Bernie Sanders gave Hillary Clinton the primary she needed
Bernie Sanders may not have won the Democratic nomination--but he gave Hillary Clinton exactly the primary fight she needed.
Sanders did not concede the Democratic primary Thursday night, telling his supporters via live-stream that he is working to come to an agreement with Clinton "in the coming weeks."
"It is no secret that Secretary Clinton and I have strong disagreements on some very important issues. It is also true that our views are quite close on others," he said. "I look forward, in the coming weeks, to continued discussions between the two campaigns to make certain that your voices are heard and that the Democratic Party passes the most progressive platform in its history and that Democrats actually fight for that agenda."
At this point eight years ago, the consensus among Democrats was that the primary sharpened both candidates' skills, making Mr. Obama a better candidate for the general election. That sentiment was strong enough in the party that last spring, when Clinton first announced and it wasn't clear whether any of her challengers could put up a real fight.
As a result, some Democrats lamented the prospect of a primary that would be more coronation than competition. Some worried Clinton's crown would be a little rusty from lack of practice if she went unchallenged in the primaries. According to Gallup polling at the time, 54 percent of Democrats said they wanted to see a competitive primary.
As Sanders noted Thursday night, his campaign went much further and did much better than anyone could have expected when he announced last spring. The Vermont senator, a 74-year-old self-described "Democratic socialist," was an unlikely poster boy for the progressive movement at the outset of his bid.
But Sanders had an impressive showing: he won 22 states and approximately 45 percent of the pledged delegates in the primaries. He galvanized a group of supporters that included young people and many others who were new to the political process. And he consistently emphasized a set of progressive issues and policies that otherwise might not have made it front and center in the campaign.
Thursday's speech to supporters was yet another step in the winding down Sanders and his campaign have done over the last 10 days, since Clinton's bigger-than-expected victory in California, which coincided with her reaching the 2,383 delegate threshold necessary to clinch the Democratic nomination.
Though he came up short, Sanders played an important role in the race in more than just the policies he highlighted: he gave Clinton exactly the kind of primary she needed. On policy, he pushed her left on a handful of issues that clearly strike a nerve with a big segment of the Democratic electorate. By waging a campaign to the very end, he gave Democrats a chance to build up operations and a supporter base in all 50 states that can serve as the basis for the general election. And he gave Clinton a real sparring partner on the debate stage who helped her hone her skills to face off against Donald Trump.
What's more, he did this without the kind of intense damage competitive primaries often inflict, avoiding handing Republicans any additional ammunition to use against Clinton, now that it's time for the general election.
The influence of the progressive wing of the party on Clinton has been clear since she launched her campaign: even last April, at her first campaign events, she was talking about how the "deck is stacked in favor of those at the top," railing against money in politics.
But as the primary season went on, it was clear that Sanders was putting pressure on Clinton on other progressive issues as well. In the fall, Clinton announced her opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal as well as the Keystone XL pipeline--two things she'd favored during her four years in the Obama administration, but which are big flashpoints for the progressive community.
The two sparred over those policy issues and more at the Democratic debates, with Sanders suggesting Clinton was late to the party on a host of issues important to progressives. While Clinton supported legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $12 per hour, Sanders was pushing hard for a $15-per-hour minimum wage--an issue he's hoping to get into the Democratic platform in Philadelphia this summer at the convention. And his influence extends beyond just Clinton: Mr. Obama recently called for an expansion of the Social Security program, which was widely seen as evidence of Sanders' clout in the party.
In spite of all that, Sanders focused almost exclusively on policy-based critiques of Clinton--and avoided the sometimes personal attacks that characterized her 2008 race against then-Sen. Barack Obama. That year, Mr. Obama went after Clinton for suggesting she'd once landed in Bosnia under sniper fire and said Clinton was "likable enough"; Clinton ran her infamous 3 a.m. phone call ad, called out Mr. Obama's comments about "bitter" Americans who "cling to guns or religion," and in South Carolina, her husband called his campaign "the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen."
In this race, though, not a single explicitly negative ad was run by either candidate. The closest Sanders got to criticizing Clinton directly on the airwaves was talking about "two Democratic visions" for dealing with Wall Street, saying one vision "says it's okay to take millions from big banks and then tell them what to do."
It wasn't until April that there was any semblance of the nastiness that sometimes comes with tough primaries. That was when Sanders said at a rally that Clinton isn't "qualified" to be president, a comment he soon walked back.
Besides that, however, Sanders stayed away from the private email server scandal which Republicans have seized upon, famously declaring at the first Democratic debate in October that voters were "sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails." He didn't touch the questions raised about foreign donations and influence at the Clinton Foundation. In fact, the closest he came to personal criticism was his focus on Clinton's reluctance to release the transcripts of her paid speeches on Wall Street.
What's next for Sanders is still unclear, but what is clear is that the movement he's created isn't going anywhere. In 2008, Clinton formally conceded the race on June 7, four days after Mr. Obama clinched the nomination. She first appeared with him on the campaign trail, at an event in Unity, N.H., just under three weeks later on June 27.
Whether that joint Clinton-Sanders appearance will happen any time soon remains to be seen.
"My hope is that when future historians look back and describe how our country moved forward into reversing the drift toward oligarchy," Sanders said Thursday, "and created a government which represents all the people and not just the few, they will note that, to a significant degree, that effort began with the political revolution of 2016."