Democrat elites tell Bernie to pack it up and go home

Ever since we knew Bernie was going to throw his hat in the ring, I've been arguing that he's unelectable. Partly it's because he's a socialist. That still carries a hugely negative connotation for most of the country and, at some point, he would have to outline his actual economic plans. When that happened, it would only serve to reinforce peoples' belief that socialism is unsustainable and anti-growth. However, Bernie's political leanings weren't the only reason to assume he's unelectable. The bigger reason is that the Democrat Party has no interest in letting him be their nominee. The far left base might like him, but the party as a whole has no intention of handing itself to an uncontrollable non-member.

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It was pretty clear that, sooner or later, Bernie was going to get "the talk." From the Politico:

After holding their fire on Sanders for the better part of a year, the senators — all backers of Hillary Clinton — are gently calling on Sanders to face the reality that there’s almost no chance he’s going to be the Democratic nominee. They don’t say outright he should quit; doing so would be counterproductive, they say. But nearly a dozen Democratic lawmakers suggested in interviews that Sanders should focus more on stopping Donald Trump and less on why he believes Clinton’s stands on trade, financial regulation and foreign policy would make her a flawed president. “What’s important is not whether or not he gets out, but how he campaigns,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). “If the contrast is now about what separates us from Donald Trump, then I think it’s fine. I just hope that we can begin to focus on unifying because obviously a lot of us are perplexed that we could be facing a country led by someone who seems to be a buffoon.”

That's a rather oblique way of saying "Our nominee is going to be Hillary, and if Bernie wants to keep campaigning, he can campaign for her." Dems have tolerated Bernie's presence on their stage for a while, mostly because it helped them pretend they were having a primary rather than a coronation, but their patience clearly has its limits. Bernie has vowed to fight all the way to the convention, so we'll have to wait and see what he does. The bigger question now is: Will the Bernie Faithful stand on principle and refuse to vote for Clinton, or will they abandon their convictions to line up and pull the Democrat lever?

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