We're holding the Democratic Party's feet to the fire. They don't like it. But Bernie is helping us.

[Cheese Sandwich]

We all want active engaged citizens right?

We all think the citizens should push our representatives to do what we want, right? That's just democracy.

We're not supposed to just elect representatives and then beg them to do the right things.

Frederick Douglass said power concedes nothing without a demand. And the way to demand that is we're supposed to organize and fight for power.

And the best time to make demands of the politicians is during elections. The best place to push the Democratic Party is during the primaries. This is what we're doing, as a movement. Bernie Sanders is helping by standing up as a candidate. We're lucky to have him because he's decent at it.

This is why we fight all the way to the end, contesting for every vote and every delegate, until all the votes are cast and a winner is officially declared. Because it's not just about winning, although winning is better. It's also about the fight, because through the fight is where we show our numbers, our strength, and politicians learn to respect us and the issues we care about, which are many of the issues that Bernie is talking about.

[JDPriestly]

1. And Bernie has a good chance to win at the Convention.

We have to get high percentages of votes in Oregon and California. Keep calling. Keep donating. This fight is by no means over. Please help.

[Cheese Sandwich]

3. It is important to do as well as possible.

I think it's a very slim chance that Bernie could get the nomination but there's more than one way to "win". We win when our issues win, and when we build lasting power.

[JDPriestly]

5. Yes. And we want to build a movement.

Trust me. Anything can happen.

I went out to register voters for Bernie this afternoon. Instead of that, I made lots of contact with registered Bernie voters, directed some Bernie supporters who are from out of town to a restaurant they were trying to find, and found a shelter for a clearly mentally ill young man.

Life does not lead us where we think we are going. Sometimes we think we want one thing and we discover that we need to do something else.

We don't give up on Bernie's campaign ever because we do not know what will happen between now and the convention.

Feel the Bern!

[Cheese Sandwich]

6. That's so great to hear

Sounds like you had a very eventful day.

That's a great way to look at it thank you.

[vintx]

8. Best post I've read in a long time.

K&R for your message here

[tularetom]

2. How do we hold their feet to the fire if they nominate a moderate (or maybe not so) republican

At that point they've more or less flipped us the bird and told us they don't care what we think, they're looking for votes among other groups.

[zappaman]

4. Is that what you're doing?

Sure seems like something else...

[Warren DeMontague]

7. I don't think the people who fantasized she would run unchallenged or would have wrapped it up in

January, have really thought it through.

I think it's more sort of personal indignation "he's criticizing her!" or that they think she looks bad because people are still voting for someone else.

The fact of the matter is, if the electorate is really as moderate as her conventional wisdom beltway people keep saying it is, he's doing her a favor by providing a convenient "left wing loony" foil for her to define herself as sensibly moderate in contrast to.

And the second he's out of the race, all the crap about "socialism" gets moved onto her anyway, plus whatever spot of ideological yard line she's standing on at that exact moment becomes the far left end zone of the debate anyway.

What exactly would she have done for the past 7 months if it had been just her? I'm gonna say "put us to sleep with an endless series of meanignless poll-tested slogans about middle class champions", and the media would have tuned our side out entirely.

Sanders has done and is doing her a favor by being in the race, broadening the conversation and giving the media a contest to focus on, it seems patently obvious to me.