I voted for Elizabeth Warren because I think she is the best qualified out of all that are/were running. When she dropped out after Super Tuesday, I decided to caucus for Bernie Sanders. And I’m glad he’s staying in the race until the end.
I do not expect him to win. His path for winning ended when Klobuchar and Buttigieg dropped out prior to Super Tuesday, and their endorsing of Joe Biden was irrelevant to this. With them in, the so-called moderate vote was fractured, none of them would have been able to win enough to overtake Sanders. Their departure from the race enabled a consolidation of that wing around a single candidate.
On top of that, despite the Bernie rallies attended by thousands of younger voters at every turn, they did not turn up when and where it mattered: At the polling stations on election day.
So, I am still supporting Sanders. I will be among the Biddeford delegation caucusing for him at the MaineDems convention in Bangor at the end of May. I do not expect him to win the nomination. I do expect, and hope, that Biden gets a 50%+1 minimal majority and Sanders gets close to just under half. Why?
Because I want his policies to help shape the platform. I want his polices to help shift the party back to the left where it should be. I want his policies to have a chance of being enacted or at the very least worked towards. I want to build a future in my lifetime where an ideological successor CAN win. Someone like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Stacey Abrams.
We are Democrats. We should not be merely less-bad than the Republicans. We should be better.
We should be for making health care accessible and affordable. We should be for protecting and repairing the environment. We should be for ending and preventing wars for profit. We should be for science based decisions. We should be for making education accessible and affordable. We should be for protecting people from financial predators.
We should be for the people. This is who Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are.
So while I accept that Biden will win the nomination, that does not mean that we give up. It means that we continue to push. Push for the policies that are right. If the Progressive wing has a strong enough showing, we can help shape the platform and the resulting policies. We can show Biden that while he may win the nomination, he does not have a sole mandate and must take our council. Maybe even appoint Progressives to his cabinet should he win in November.