media did everything it could to create a horse race when one never existed. Sanders does well in Iowa and New Hampshire? The media simply ignores the fact that the demographics there play to Sanders' strengths. Sanders gets destroyed in South Carolina? The media simply ignores the fact that it's clear he hasn't won over the increasingly integral African-American voting bloc. Sanders struggles to win over Latinos?"

Excerpted

http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2016/5/19/this-ends-now-the-bernie-sanders-opposition-research-the-media-refuses-to-release

I was wrong folks...for those who said the Donald was trolling Bernie you were right.

"Donald Trump Says No, He Won’t Debate Bernie Sanders

Ending nearly 48 hours of speculation

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will not debate Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, he announced Friday, as he decided it would be “inappropriate” to debate the Democratic insurgent, who is far behind Hillary Clinton in their nominating contest.

In a statement, Trump ended nearly 48-hours of speculation that such a debate would take place, after he seemingly accepted an invitation to debate Sanders offered by late night host Jimmy Kimmel. Trump aides quickly said it was a joke, but the candidate followed-up in a Thursday news conference suggesting he might accept if networks donated millions to women’s health charities"

Excerpted


http://time.com/4351261/donald-trump-bernie-sanders-debate-no/

What the hell are you doing, Bernie?

Unless Hillary Clinton is indicted (which remains unlikely), Bernie Sanders will not be the Democratic nominee. It’s a tiresome task, having to make this point over and over again. But it’s necessary. Sanders continues to campaign as though the race isn’t over, and that’s understandable. There are still votes left to be cast and he has every right to lobby for as many as possible.

His campaign has made it clear the goal at this point is to secure as many votes and delegates as possible before the convention. The more successful they are, the more leverage they’ll have. If Sanders is sincere about reshaping the party and influencing the platform, this makes perfect sense. So when he says things like, “When I’m elected president, we’re going to open the Democratic Party wide open,” as he did recently at a rally in California, that’s a candidate playing to the crowd. If you’re still asking for people’s votes, you have to feign optimism. “We can’t win the nomination but I want more leverage at the convention” lacks inspiration.

Excerpt
http://www.salon.com/2016/05/26/what_the_hell_are_you_doing_bernie_the_vermont_senator_inexplicably_agrees_to_debate_donald_trump/

Trump supporters crossing over and voting for Sanders.This is why we like closed primaries.

Things got weird in West Virginia Tuesday night.

Bernie Sanders won the state’s primary over Hillary Clinton, and while the delegates he collects will do nothing to knock the front-runner off her glide path to the Democratic nomination, it will give the insurgent candidate a much-needed shot of adrenaline during what could be a good month for him.

That part was expected. The rest was not.


MSNBC LIVE, 5/10/16, 4:39 PM ET


http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/trump-voters-boost-sanders-west-virginia

West Virginia, like other Southern and Appalachian states, is at the tail end of a long transition away from Democratic Party, which once ruled the South, to the GOP, the natural ideological home of its conservative voters.
Democratic voters still technically outnumber Republicans nearly two-to-one in the Mountain State, even though it hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in 20 years, and isn’t likely to again for the foreseeable future.

Just over half – 51 percent – of West Virginia voters are registered Democrats, while just 29 percent are registered Republicans, according to data released by the secretary of state’s office. Another 17.6 percent of voters are independents.

Many of those Democrats, however, behave like Republicans, which helps explain why Donald Trump voters played a key role in putting Sanders over the top Tuesday.

A third of those who voted in West Virginia’s Democratic primary say they plan to back Trump in November, according to NBC News exit polls. Sanders won those voters by a wide margin.

A Sanders Comeback