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US Presidency 2016: Sanders endorses Hillary as Democratic candidate

By Dr. Abdul Ruff

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has, as forecast by the Democratic Party leadership, received an endorsement from her former rival Bernie Sanders. The Vermont senator and former Democratic presidential candidate appeared with Mrs. Clinton at a campaign event in New Hampshire. Mrs. Clinton and Sanders have been negotiating since she all but guaranteed the nomination in June.  “Revolutionary” Sanders hopes to have a large influence now on the Democratic platform. He could even be the Secretary of state if by chance Clinton wins the presidency.

As expected a long ago, Democratic dummy piece Bernie Sanders with oratory skills to woo the youth towards his ideas, has eventually decided to call it a day withdrawing from the Democratic contest for presidency and opted to support and promote Hilary Clinton. American Jew Bernie Sanders’s withdrawal has left only Hillary in the contest and to emerge as the Democratic candidate to face the republican hawkish candidate Trump who, taking undue advantage of what looks like a permanent US war in Islamic word, has made controversial statements that have been criticized worldwide. .

Mrs. Clinton, seen as the best candidate to promote Zionist criminal state in Mideast, is set to get endorsement by Bernie after a year-long, hard-fought primary, though he drew crowds of more than 20,000, invigorated young Democrat and Independent voters and advanced a radical, progressive agenda, more as a show than any serious intent, that has fundamentally shifted the conversation in American politics. His unadulterated authenticity made him the favorite of millions who helped him raise over $220 million from grassroots donors in the 2016 campaign cycle. However, fund raising in US presidential campaigns is not a healthy practice as it openly promotes rampant corruption as crime against humanity. And although Sanders lost the primary by nearly four million votes, his influence has been outsized.

Sanders scored big progressive victories in almost every policy area. The platform embraces a $15 minimum wage, even though Clinton had been staunch in her $12 position. The language now reads that Americans should earn more than $15 an hour.”  On climate change, even though Sanders’s delegates didn’t get their carbon tax and all-out ban on fracking, they got a compromise in which President Obama’s standard used to reject the Keystone Pipeline XL – a project Clinton previously supported – would be applied to all pipeline projects. The platform also added language to reflect that “greenhouse gases should be priced to reflect their negative externalities,” which isn’t quite a carbon tax, but is a win nonetheless.

And perhaps the Sanders team’s biggest victory came in Clinton’s willingness to back a public option on health care. In accepting a “public option” – a position Clinton has supported before but did not campaign on in 2016 – she backed down in one of the biggest battles of the Democratic primary. Many times Clinton said that the public option was too expensive and would never get implemented while Republicans controlled the House and Senate.

The platform committee meeting wasn’t all good for Sanders. His delegates were particularly upset that they didn’t get the language they wanted on opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, including a promise not to bring the deal to a vote. And they didn’t get their language on denouncing illegal Israeli settlements inside Palestine. Against this backdrop, a Sanders endorsement of Clinton isn’t surprising. While Sanders’ endorsement is surely a net positive for Clinton, it doesn’t come without complications.

There are still Sanders supporters who are not keen to jump to Clinton, no matter what Sanders says or what organizations like the Communications Workers of America who backed Sanders in December and are now backing Clinton. Recent polling data has shown that up to half of Sanders supporters say they won’t get behind Clinton. Data also shows up to 20% of Sanders supporters breaking for Trump. It’s far from a sure thing that Sanders’s supporters all happily declare in her favor.

Furthermore, Clinton’s false left-leaning platform now runs the risk of alienating moderates, Independents and even those Republicans who can’t bring themselves to back “irrational” Trump. The positions Clinton stakes in the platform represent the culmination of months of being pushed left by Sanders and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. That’s all well and good for attracting Democrats, but Clinton is the first Democratic candidate in decades with an opportunity to pick up a hefty haul of voters that would traditionally back the GOP candidate in a general election. It’s a lot harder to believe that Clinton will shift to the middle with this platform.

Bernie Sanders – a man who would probably talk about income inequality and Wall Street corruption during a wedding toast – wrapped an endorsement of Hillary Clinton into his standard campaign stump speech on Tuesday. His usual lines about minimum wage increases, rebuilding infrastructure, affordable college education, healthcare reform and increased environmental protection were simply prefaced by “Hillary Clinton understands” and “Hillary Clinton knows”. Sanders also asserted that his “revolution” will go on and that he will work to ensure that his success in pushing the Democratic Party platform to the left is reflected in the actions of Democratic officeholders going forward.

Trump, who has been trying to court Sanders supporters, wrote in a tweet that Sanders has “totally sold out to Crooked Hillary Clinton. Fans angry!” “The candidate who ran against special interests is endorsing the candidate who embodies special interests,” his campaign said in a release.

Even though his supporters were angry about his plan supporting Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders decided to support Mrs. Clinton, ostensibly, in an effort to stop presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump from winning the White House. Sanders stayed in the Democratic race far longer than many expected, for weeks after it became clear he would not secure the delegates needed to win the nomination.

But Bernie’s endorsement is far from the last hurdle Clinton will have to clear. This is not even the beginning. Hillary Clinton is now so worried about having her dirty laundry aired out during her time as Secretary of State, the 68-year-old had aides debrief her on all Clinton-related books and shows, newly leaked emails reveal. WikiLeaks released more than 1,000 messages from Hillary’s private email server recently.

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Abdul Ruff

Dr. Abdul Ruff is an independent analyst; columnist contributing articles to many newspapers and journals on world politics; expert on Mideast affairs, chronicler of foreign occupations & freedom movements (Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Xinjiang, Chechnya, etc.); Chancellor-Founder of Center for International Affairs (CIA); commentator on world affairs & sport fixings, former university teacher and author of eBooks/books

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