Tuesday’s primaries in five northeastern states are likely to close the contest for Democratic presidential nomination. On Monday, frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s challenger Bernie Sanders admitted that it would be tough for him to win. Tougher, it will be, to unite the Democratic Party ahead of the November general election.
Mr. Sanders, who has always maintained that he would support Ms. Clinton if she wins the nomination, added a caveat on Monday – it will be her burden to convince his supporters. “It is incumbent upon her to tell millions of people who right now do not believe in establishment politics or establishment economics, who have serious misgivings about a candidate who has received millions of dollars from Wall Street and other special interests,” he said. “She has got to go out to you.” Mr. Sanders was responding to a question from a supporter who wondered what could he do in the event of Ms. Clinton winning the nomination.
Mr. Sanders says she is beholden to the interests of Wall Street. Ms. Clinton has made several leftward turns in response to the massive mobilisation by Mr. Sanders, but the latter is hardly impressed. In recent weeks she has been trying to present her politics as similar to Mr. Sanders’s, questioning him only on his lack of strategy to achieve those objectives. Once a proponent, now she is an opponent of the Trans Pacific Partnership; and Ms. Clinton has revised her position to support $15 an hour federal minimum wage.
Mr. Sanders’s continuing attack on Ms. Clinton, even as she is trying to behave the winner, will keep the insurgency boiling, and could seriously undermine her general election run. Ms. Clinton has more people disfavouring her than favouring her according to opinion polls. Mr. Sanders has the most favourable rating among all candidates in the fray.
Responding to a follow up question, Mr. Sanders said he would do “everything in my power to make sure that no Republican gets into the White House,” but did not tone down his attack on the frontrunner. “This campaign is about taking on the entire establishment. The Democratic establishment, the financial establishment, and in Clinton’s campaign, the most powerful political organization in the United States of America.”
“Certainly we share a lot of the same goals,” she said, soon after Mr. Sanders’s comments, speaking from the same platform. “I think we have much more in common and I want to unify the party.” Recalling that she supported Barack Obama without conditions after losing to him in the nomination race in 2008, Ms. Clinton said: “I did not put down conditions. I did not say, you know what, if Senator Obama does X, Y and Z, I will support Senator Obama….I spent an enormous amount of time convincing my supporters to support Senator Obama,” making clear what she expects Mr. Sanders to do.
“I am ahead and let’s start from that premise when we talk about what happens next, OK?” she said on concessions she could make to Mr. Sanders. “I am winning. And I’m winning because of what I stand for and what I’ve done and what my ideals are.”
Ms. Clinton, who has to, and is expected to move to centre ahead of the general election, has little space to please Mr. Sanders’s supporters any more. And that is going to be the biggest dilemma before her and the Democratic Party in the coming weeks.
