The end is near for Bernie Sanders, but the Vermont senator still has two personal missions to fulfill — seeing heads roll in the Democratic Establishment, and getting his priorities hard-wired into the party platform.
On Tuesday Sanders will meet privately with Hillary Clinton and will press her on policy positions. Sanders has indicated the conversation will weigh heavily on his decision to give or withhold his coveted endorsement. And he has repeatedly vowed to go all the way to the convention at the end of July, so he has real leverage — and Hillary Clinton knows it.
Aside from the public challenge to Schultz, Sanders and his backers are busily looking for satisfaction behind the scenes.
Sanders said Sunday he didn’t think Clinton was capable of leading a political revolution, given her stance on some of his core issues. He went on to say he would need to see commitments from Clinton on regulating and restraining Wall Street, granting healthcare coverage to all Americans and abolishing tuition at public colleges and universities — before considering offering Clinton his support.
But it’s not just Clinton’s policy positions that may be holding Sanders back from an endorsement. It’s how he was treated during the primary cycle. For a majority of the primary season, Sanders tried to run an issues-based campaign. But Clinton allies in the Establishment were determined to show Sanders there was no room for a challenger to Clinton.
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With Debbie Wasserman Schultz at the helm, the Democratic National Committe scheduled Democratic debates based on the day-to-day whims of the Clinton campaign (often on Friday or Saturday nights, when few were watching). In other instances, the DNC simply canceled debates. Tensions flared last month at the Nevada State Convention, where Sanders supporters contested a “rigged” vote for Clinton. The ensuing chaos in Nevada has worried Clinton fans, who wonder what could happen at the national convention in July should Sanders still be hanging around.
On the eve of the New York primary, Sanders filed a complaint with the DNC regarding its use of joint fundraising efforts to benefit Clinton. That accusation followed a lawsuit filed by the Sanders campaign against the DNC for revoking their access to voter data — a move Sanders’ campaign felt directly benefited Clinton.
In response to his perceived mistreatment, Sanders has lent his popularity to a once-nascent challenger to Schultz for her seat in Congress. Sanders endorsed Tim Canova, a move that raised nearly a quarter million dollars for the Democrat insurgent. Some strategists now believe Schultz is vulnerable to the Canova challenge.
Aside from the public challenge to Schultz, Sanders and his backers are busily looking for satisfaction behind the scenes.
There is a petition for the removal of superdelegates from the Democratic primary process from the former vice chair of the DNC — Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. She resigned her position as vice chair in February to come out in full support of Sanders’ campaign. Prior to her resignation there were flare ups between her and the DNC leadership due to the growing concerns about the scheduling of debates, and because she dared to speak out against the Clinton-DNC collusion.
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Gabbard isn’t alone in her efforts to rid the Democratic Party of the superdelegate system. On Saturday, delegates at the West Virginia Democratic State Convention passed a resolution calling for the elimination of superdelegates and the resignation of Schultz. “If she does not resign in a timely manner, we call on the Democratic National Committee [to] take whatever steps are necessary and proper to remove her and install a new chairperson,” the resolution states.
Rumors have floated across the political world that Sanders wants Gabbard to take over for Schultz as DNC chair — one of the demands he will float before handing Clinton his endorsement.
In late May, Sanders sent a letter to the DNC requesting the removal of former Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank and Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy from the rules committee of the Democratic convention. Sanders’ campaign found the two co-chairs of the committee to be hostile toward the candidate since they served as attack surrogates for Clinton’s campaign. The two had taken to publicly criticizing Sanders’ personality and his campaign strategy — even blaming Sanders for the violence at the Nevada state convention.
Malloy in particular earned the ire of Sanders for saying the Vermont senator had “blood on his hands” for his slightly more moderate position on gun control.
The DNC has so far rejected Sanders call for Frank and Malloy’s heads. “Having carefully reviewed your challenge, we find that it fails to meet the criteria,” the DNC said in a letter to the Sanders campaign.
Sanders’ campaign will have lasting effects on Clinton’s candidacy in the general election as well as the Democratic Party for years to come. But one thing is immediately certain: Sanders knows that he has leverage and the Vermont senator intends to use that leverage to push for a more progressive party platform and to advocate for the removal of Clinton allies from top posts.
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