California Delivers Death Knell To Bernie Sanders Campaign

Bernie Sanders had placed all of the hopes of his presidential campaign on California recently. He has spent the last two weeks in that state. His thinking was that if he could score a big victory in that state, he could make a case to the super delegates that his was the best campaign to take on Trump -- and if he did exceptionally well there, he might even overtake Clinton in the pledged delegate count.

But that was not to happen. On Tuesday night, California Democratic voters made it clear that their choice for president was Hillary Clinton. Clinton didn't just win -- she won big in the that state. She raced out to about a 400,000 vote lead early, and maintained that lead all night. The latest numbers give her a 13 point lead (56% to 43%) over Sanders.

That has to be embarrassing for the Sanders campaign. It also removed any argument he had for convincing Democratic super delegates to give him the nomination. Clinton has won the most states, the most votes, and the most pledged delegates. There is simply no logical argument that can be made for any super delegate to switch from Clinton to Sanders. In fact, doing so would be denying the will of the Democratic voters (which was clearly that they wanted Clinton as their nominee).

Sanders has promised his supporters to continue his campaign through the District of Columbia next Tuesday (June 14th), and then to take his campaign to the Democratic convention in Philadelphia. I have no problem with that, and I doubt any other Democrat does. He should have that right. But he needs to stop his tawdry attacks on the Democratic nominee -- Hillary Clinton.

Sanders now wants the platform adopted by the Democratic convention to reflect the values he has been espousing. That should happen. Despite what some Sanders supporters think, there would be very little difference between a Sanders-written and a Clinton-written platform anyway. Both are good progressives who want what's best for the people of the United States.

When Sanders entered this race a few months ago, he promised to support the eventual nominee of the Democratic Party. He has run a good campaign, but it's over now -- and it's getting very close to the time when he needs to live up to his promise.