It’s time to wrap up the primary fight, according to two prominent Democrats.
Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), who endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden ahead of the South Carolina primary, is calling for the Democratic National Committee to “shut this primary down” after Biden racked up a series of wins on Tuesday, including the key state of Michigan.
Not a fan of Bernie, but I have to disagree with this one.
The Dem 2020 Turnout Machine is being built, state-by-state. Get the people to vote in the primaries and you’re going to get them to turn out in November.
I am ok with Biden shifting to more of a general election focus. Also, no need for additional debates, I have no interest in Biden and Sanders yelling at each other for an hour.
its time for Jim Clyburn and James Carville to STFU.
We haven’t had a single Bernie v Biden debate — and in the last two debates, no one challenged Biden at all, because everyone thought he was toast.
give people a chance to express their views – and their displeasure with Biden. Its up to Bernie to decide when Bernie is done, not Democratic establishment hacks like Clyburn and Carville.
ETA
absolutely disagree with this. When Biden was challenged in the early debates, his support fell apart. He only did well in the more recent debates because everyone ignored him – going after Bloomberg and Sanders instead.
Biden needs to show that he is up to the job – and up to a campaign against Donald Trump. But if he acts as addled as he did last night with Lawrence O’Donnell, the party needs to find a replacement pronto.
I wonder what the Bernie Bros will do when Bernie himself endorses Joe: accuse Bernie of being “the Establishment”?
Biden was fine on O’Donnell last night.
Turn out the lights, the party’s over.
In every high-turnout primary, Biden has crushed B.S. Joe has proven he can turn out the vote, while B.S. has severely underperformed his results from 2016.
compared to what? Trump?
Biden was unable to string three sentences without going off on some bizarre tangent. His inability to focus, and deliver thoughtful rational responses to basic questions is troublesome in the extreme.
He could do that by, I dunno, running a general election campaign against Donald Trump. Suppose Sanders exposed a particular Biden weakness to hard-left talking points… so? Trump won’t run a hard-left campaign.
In any case, apparently Sanders isn’t speaking tonight, so it looks like he agrees with Clyburn and Carville more than he agrees with his most ardent supporters.
If it becomes mathematically impossible for Sen. Sanders to win the nomination, what is the purpose of an extended nominating contest and additional debates? And also, when did Rep. Clyburn become a “Democratic establishment hack”? Those sorts of slurs are not useful.
Clearly the majority of voters disagree with you.
Well actually it is the voters who are wrong. Voters clearly don’t represent the will of the people.
After 5 years of campaigning on the idea of revolution brought by new voters, Sanders can neither bring in new voters nor match his 2016 numbers. At the same time, Biden is driving record breaking turnouts without having any real campaign on the ground.
So – why am I not surprised that you saw something quite different in yesterday’s O’donnell interview than most of us did? Why am I not surprised that you don’t see the writing on the wall?
obviously, its not mathmatically impossible for Sanders to win the nomination.
And Clyburn is an establishment hack – sure he deserves respect for his accomplishments, but that doesn’t stop him from being an establishment hack. He’s the sole reason that Democrats waste their time campaigning in a “no chance to win” state like South Carolina, rather than a state with substantial black voters and a fighting chance for Democrats to win.
I support deciding by votes and knowing the will of the people, but I dont want to see our eventual candidate get hurt for the general election by ugly primary fights either. If Biden amasses enough to primary wins to be truly insurmountable then maybe. If it is just currently breaking his way I am against shutting it down. I instinctively dont like the idea.
You must be tunneling from an alternative universe just before hitting the “enter” key on your keyboard.
While Biden is Cicero and Turing compared to Trump, only in recent debates did he even rise to the level of mediocrity. I think it’s a mistake to let him take 6 months off from debating before facing Trump, he needs to stay sharper than that.
I hope no one actually involved in running the primary picks up on this kind of nonsense, and really, it might be nice if the DNC issued some kind of statement about ensuring the continuation and integrity of the process to its ultimate conclusion. Many of the Sanders fans I know are already very prone to conspiracy theories on how their candidate is being thwarted, having two people who have no excuse not to know better adding fuel to the fire is incredibly unhelpful.
Someday maybe I’ll understand why a candidate having the backing of a party is a bad thing, when a candidate presumably wants to guide that party toward legislating and then enacting policy. Today sure isn’t that day.
As was regrettably but accurately said in the liveblog comment section ( @sniffit ),
The problem is that they’ve been taught to think that outside looking in is a moral high horse.
The debates are meaningless. HRC atomized Mr. Trump in all 3 debates and it didn’t help her at all.
