It's frustrating to be a Bernie Sanders supporter right now. Your candidate has plenty of impressive wins behind him, Hillary Clinton is still far from having the nomination wrapped up, and yet everyone is talking as if the race is over. First they didn't take your guy seriously, and now they want to push him out of the race. With the expectedly raucous New York primary coming up Tuesday, it's no wonder that there's no small amount of animosity coming from Sanders fans toward Clinton. In fact, in a recent McClatchy/Marist poll, 25 percent of Sanders supporters say they won't vote for Clinton if she's the party's nominee.
They may not want to hear it yet, but those who support Sanders might start thinking about how they could exert influence over Clinton's presidency. Because some of what they don't like about Clinton-her caution, her propensity for difference-splitting, her inclination to seek the path of least resistance-is exactly what will enable liberals to pull her to the left once she's in the White House.
Clinton's own ardent fans can surely empathize with how Sanders voters feel now, because she was in this same position eight years ago. Remember the PUMAs? The term stood for "Party Unity My Ass," and they were Clinton supporters who vowed never to vote for Barack Obama. That primary campaign was much more bitter than this one has gotten, and polls showed as many as four in ten Clinton voters saying they'd refuse to support Obama. Yet by the time November came around, nine out of ten Democrats voted for Obama, near the high end of the level of party support we've seen in recent elections. I'm fairly certain the same thing will happen this year.
Bernie Sanders is what we sometimes call a "conviction" candidate, someone spurred to run for president not by simple ambition (though make no mistake, there's plenty of that) but because of a firm, unshakeable belief in a set of principles. Barry Goldwater was a conviction candidate, Richard Nixon was not; George McGovern was a conviction candidate, Al Gore was not. And when you're a conviction candidate, you can attract a particularly passionate kind of supporter, one who believes that an uncompromising ideological crusade is exactly what will produce necessary change.
Hillary Clinton is about as far from a conviction candidate as you can get. That isn't to say she doesn't have convictions, but she obviously sees conviction and policy as not quite the same things-policy is your best effort to put your convictions into practice, but it comes with the realization that pragmatic compromises may have to be made.
It's been noted about Sanders that he believes exactly the same things that he did when he first got involved in politics half a century ago, and that certainly isn't true of Clinton. She has moved and evolved, and more than anything else, she has changed as her party has changed. In the 1990s, she and her husband were at the vanguard of a movement that sought to bring a more centrist cast to the Democratic Party after three consecutive presidential election losses. But it's important to remember that it succeeded because so many Democrats signed on to it.
For instance, that 1994 crime bill we've been talking about so much recently? Just look at all the Democrats who voted for it. In the House roll call you can find the names of a long list of unimpeachably liberal members of Congress voting "aye," from Nancy Pelosi to Jim Clyburn to Henry Waxman. And oh yeah, Vermont's independent representative, one Bernard Sanders. Why? There were many reasons; it was as complicated then as it is now. But in the 1990s, Democrats did a lot of things with one eye looking over their right shoulder, always afraid that being seen as too liberal would mean defeat on Election Day.
That was the environment in which Bill and Hillary Clinton made their reputation for centrism. Who she was then was a combination of her natural inclinations and a keen eye for the political risks and possibilities of the moment. On that basic level, she hasn't changed, but the environment has. The Democratic Party has moved to the left on many issues, from gay rights to immigration. At a time when the parties and their voters are polarized, and Democrats have significant demographic advantages at the national level, there's little to be gained by moving to the center. So Hillary Clinton is a much more liberal politician than she was 20 years ago.
And she continues to change. Just look at how she has reacted to the argument over the minimum wage. When the Fight for 15 effort started just a couple of years ago, the idea of a $15-per-hour minimum wage seemed outlandish. Which is why Clinton advocated a $12-an-hour minimum wage-a 65 percent increase from its current level, but still somewhat less than some were demanding. Then the fast-food workers, union leaders, and progressive activists at the grassroots created an extraordinary movement, the most recent victory of which was California and New York's legislation to bring their minimum wages up to $15 over the next few years. Before long, $15 went from being a pie-in-the-sky idea to a practical goal. So now Clinton says she'd sign a bill increasing the minimum to $15 (though she says she'd prefer it with the kind of caveats that are in New York's new law).
Sanders supporters will look at that evolution and say that it shows Clinton doesn't have the firm convictions of their candidate. Maybe not, but it also means that as president, she'll be open to pressure and persuasion. If liberals can move the country's debate and the Democratic Party's fulcrum to the left, then Clinton will move with them.
That means that when the Sanders campaign is over, their work will just be starting. As president, Hillary Clinton will be as liberal as liberals force her to be. If they do their job, that could be quite liberal indeed.
