DEMOCRATIC DISCORD COULD BE TRUMP CARD
Party unity nowhere to be seen
Three potential scenarios in the Democratic nomination process — wins by Bernie Sanders, Michael Bloomberg or no certain winner heading into the summer’s convention — pose serious dangers for Democrats, who risk party dysfunction that leads to four more years of President Trump, pundits say.
“The Democrats could be defeated right before they get out of the box,” said GOP strategist Ford O’Connell. “You don’t even need the Republicans. … You have a non-Democrat socialist who’s leading in the polls, and you have a New York billionaire trying to make a leveraged buyout of the primary process.”
Bloomberg, the billionaire Republican-turned-Independent mayor of New York City, has become the target of incoming fire from all sides as he hurls money into wide-ranging ad campaigns.
He punched back on Monday in an advertisement in which he took direct aim at national polling leader Sanders, criticizing the senator and his ardent base as having a myway-or-the-highway approach.
Some Democrats fear the Vermont independent’s selfidentification as a “democratic socialist” could turn off voters in the middle — though some also worry that his fans, who feel that they already were spurned by the Democratic National Committee in 2016, might take the “Bernie or Bust” route and refuse to line up behind a different nominee. With the fractured field — further complicated by the late rise of Bloomberg, who’s not even on the ballot in the first four primary states — there’s also the prospect of going into this summer’s nominating convention with no one candidate having enough delegates to clinch the election outright.
That leaves open the possibility of a brokered convention or the party putting its thumb on the scale by throwing its extra “superdelegates” behind one candidate or another — even pushing one who’s not the leader over the hump.
“That could tear the party apart,” said former Massachusetts Democratic Party chairman Phil Johnston.
Johnston said both Sanders and Bloomberg are “polarizing” candidates but either could unite the electorate if they gather enough support to win the nomination outright, and the party backs them up.
“The Democrats have to be very careful that nothing happens over the next several months that would alienate any portion of the Democratic electorate,” Johnston said. “The only way we can win is if we have a united party.”
Many Democratic activists insist their party will unify behind an “anyone but Trump” ethos. U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, who represents much of Boston, said as much on Monday at a canvassing event for U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whose campaign she co-chairs.
“People realize what’s at stake here,” Pressley told reporters. “Forget four more years — we can’t afford four more minutes of him.”
But results from Iowa and New Hampshire show a divided electorate that’s far from coalescing around a single candidate.
Democratic strategist Scott Ferson said Sanders’ most avid supporters “aren’t big-tent people” willing to make room for moderates, but he believes the party and electorate will move back toward the middle in time to mend divides. Meanwhile, he said, sharp divisions are to be