“To beat Donald Trump, we have to beat Secretary Clinton first,” Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders told rapturous supporters as he campaigns in California — the State that votes on June 7 to elect 475 delegates, the highest, to the party national convention. “We are going to sweep the west coast.”
Meanwhile, trending twitter hashtags #HillaryLostMe, #BernieLostMe and #BernieOrBust reflect the spreading animosity between the followers of the candidates. Mr. Sanders’s supporters have started an online campaign to defeat Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz in her Congressional re-election bid.
Unruly behaviourOn Wednesday, she and other senior leaders of the party held Mr. Sanders responsible for the unruly behaviour of his supporters at the Nevada party convention last Saturday, after the State chair arbitrarily changed the rules of the convention.
Mr. Sanders has won 46 per cent of the pledged delegates till date, and needs to win 70 per cent of the delegates in the remaining six States to match the number of pledged delegates supporting frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Her huge lead among the super-delegates will still remain.
Just as Ms. Clinton inches closer to winning the nomination, a new national poll on Wednesday showed her trailing presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump by three points. Another one on Tuesday had her leading Mr. Trump by a narrow three percentage points. Mr. Sanders beats Mr. Trump in the latest.
But the strife in the party is getting nastier. “That needs to be unequivocally condemned, and unfortunately it has not been unequivocally condemned,” Ms. Schultz said, referring to the Nevada controversy. Roberta Lange, the Nevada Chairperson whom Mr. Sanders has termed partisan, released messages she received from alleged supporters of the candidate. In one, the caller told her: “I think people like you should be hung in a public execution to show this world that we won’t stand for this sort of corruption.”
Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, both supporters of Ms. Clinton, also put the onus on Mr. Sanders to rein in his supporters.
In an ominous statement, Ms. Feinstein also invoked memories of the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention that turned violent. Anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy had challenged the Cold War consensus on the Vietnam War that dominated the party, and the resulting divisions led to massive violence.
Memories of 68“It worries me a great deal. You know, I don’t want to go back to the ’68 convention, because I worry about what it does to the electorate as a whole — and he should, too,” she said, addressing Mr. Sanders.
The Sanders campaign has, meanwhile, challenged Ms. Clinton for a new debate in California. “[W]e hope Secretary Clinton will soon make good on her campaign’s commitment and agree to a time and place for a debate,” his campaign manager said.
As divisions run deeper and the nomination contest turns bitter, President Barack Obama does not think it is time yet for his intervention. A White House spokesman said Mr. Obama will indeed help unify the party, but that will be only after the nomination process is over.
Asked whether the President agreed with the Senator’s view that at this rate the party national convention may turn violent, Josh Earnest, White House Spokesperson, said: “Well, I can tell you that right now that’s not something that we’re concerned about.”
“Obviously, there will be a need for Democrats to come together in the general election, and the President will be making that case,” he said, adding that the primary debates only made the party stronger. “That’s a good thing, and that kind of competition makes the candidates and makes the parties and makes our democracy stronger,” he said
