Chris Stroud didn't like what Larry J. Sabato said about how it's sort of "crystal clear that Hillary Clinton will end up being the Democratic candidate." Here's what Chris wrote to me…
This wasn't a straight and honest race from the start. For Sanders, it has been one of the steepest climbs anyone who ran for President ever had to make, and right now the word from on high seems to be — even though the race for nomination isn't over yet — declare Clinton in no uncertain terms the winner of the Democratic nomination, I guess the strategy is simply to discourage the remaining folks who want Bernie so they will cast their vote for Clinton. Sabato's crystal ball — feh. He simply followed orders. Likely he's right so goody for him. Consider what Sanders has accomplished so far, despite the cards being stacked against him all this time. Right now as you read this, who is really deserving of the nomination?
Well, I could make a decent case I think that Hillary Clinton is pretty "deserving" but a contest like this is never about that. It's about who gets the most votes according to a system that is in place before the voting commences. It may be a bad system but that's a separate discussion. You don't win a baseball game because your team played harder or had more factors working against you. You win it because you scored more runs. And very often in politics, the person I think is more "deserving" doesn't win and that isn't even the criteria I use when I cast my vote. I vote for whichever person I think will do the job best.
I would not be displeased in the slightest if Bernie Sanders got the nomination but that ain't looking likely. There is no conspiracy to undermine him at work when reporters report that he's running behind Clinton in delegates and that the kind of support he'd have to have in the remaining primaries looks really, really difficult to achieve. That is how every person who has run for public office in the last umpteen decades has been covered.
Hey, if Sanders can pull it off, great. I just wish some of his supporters wouldn't get so upset that the press isn't writing headlines that say he's crushing Hillary…because he's not. Yet. Actually, I suspect the press is dying to write that story because they love close elections and come-from-behind victories and the lead changing hands and, most of all, underdogs who win. It sells papers. But the facts are not there right now to justify that scenario and you can't really believe there's anyone ordering independent sources like Sabato to write a prediction that even you admit is probably right.