We’ve known for more than a month that Hillary Clinton had the Democratic presidential primary race sewn up despite an unexpectedly strong challenge from Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The only question was when — if ever — Sanders would concede defeat and throw his support behind the party’s presumptive nominee. On Tuesday, that finally happened. Standing beside Clinton at the podium of a high school auditorium in New Hampshire, a state Sanders won by double digits during the primaries, he delivered a full-throated endorsement of his former rival and pledged to “do everything I can to make sure she’s the next president.”
We’ve known for more than a month that Hillary Clinton had the Democratic presidential primary race sewn up despite an unexpectedly strong challenge from Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The only question was when — if ever — Sanders would concede defeat and throw his support behind the party’s presumptive nominee. On Tuesday, that finally happened. Standing beside Clinton at the podium of a high school auditorium in New Hampshire, a state Sanders won by double digits during the primaries, he delivered a full-throated endorsement of his former rival and pledged to “do everything I can to make sure she’s the next president.”
In the first few minutes of his speech he lit into the Republicans’ expected standard bearer, Donald Trump, on everything from climate change and clean energy to stagnant American wages, income inequality and Wall Street greed. It was a performance that instantly transformed him into one of Clinton’s most persuasive surrogates. There was nothing half-hearted or tentative about his apparent determination to be a unifying force when Democrats gather in Philadelphia this month to formally choose their nominee.
Clinton knows she needs the 13 million voters who cast ballots for Sanders during the primaries if she is to defeat Trump in the general election. For his part, Sanders realized he couldn’t just tell his supporters to go home, give up the high hopes his candidacy inspired, and still expect them to turn out for Democrats in November. He needed to fire up his followers by showing them their movement and the “political revolution” they had started was bigger and than either his or Clinton’s candidacies this year.
In recent weeks the Sanders and Clinton campaigns have been working to incorporate the issues Sanders championed during the primaries into the party platform. That process clearly pushed Clinton more to the left than she was when she launched her campaign. During the early races she criticized Sanders’ proposals such as a universal single-payer health care insurance and free tuition at public colleges and universities as pie-in-the-sky projects that were unworkable in reality. Now, her embrace of those ideas could pay dividends if it convinces Sanders voters that their voices have been heard.
Now Clinton can turn her full attention to a general election that is shaping up as one of the most consequential political contests in American history. For Democrats, the stakes couldn’t be higher because the outcome will depend on whether the party can build on the legacy of President Barack Obama’s domestic and foreign policies or whether Republicans will systematically dismantle that legacy. The outcome of the race will likely reshape the Supreme Court for a generation, determine the direction of the long war on terrorism and profoundly influence the nation’s long-term economic prospects and standing in the world.
In a time of political and economic uncertainty, the nation is facing difficult choices on issues ranging from immigration reform and heath care to rebuilding the nation’s crumbling infrastructure and addressing the crushing burden of college student loan debt. There are no quick or easy solutions to any of these problems, and the next American president will have to find a way to lead the country that brings people together rather than pushes them apart. Clinton has shown she can unify her fractious party. Now she will have to show she can do the same for a deeply divided nation.
— The Baltimore Sun