Oh to be a fly on the wall when Hillary meets Bernie tomorrow night

All we are saying… is give peace a chance.

Is the end of the fight between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton at hand? Once the voting in the District of Columbia wraps up tomorrow, the two are scheduled to get together for a meeting. The Democrats would dearly like to get this thing wrapped up and unify their forces for the general election, so is this the final meeting on the deck of the Missouri? And what will Bernie be wanting in exchange for some good will on his part? (CNN)

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Sanders revealed plans for the meeting Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” and a Clinton aide confirmed to CNN that it is planned for Tuesday night. The aide didn’t offer details on where or when it would take place. Sanders emphasized the importance of the Democratic platform in his interview with CBS’ John Dickerson, signaling that he’s looking for concessions there in order to avoid a contested convention.

“I will be meeting, as I understand it on Tuesday night with Secretary Clinton, and I will get a sense from her about the nature of the Democratic platform,” Sanders said.

Pointing to issues like income inequality and health care, Sanders said: “I look forward to sitting down with Sec. Clinton to see what kind of platform she is going to support and in fact how aggressive she is going to be in addressing the major crises that we face.”

It certainly sounds as if Bernie is getting ready to bend a knee, no matter how much his army of followers are fighting the idea. But what’s really of interest here is the list of demands he’ll bring with him. He’s going to be looking for changes to the party platform at the convention and this could be the last poison pill that Sanders slips into Hillary’s tea for November. What items might he be looking for?

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Attacking Wall Street should be a no brainer, and Hillary has already demonstrated that she’s willing to mouth the words even as she continues to collect cash and endorsements from the folks she would supposedly be cracking down on. That’s also a fairly easy one for the public to swallow, so no harm, no foul there. But beyond that there’s some risky business on Bernie’s agenda. What about his version of health care reform which, as he admitted, will require substantial tax increases on everyone? With the Orlando shooting in the news, he may be looking for more gun control on one platform plank. With essentially nothing to lose at this point, there’s no telling what Bernie might insist on.

He’s already pushed Hillary Clinton dangerously to the left on a variety of subjects – especially gun control – to the point where he’s providing ammunition for her critics through the summer and into the fall. If he can get these same positions embedded in the platform documents at the convention it will make it all the easier to paint Clinton as far too radically liberal for the general election audience. If Bernie can pin her down on shutting down the coal industry and flushing resources into renewable energy which can neither power the nation nor provide jobs, it could spell doom for the Democrats in some key swing states.

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This should be one heck of a meeting. I doubt we’ll get the full details of what’s said, but when the platform committee meets in Philadelphia next month we’ll see how much pull Sanders really has.

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David Strom 6:40 PM | April 18, 2024
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