“The Democratic primary is essentially over, although the Sanders campaign is still fundraising off naive supporters by claiming that it has a real shot.”
Thank goodness, I didn’t write that sentence, or I’d never eat lunch in this town again (a line which I think I stole from a Bette Davis movie.)
Truthfully, I might have written it, but Paul Krugman beat me to it. The in-house math nerd has been fulminating today over a Sanders email pitch he got this morning claiming that The Bern is only behind by 1.4%, based on the right-tilting RealClearPolitics website’s data from before the New York primary. More recent and more objective polling aggregators show at least a 5% gap.
Me, I’ve learned how to use the “unsubscribe” buttons, so I’m not getting nearly as many money requests from either candidate as he is. And money doesn’t seem to do what it used to.
According to the Center for Public Integrity, Sanders spent about $9.03 per vote in the New York primary, while Clinton spent only about $3.62 per vote. Trump? Thirteen cents per vote. And she’s supposed to be the rich candidate. Go figure.
Sanders has been a valuable contributor to the public discourse, enunciating all the right goals which the ultimate anti-Republican candidate (also known as The Democrat) should be backing come November. He’s managed to drag Clinton along with him, most of the time not even kicking and screaming.
It’s not such a terrible idea for him to go on shaking the money tree for a couple of months longer, because progressive political organizations can always make good use of cash. But now it’s time for left-thinking voters to make lemonade out of those lemons which are falling out of the tree.
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