I’ve been hearing quite of bit of hand-wringing about the idea that the primary might tear apart the Democratic Party and cost the election in November. This has been mostly directed at Bernie Sanders and his supporters, with the notion that there’s some thriving “Bernie or Bust” movement who will refuse to vote for anyone but Sanders and throw the election if he’s not the nominee. Well, please take a breath and look again. There is no such widespread movement and this sort of sentiment is no more prevalent in this election than previous ones. It is actually less common that it was in 2008, the last time the Democrats had a disputed presidential nomination contest.
The evidence for the notion that this is a major problem to worry about this year is largely anecdotal: random people saying it somewhere on the internet or Susan Sarandon saying some people out there are thinking this way. The best evidence for it so far has probably been recent exit polling results from Wisconsin:
25 percent of Sanders backers said they would not support Clinton in November, 69 percent said they would vote for the former secretary of state.
Among Clinton supporters, just 14 percent said they would steer clear of voting for Sanders should he become the party's nominee, with 79 percent saying they would get behind the Vermont senator.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-dem-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/04/sanders-supporters-not-vote-clinton-221642
Uh oh! 25 percent won’t vote for Clinton!
Should we be afraid? Well, not really.
The first thing to note is that 14 percent of Clinton voters said the same thing about Sanders. This is less than the 25 percent of Sanders voters, but not that much less. If 25 percent is a huge problem, it’s hard to argue that 14 percent isn’t also a problem. It is hardly a sign of a major trend afoot among Sanders supporters. Second, these are simply not high numbers by past standards. Take a look at some similar numbers from May 2008:
(CNN) - Just how badly is the Democratic Party divided?
According to the exit polls, half of Clinton's supporters in Indiana would not vote for Obama in a general election match up with John McCain. A third of Clinton voters said they would pick McCain over Obama, while 17 percent said they would not vote at all. Just 48 percent of Clinton supporters said they would back Obama in November.
Obama gets even less support from Clinton backers in North Carolina. There, only 45 percent of Clinton supporters said they would vote for Obama over McCain. Thirty-eight percent said they would vote for McCain while 12 percent said they would not vote. Obama voters appear to be more willing to support Clinton in November. In Indiana, 59 percent of Obama backers said they'd vote for Clinton, and 70 percent of Obama backers in North Carolina said they'd support the New York Democrat.
That is, in 2008 twice as many Clinton voters were saying this about Obama as there are Sanders voters saying it now about Clinton. In fact, not only were they saying they would just not vote for Obama, more than a third of Clinton’s voters were saying they would vote for John McCain instead of Obama!
There was even an organized movement of Clinton supporters like this, charmingly called “PUMA”, or “Party Unity My Ass!”
There’s nothing approaching this happening so far this year. And did this wind up being a big problem for Obama? No. Tensions and tempers are high during a hotly contested primary, but when the primary is in the rearview mirror, everyone’s had some time to cool off, and it comes down to a choice between a Democrat or Republican going to the White House, things have a way of coming back into focus.
With the likely Republican nominee this year being either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz, the choice at hand could not be more stark. If the Republicans manage to pull off some kind of switcheroo at the convention and put in a relative “moderate” like Kasich or Ryan, then there might be something to worry about, but in that case I would be more worried of Clinton voters switching over if Sanders is the nominee. Some of the more “center-left” Clinton voters could be a problem in that scenario, particularly the ones that are actually a lot more “center” than they are “left”. I don’t see many Sanders voters being drawn to a “moderate” Republican, but some chunk of Clinton voters might be. This scenario is, however, unlikely. The Democratic nominee will mostly likely be facing either Trump or Cruz and the choice will be very clear. Sanders and Clinton both fare well against either of them in head to head polling match ups, Sanders even better than Clinton, but both clearly ahead of the likely Republican rivals. Things are in pretty good shape for the general at this point, not in crisis.
So let’s all calm down about party unity. We can have a contested primary and win the general too. We can cut the claims that letting the primary run its course is going to help Republicans. These tensions happen every time there’s a contested nomination, and they happened much worse eight years ago. Both candidates have been clear that they will ultimately support whoever is the Democratic nominee, and there’s little reason to believe the vast majority of their supporters will not ultimately do likewise.
I’m behind Sanders in the current contest, and I’d like to see him fight it hard all the way to the end, not only because I believe he can win and has the better vision for the country, but also because I believe that even if he ultimately loses, his ideas having this platform has been very important and has changed the direction of the race. I also fear what will happen on the Clinton side if they don’t have Sanders to worry about anymore. A “pivot” to the right is coming if Clinton secures the nomination. See for example yesterday’s scolding of BLM protesters by Bill Clinton, which seems to me one of the opening gambits in “the pivot”.
If Clinton secures the nomination, you can bet much more of that kind of thing is coming.I think team Clinton would like for Bernie to drop out so she can start taking the left for granted, crafting a few of her own “Sister Souljah moments” and “triangulating” for those sweet, sweet centrist and moderate-conservative votes. We should not let her do that too easily. If Bernie can not ultimately win the nomination, we can at least keep the Clintons occupied with securing the left and make the inevitable pivot to the right as small and difficult as possible.