Bernie’s troops not ready to retreat
Bid for delegates to back Clinton draws chorus of boos
PHILADELPHIA — Revolutions are tricky things. They are genies that won’t go back in the bottle easily.
And so it is with the Bernie Sanders revolution. Bernie can do and say all the right things as he did last night and earlier in the day at a farewell to his troops, but the soldiers — well, they’re not in a mood just yet to lay the movement to rest. Not even when they know the stakes are high.
In an afternoon address/ pep rally for the more than 1,800 Sanders delegates and then some (if all these folks had a seat on the convention floor Sanders would be giving the acceptance speech Thursday night, not Hillary Clinton) the Vermont senator praised their efforts and reminded them, “This campaign is not just about a president. It is about building a movement to transform this country.”
And some of the Sanders agenda has indeed been enshrined in the Democratic Party platform — which has been pretty much acknowledged to be the most left-leaning the party has ever adopted. People like state Senate President Stan Rosenberg, who addressed the Massachusetts delegation yesterday morning, think that’s a good thing. Clinton delegates give it a big “whatever” and Republican PACs will delight in turning it on Democratic candidates at all levels.
But Sanders fans aren’t content with victories on paper, and they aren’t all prepared to give up the fight.
“Immediately, right now we have got to defeat Donald Trump and we have got to elect Hillary Clinton,” Sanders said in his address to delegates, and the room erupted in an extended round of boos. He tried again.
“Trump is a bully and a demagogue. ... And I will do everything I can to make sure he is defeated.”
More chants of “Feel the Bern.”
One woman, part of the afternoon warmup act, went so far as to say the forbidden, “If Trump becomes president it’s not our fault.”
And that’s the real fault line here — between the realists, those who know there are only two real candidates on the ballot and they have to choose one, and the movement lefties who figure a crashand-burn Trump presidency wouldn’t be the worst thing.
Anyone in the latter camp in the Massachusetts delegation — which has several dozen Sanders delegates along for the final ride — got some tough love from U.S. Rep. Mike Capuano of Somerville at breakfast yesterday.
“Sure, I’ve had that ‘Don’t blame me I’m from Massachusetts’ bumper sticker on my car for a long time,” he said. “It felt good ... for a while.
“But if we let our differences get between us, we will lose and we will deserve to lose.”
Not everyone in the room wanted to hear that — nor his pitch that the election isn’t just about the White House, but about the House and the Senate too.
Leslie Phillips, a Sanders delegate from Cambridge, said “short of a miracle of biblical proportions,” she knows the fight is over and come Friday, she said, “I’ll be ready to go out and start campaigning for the nominee of my party.”
The name still does not touch her lips.
For many others “The Cause” — whatever it may be — will get all their energy. Palestinian rights. Single-payer health care. Free this or that.
But when several thousand people boo the name of Hillary Clinton every time it is mentioned and Sanders’ biggest applause line is about the firing of Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, well, somewhere “the orange man” — as they call him here — is smiling.