President Barack Obama addresses the Democratic National Convention Wed. July 27 in Philadelphia. Photo credit: Monica Peters
Was Obama’s DNC Speech Successful in Unifying the Democratic Party? Not so sure.
What Hillary Must Do To Win
By Monica Peters
The rift between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton supporters is painful and evident. The Democratic Party can’t deny that although Sanders supporters won’t be able to vote for their candidate, they are still proving to be a strong force. Even with President Obama’s popularity and call for party unity during his powerful DNC speech, Democrats can’t afford post-convention to ignore the Bernie Sanders effect. It could cost them the election in November.
On Tuesday, day 2 of the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton made history as the first woman to be nominated for President of the United States by a major party.
Some “Berniecrats” have heeded Sanders’s call to support Hillary. Some say flat out that they will never vote for Hillary and others are on the fence whether they should vote for Trump.
This is not a good sign and Democrats can in no way be certain that they will win the White House. This will not be an easy election for Hillary Clinton to win in November.
President Obama said it best during his DNC speech:
“So if you agree that there’s too much inequality in our economy, and too much money in our politics, we all need to be as vocal and as organized and as persistent as Bernie Sanders’ supporters have been. We all need to get out and vote for Democrats up and down the ticket, and then hold them accountable until they get the job done.”
That crowd cheered at the statement.
However, Berniecrats, are already holding Democrats responsible; thus, supporting Bernie and making him and their movement a significant force.
Say what you want, Sanders and his supporters have done a fabulous job at disrupting the establishment aspects of the Democratic Party and shaking things up a bit. The impact of their organization efforts are noted nationally and internationally.
So what must Hillary do?
Hillary should come to the realization (if not already) that she must cater to Sanders supporters for a clean win.
Now that Clinton has been nominated, she may have to publicly atone for things on her political track record to gain the Berniecrats trust and overcome the barriers to reaching them. Some of those barriers would be supporting her husband on the crime bill, voting to support the Iraq war and many other issues important to Sanders supporters.
Sanders has now returned to his post as a Vermont senator, identifying himself as an independent again.
So the question is: Will Hillary be willing to have open dialogue with Sanders supporters? Or, will she write them off as angry persons who need to just get over their candidate losing.
I would not recommend the latter.
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