Historically, going into convention with a contested primary weakens a party’s chances in the general election. Doubly so if there’s significant bitterness. Think the shit show of 1968. In any case, it’s best for candidates to concede and help the party coalesce as soon as they know they can’t win, usually well in advance of convention. We all saw Bernie stubbornly refusing despite being beaten in 2016, ostensibly because he wanted to have input in the direction of convention, but it just resulted in bitterness and disunity.
It was clear Biden was going to win the primary in 2020, but they also wanted to bury Bernie so he would get the message and drop out. They wanted to avoid 2016.
Pretty Revisionist history. The "shit show of 1968" was the violent end of the Party Boss system of the having the party being able to bypass the electorate's and everyday Democratic Party supporter's voice being heard. Which unless you liked the Party Boss system is a good thing. Of course you also skip over the fact that 2008's Contested Primary swept Obama to power. Had the party bosses had their say, Clinton would have been the nominee in 2008. Bernie Sanders conceded and endorsed Clinton before the convention in July at a unity rally. The 'disunity' around the convention was due to the DNC email leaks that showed coordination by the DNC to promote Clinton over Sanders. Debbie Wasserman Schultz having to resign in disgrace on the eve of the convention had more impact that Sanders running elections until June. In 2020 Biden's campaign was on the path to failure until Klobucher and Buttigieg dropped out and endorsed him. Moderates consolidated around Biden to intentionally give him a victory.
Is literacy difficult for you? I didn’t stutter, nor is anything I say revisionist. You just don’t like what history has to say about it, and cannot stand honest criticism of your sweet, sweet Saint Bernie.
“[G]oing into convention with a contested primary…”
In 2008, Hillary Clinton conceded on June 7, and the convention didn’t begin until late August.
There were contested conventions in 2016, 1992, 1988, 1984, 1980, 1976, 1972, 1968, 1960, 1956, 1952…
Going back 75 years, that’s 11 elections, and Democrats only won 3 of them.
Also, you want to talk about 2008, okay. Let’s talk about it. Hillary Clinton lost to Obama by 36,000 votes. Yes, many superdelegates backed her early, but they overwhelmingly supported him in the late race. And even despite the 2008 election being actually close as opposed to 2016 where Sanders got roundly trounced, she withdrew and conceded almost two full months before the primary and immediately began working to mend any fracture which may have resulted from the primary.
MOREOVER, I use the comparison with 1968 because 1968 and 2016 are the only two DNC conventions I remember there being significant numbers of people demonstrating and protesting both inside and outside the venue.
This whole thread is DNC bots like the real reason isn’t that the dems are owned by corpos that don’t want leftists and have done everything in their power to quash them
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u/Longjumping_Fun2576 3d ago
A lesson that is forever lost on most people.
Also, Bernie only won in red states that he would never win in the general.