"If there's an effective tactical alliance to be had, you're screwing it up."

A week ago, polling analysts at FiveThirtyEight concluded that you were coming into the convention "with a real problem." Even before the release of Democratic National Committee emails showing that the supposedly evenhanded DNC was aiding your campaign, "Clinton had about a third of Sanders supporters left to try to win over." That's easily a million swing-state voters.

And FiveThirtyEight added: "New data and analysis shared with FiveThirtyEight from Catalist and SurveyMonkey shows that, before the 2016 primaries, Sanders's supporters voted less frequently than other 2016 voters, and they were less reliably Democratic than Clinton supporters. In other words, it's not a matter of Clinton simply coaxing Sanders supporters back into the fold — many were never in the fold to begin with. That could increase the difficulty of the task facing Clinton."



You've made the task all the more difficult because your selection of Tim Kaine for vice president has conveyed to Bernie voters that you see unity as a one-way street. When our independent Bernie Delegates Network conducted a straw poll of Bernie delegates in mid-July, 88 percent termed Kaine "unacceptable" as VP while 3 percent called him "acceptable."



Likewise, you undermined unity pleas by immediately naming Debbie Wasserman Schultz as "honorary chair" of a component of your campaign as soon as she resigned from her DNC post. Don't you realize that — faced with weighing your pat-on-the-head words versus your actions — Bernie supporters will be giving more credence to what you actually do?



While the "moderate Republican" voters you're now courting are an endangered species, 13 million Sanders voters have shown that they're motivated to engage in the political process. Why take them for granted?



If there's an effective tactical alliance to be had, you're screwing it up. Maybe the old triangulating reflex is just too deep-seated a habit to break. Maybe you want to pound home to Bernie folks that you're the undisputed boss. Maybe you just can't help yourself.



Whatever the reasons for your current approach, the consequences could be catastrophic. Beyond the fleeting praise for Bernie, your message to his delegates in Philadelphia wasn't hard to discern: my corporate centrist way or the highway. If large numbers of Bernie supporters hit the road, you won't have anyone to blame but yourself.

Commentary by Norman Solomon, who was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the Democratic National Convention, where he was the coordinator of the Bernie Delegates Network. Solomon is co-founder of the online activist group RootsAction.org, which has 700,000 members. Follow him on Twitter @normansolomon.



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