2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Hillary Clinton is a very smart person. She saw the support [View all]ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...in one sense, i.e. you pick one candidate and the other one loses. Although in the primary, you may start with more than 2 candidates. But either way, you only have one winner.
On the other hand, in order to win, a candidate must have the support of voters. In the recent Democratic primary, Hillary did achieve the most votes and delegates, so she appears to have won the primary.
Now we have the general election in front of us. At present it looks like a shoo-in, since Trump is worse than a fool. But of course, the electorate can be worse than foolish also, so we cannot afford to be smug. And Bernie did attract a huge number of new voters, and did generate a huge amount of enthusiasm. If that does not tell Hillary and the rest of the Democrats something, well then, they are truly deaf to the wishes of the population.
Yes I get that there is a large segment of the population who are happy with Hillary. But she and the party also need those voters who wanted Bernie. Even if she wins without them, she will have lost an opportunity to solidify her own position and that of the party with a large voting block. Those people could ensure Democratic victories for years to come. Or not.