Guide to party unity written in 2008
As Democrats start to come together, Obama and Clinton remember history.
WASHINGTON — After all the worrying among Democrats about Bernie Sanders and his supporters going rogue in the general election and refusing to rally behind a nominee who embodies the establishment politics they detest, those concerns are fading rapidly as the presidential primaries wind to a close.
Unity does not look nearly as elusive for the party this year as it did at the end of the bitter primary campaign in 2008, and it is in no small part because the two candidates who went through the bruising process then found themselves in the middle of it again this year. President Obama and Hillary Clinton were determined to see it go more smoothly this time.
The two painstakingly planned how to go about drawing in Sanders supporters before the nomination race was even over. It helped that they had Sen. Elizabeth Warren (DMass.), herself a leader of the progressive movement like Sanders, to go along with them. And it helped even more that the alternative to Clinton in November is Donald Trump, a Republican candidate who horrifies even the most steadfast Clinton skeptics on the left.
“Nothing unites the people of Earth like a threat from Mars,” said Paul Begala, a longtime advisor to both Bill and Hillary Clin-
ton, now the strategist for the main super PAC seeking to elect her. “To Democrats, Donald Trump is not just in a parade of conservative Republicans they disagree with. They view him, rightly, as a bigot.”
Still, both Obama and Clinton were acutely aware that they could not rely on Trump to bring the party together for them. One White House official had, earlier this year, identified the task of unifying Democrats as a “foundational concern” for Obama. He sees a united front as key to victory; he relied on the support of 90% of voters registered in his party to win reelection. Ninety percent of Republicans, by contrast, voted for Mitt Romney. It was the first time both parties supported their nominees at such levels, and it suggested little room for slippage.
“It’s simple arithmetic,” Begala said. Clinton “can’t win without Sen. Sanders’ supporters.”
Yet if there was one takeaway about party unity from the divisive primary contest of 2008 for both Obama and Clinton, it was that the loyalty that supporters have for their primary candidate does not disappear quickly. Any perceived slights or insults from the other side can set back bridge-building efforts. Even after Clinton had endorsed Obama in 2008, some of her prominent supporters refused to go along.
Mindful of what happened then, the president held back throughout the spring from jumping into a campaign he has been eager to participate in for months. Even as Sanders crusaded with a message far less enthusiastic about the Obama administration than was Clinton’s, Obama saw in his movement similarities to his own eight years ago. The president consulted with his advisors often about how and when to best try to harness Sanders’ support for the party in the general election.
By Sunday, Obama’s worries about rattling leftleaning voters had been overtaken by concerns that delaying any further would hurt Clinton. He timed the moment carefully, mindful of the fact that no matter when he jumped in, some voters would not appreciate it. He told Sanders his Clinton endorsement was coming.
Sanders requested that Obama wait until they meet. Obama obliged. But the discussion they would have a few days later, on Thursday, was not a debate about when Sanders would exit the race. By then, Clinton had been declared the decisive winner in the California primary and accepted the mantle of presumptive nominee in a prime-time address that dwelt on the historic nature of her candidacy. With Obama having concluded Sanders’ campaign was effectively over, the two men instead discussed how Sanders could continue building his movement. They talked about the Vermonter’s potential role reenergizing state parties and moving state legislatures in a progressive direction, as well as how Sanders could use the momentum he built on the campaign trail to push forward in the Senate his signature issues of income equality, college debt and money in politics.
The apparent tone of the discussion and the respect Obama showed, according to Sanders, was meaningful for Sanders backers. The visual of Sanders walking with Obama in the colonnade alongside the White House Rose Garden signaled an embrace of the Sanders agenda.
The meeting also highlighted how much easier unity can be to come by for Democrats when they have an incumbent in the White House who remains extremely popular in the party. To that effect, the first place Obama will be campaigning with Clinton is in Wisconsin on Wednesday. It is a state with a large progressive base that has been skeptical of Clinton; Sanders won the state’s primary 56% to 43%. But it is also a state where Obama beat her in 2008 and went on to carry in two general elections. Voters there remain enthusiastic about him.
Obama can play the role of character witness who knows better than anyone how Clinton set aside her hard feelings after the 2008 primary to campaign for Obama and then serve in his administration, said one White House official. He already served that function while trying to broker the peace between Sanders and Clinton on Thursday. Obama and Sanders talked a lot about the 2008 campaign during the course of that chat, according to Obama aides.
“He was acknowledging that you don’t sing ‘Kumbaya’ on Day One,” said an Obama advisor about 2008. “It took awhile for the staffs to work through it, for everyone to come together.” And for it to ultimately reach the point where Clinton swallowed her pride and came to work in the Obama administration.
Hours after meeting with Obama, Sanders held a rally before some 3,000 supporters. He did not utter a negative word about Clinton. Nor did he threaten again to overturn her nowcertain victory in the popular vote and pledged delegates by waging a battle at next month’s convention for superdelegates in states he did not win. “We thought that the tone of his remarks that evening were notable,” said Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon.
Some in the Clinton campaign say they were confident all along that party unity would come easily. The polling numbers always showed that despite the animosity some Sanders supporters had for Clinton, the percentage of them who vowed not to vote for her should she become the nominee is nothing close to what it was among Clinton supporters who vowed the same about Obama in 2008. Those voters eventually acquiesced. “People are always saying they are not going to vote for a primary opponent in the general election, and then they always do,” said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, who is not affiliated with either campaign.
And another voice who could bring the left into the fold for Democrats, Warren’s, rose in prominence in recent days as Sanders’ campaign faded. She endorsed Clinton on Thursday and aggressively attacked Trump in a speech, and was seen visiting Clinton at her home in Washington, a confluence of events that sparked rumors she could be on Clinton’s list of potential running mates.
But still, the task of luring Sanders supporters on board is only getting underway. Ugly fights are still brewing among the Sanders and Clinton camps over the Democratic party platform, the rules for future primary elections and the people picked to fill key leadership positions within the organization.
This week was just a good start, said Donna Brazile, vice chair of voter registration and participation of the Democratic National Committee. “You recall that song from the past, ‘We’ve only just begun’?”