Democratic Primary: It's down to negotiation now

So we have the votes of every state; only the District of Columbia itself, with its 20 delegates remains. As Charles P. Pierce puts it, "[Sanders] entire strategy seems now to be based on convincing members of the dreaded Democratic establishment to do something for him that they weren't even willing to do en masse for Ted Kennedy in 1980 […] And he has to get 300 of them to do it."

President Obama has agreed to meet with Sanders at the White House on Thursday and they will "continue their conversation about the significant issues at stake in this election that matter most to America's working families." To unify the Democrats, Obama will have to offer Sanders some concessions which Sanders, in turn, can offer to his supporters as a plausible reason to vote for Clinton in November. But what can he offer? Obama has delivered far less than enough on employment, banking, and foreign policy. To get the new Sanders voters to turn out, he will have to offer them something substantial, and I cannot imagine what that could be. In early 2010 I wrote, "The  party leadership will have a difficult time persuading most Democrats that the party represents them," and this is still the case.

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