What Hillary Clinton really thinks

[Ken Burch]

34. It's not as though the GOP gamed those poll results. That isn't possible.

They'd have had no way of knowing which households would be called, and there's no way that that many Republican voters would be in a "say you support Bernie just to make things us easier for us in the fall" hivemind. Those polls reflected actual public support for his ideas-and the support for the ideas was and is much higher than support for the person.

And there are major differences between Bernie's campaign and the McGovern campaign.

Bernie's was not specifically tied in the public mind to the counterculture in the way McGovern's was.

He had some significant labor support-McGovern had none.

There were no issues that could split the party in the way the reproductive rights or gay rights struggles split it in '72-we are now united as a pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ party.

Obviously, HRC would be president if we lived in a real democracy.

And I accept that she was nominated and campaigned for her in the fall.

But that doesn't mean her showing was the best any possible Dem nominee could have achieved last year. 49% wasn't our highest of high-water marks no matter what, and while she did was "electable", there were no groups she could win in the fall that none of our other candidates wouldn't have run just as strongly.

We have no need to anathemize Bernie's ideas or ideas similar to them.

We just have to create a change agenda that makes everyone in our coalition feel they are included and protected by the party and in the program.