Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) kept his tone hopeful while speaking to an enthusiastic crowd of supporters Tuesday night in California, but acknowledged the “steep climb” to him winning the Democratic presidential nomination.
Sanders opened his speech with a nod to his near tie with Hillary Clinton in the Kentucky primary, which still hadn’t been called. He categorized the nature of the race in Kentucky as the result of the state party’s closed primary system and railed against those who have called for him to drop out of the Democratic presidential race, saying they don’t want late primary states like California to weigh in.
“In a closed primary, something I am not all that enthusiastic about where independents are not allowed to vote, where Secretary Clinton defeated Barack Obama by 250,000 votes in 2008, it appears tonight that we are gonna end up with about half of the delegates from Kentucky,” Sanders said.
“I want to thank you all for coming out because this is in a sense is the beginning of the final push to win California,” he added.
Sanders said he recognized that it would be a “steep climb” to arrive at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia with a majority of pledged delegates, though.
“Now some people say that we’ve got a steep hill to climb to do that. And that is absolutely true,” he said. “But you know what, together, we have been climbing that steep hill from day one in this campaign. And we are going to continue to fight for every last vote until June 14th, and then we’re going to take our fight into the convention.”
The Vermont senator also took a break from his typical stump speech to rail against the Democratic National Committee, which he and his supporters have often butted heads with, most recently at the Nevada Democratic Convention last weekend. When he brought up the DNC to boos from the crowd, Sanders called upon Democratic leaders to be more inclusive of his progressive supporters.
“The Democratic party is going to have to make a very, very profound and important decision,” Sanders said. “It can do the right thing and open its doors and welcome into the party. So I say to the leadership of the Democratic Party, open the doors, let the people in.”
Sanders’ wife, Jane, at one point interrupted the speech to tell her husband about his victory in Oregon, which he announced to cheers from the crowd.
“I’m beginning to like the West Coast,” he said with a smile.
If Bernie wants in, all he has to do is acknowledge the reality that he has no hope in getting the nomination, stop lying to his supporters that he still has a chance and that the system is somehow rigged against him, and generally going down the path of a super Ralph Nader.
Somebody please tell Bernie that, while he may not like ‘closed’ primaries, ‘open’ primaries are an awful idea.
Open primaries allow Republicans to cross over and vote in Dem primaries, and vice versa. Often they will do so to only to cause mischief in their opponents’ primary. Bad idea.
What Bernie wants is what California (among others?) does, or used to do; a ‘modified closed’ primary.
The way it works is that when you register to vote, you declare a party preference, or register as “non partisan”. Then when the primary comes, the party in question - Dem, Republican, Green, Libertarian, etc - can decide whether or not to allow the non-partisans to take part in their primary. If you are registered as a Dem, when you show up on primary election day, you are handed your Dem ballot; as a Republican, your Republican ballot. If you are a non-partisan, the poll workers ask what party’s ballot you would like, and if that party is allowing non-partisans into their primary, you get that party’s ballot.
So Bernie’s independent voters can choose to vote in the Dem primary or the Repub primary (or Green etc etc), while Dems are kept from making mischief in the Repub primary and vice versa.
(Usually, but not always, the parties choose to allow the non-partisans in; at least once when I was living in and working at the polls in CA, the Republicans decided to NOT allow non-partisans in. When a non-partisan showed up to ask for a Repub ballot that time and had to be told ‘no’, they were seriously not happy!)
Not ‘open’, not ‘closed’; ‘modified closed’.
I sure hope CA dispels him of that notion
You mean other than people saying ‘Okay. I want to be a Democrat. What do I do, give you my name and address?’
Bernie - You knew the rules going into the race. Why didn’t you, as a lifelong socialist / independent, run an independent campaign for President? Could it be that an independent run doesn’t come with the built in party apparatus you would have had to create on your own?
If you are so upset with the rules, why didn’t you join the Democratic Party years ago and work from the inside to change the rules? Seems as if you want the party perks, but are not willing to put in the effort to help any other candidacy than your own.