The sheer bitterness and rancour in the Republican Party in course of the nomination process for the presidential election had overshadowed the politics within the Democratic Party, but the acrimony, while less ugly and less public, is no less. Pressure from the party establishment is now mounting on Vermont senator Bernie Sanders to quit the race even as his supporters are producing polls showing he is better placed to defeat Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton is.
Democratic lawmakers who hope to make a dent on the Republican majority in Congress on the coattails of the presidential elections are starting to worry that Sanders’ prolonged stay in the race is debilitating to Clinton and the party, particularly after Trump’s opponents in the GOP have folded before him, leaving a clear path to the nomination. “It’s actually harmful because she can’t make that general-election pivot the way she should,” Clinton supporter Dianne Feinstein was quoted as saying about Clinton’s albatross.”Trump has made that pivot.”
On Friday, the LA Times put itself behind Clinton with a grudging endorsement. “For all her faults, Hillary Clinton is vastly better prepared than Bernie Sanders for the presidency,” it said, even as Sanders’ supporters feel the burn of party establishment. While Trump appears to have bullied the establishment into submission, Sanders has come up short.