OPINION:
After winning the West Virginia Democratic primary last night, Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders said: “We have now won primaries and caucus in 19 states. Let me be as clear as I can be, we are in this campaign to win the Democratic nomination.”
He then continued to single out a campaign contribution by someone in the Walmart family to his rival Hillary Clinton “of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I say to that family maybe instead of making large cash campaign contributions to Secretary Clinton, pay your workers a living wage,” Mr. Sanders said.
Despite winning primary contests, Mr. Sanders has no mathematical path to the Democratic nomination because of the allocation of super-delegates. Mr. Sanders’ won West Virginia’s popular vote, but walked away with about the same number of delegates as Mrs. Clinton after more super-delegates chose to align themselves with the former Secretary of State.
Everyday longer Mr. Sanders decides to stay in the race, is a war Mrs. Clinton must face on two-fronts – one against him to win the primary, and another against GOP presumed presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has been parroting Mr. Sanders’ worst hits.
For example, Mr. Sanders has repeatedly called into question Mrs. Clinton’s judgment, in foreign policy issues, and her ties to Wall Street donations.
Those criticisms then have been echoed by Mr. Trump at his rallies. To an independent electorate – hearing the same argument come from both a Republican and Democrat leveled at the same person can be devastating, because as reasoning goes, if both sides are saying it – it must be true.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump tweeted: “Hillary has bad judgment!” and then linked to his instagram account, where there’s a video depicting the families of those who were killed in Benghazi, saying Mrs. Clinton lied to them. The video ends with Mrs. Clinton laughing into a fan of flames.
On Wednesday, after Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders’ primary wins, Mr. Trump took to Twitter to explain why he’s been easy on Mr. Sanders: “I don’t want to hit Crazy Bernie Sanders too hard yet because I love watching what he is doing to Crooked Hillary. His time will come!”
The longer Mr. Sanders stays in the race, the weaker Mrs. Clinton’s general election prospects will become.
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