Non-conformist Sanders doomed to fail

Bernie Sanders won’t win the Democratic nomination in 2016.

Now that I have your attention, I want to follow that up by asking you not to hate me just yet — I #FeelTheBernjust as much as the next twenty-something, so I really do hope to be eating those words by the time ElectionDay rolls around.

More likely than not, though, Hillary Clinton will end up being the 2016 Democratic nominee. Yes, Bernie has been chipping away at the Clinton campaign in the polls over the summer, even gaining the lead over Hillary in New Hampshire. But there is a whole lot of time left in the game, and the essential difference between the two candidates is that Hillary is willing to play it.

In order for candidates to win elections, our two-party system requires two things of them: 1. Conformism and 2. Big money.

Candidates need to conform to the party line so that that they can gain endorsements from the party elites in their respective districts and/or states — this is what gives them legitimacy, and consequently, access to party resources like PACs and donors who are loyal to the party.

Which leads right into the next requirement, big money. Candidates need as much cash as they can get in order to sustain a campaign, simply because the campaign trail is really long and really expensive. A candidate needs to consistently retain voter interest via paid advertising and community organizing. And these efforts need to be framed around the specific voters they are being directed toward. But candidates can’t know the interests of key voter demographics without paying for a national staff that can collect data and conduct polls — otherwise, they’ll be shooting blindfolded. For instance, a national primary candidate might run an ad on fracking in Allegheny County because his or her staff found that that’s the issue the most people care about here — but it would be pointless to run the same ad in Arizona, where people care about immigration reform most.

The point is, candidates cannot have a narrow platform that only reaches a fraction of the voters. They’ll simply never obtain a majority of votes that way, which, as you probably know, is the only way to win. Rather, candidates must make their platforms as all-encompassing as possible in order to capture as many voter demographics as possible — and, as all successful campaigns have illustrated, that can’t be done without a ridiculous amount of money.

When it comes to the party line and big money, though, Bernie rejects both. A self-described socialist, he has consistently referred to the Democratic Party as “ideologically bankrupt.” He takes far-left stances that mainstream Dems won’t dare go near — he supports a single-payer healthcare system, a $15 federal minimum wage, and free universal college education, just to name a few. His motivation is one based solely on liberal principles; he concerns himself with promoting equality, not with making himself more promotable, as most other politicians do. In other words, he is not motivated by the need to garner popularity for the next election — he knows his beliefs, take them or leave them.

This is opposed to politicians like Hillary Clinton, whose convictions change along with the tides of public opinion (see her former stance on marriage equality). She has always supported what she perceived to be the majority opinion of the Democratic Party, or the party line. And for her loyalty, she has held many leadership positions within the party itself, granting favors and working with many other Democratic congressmen and women along the way.

Consequently, Hillary has more than 300 endorsements from federal, state and local Democratic politicians — all of whom will support her campaign by rallying their own constituencies to her cause. Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, has a little more than 20.

At the Socialist Scholars Conference in New York City in April 1990, Bernie asked, “Why should we work within the Democratic Party if we don’t agree with anything the Democratic Party says?”

Even if the party is “ideologically bankrupt,” which I have no doubt is true, Bernie can’t win without the support of the Democratic party. As was noted above, without the endorsements, he won’t have the access to party resources and support needed to sustain a national campaign. And, since Hillary is currently the onlyother viable Democratic candidate, she has access to all the support the party mainstream has to offer. As Joe Trippi, a former Democratic campaign organizer, noted in the Washington Post, “No one is splitting the party establishment with Hillary. She has it all to herself…Sanders gets to 30 percent and he is still 25 points behind.”

There is a ton of energy around Bernie’s campaign, and he has drawn huge crowds to his rallies. But most of his appeal is found in young, educated, white liberals — a vocal, yet relatively small, portion of the Democratic party. That’s not enough to win an election in our system.

What’s more is that Bernie refuses PAC money and individual donations more than $1,000 out of principle. It’s extremely admirable, but as it stands, Bernie has raised $15.2 million for his campaign, while Hillary has raised $67.8 million. And this early in the campaign, these figures are much more important than poll numbers.

Bernie has been gaining a lot of attention from the media and activists because he is different from other politicians, but when the novelty wears off, he simply won’t be able to maintain voter interest without the money.

It’s extremely unfortunate, but these factors will more likely than not result in Bernie losing out to Hillary in the primaries.

But that doesn’t mean that Bernie’s message should die — if anything it should strengthen it. One of his primary platform issues is “money in politics,” arguing that politicians care more about fundraising than representing.

If Bernie loses the campaign, it will just go to prove his point about how broken and unrepresentative the system truly is, and how “ideologically bankrupt” the Democrats really are.

Nick is the Assistant Opinions Editor of The Pitt News and primarily writes on American and International politics.

Write to Nick at njv10@pitt.edu