As Common Dreams previously reported, Sanders’ remarks on Thursday echoed a message earlier this week regarding his intention to carry his campaign through to the conclusion of the primary season – even as the campaign has acknowledged his path to claiming the nomination over rival Hillary Clinton remains hard. It was on Wednesday [April 27, 2016] that Sanders told the New York Times that the campaign that was once numbered at over 1,000 went from the 550 remaining staffers to somewhere between 325 to 350. ‘The people need a choice, and if you don’t give them a choice, who will?’ ” Kasich said.
Advertisement
Mr. Sanders also still has an active lawsuit against the DNC stemming from an incident past year in which his campaign was temporarily cut off from party voter data files.
Mr. Sanders has started to talk more openly about the possibility of not winning the Democratic contest.
Despite the layoffs, Sanders says he still plans to keep up his campaign through the Democratic convention in July.
“We want to win as many delegates as we can, so we do not need workers now in states around the country”, Mr. Sanders said. “Unusual things happen in politics, and with your help, we are going to win the pledged delegates, and with your help, super delegates may well reach the conclusion that Bernie Sanders will be the strongest candidate against Donald Trump”. “We’ve got to fight for every one of those states”, he said.
Though the headline may seem like ominous news, the Sanders campaign is clearly trying to maintain a realistic but optimistic view of their chances in the remainder of this primary. During that interview, she asked Sanders if he would be interested in being Clinton’s vice president. Sanders said he’s hoping for a high voter turnout in OR because that’s when he tends to win.
At Tuesday night’s rally in Hunting, W.Va., Suzanne Hornsby, a retired art teacher, said she is still “praying” that Sanders will become the Democratic nominee and said she was heartened by the roughly 6,500 people who turned out to see him.
After putting together an impressive string of victories through the middle portion of the campaign calendar, Clinton has blunted that momentum after dealing him a lopsided defeat in her adopted home state NY last week, and in four of five Northeastern states on Tuesday.
Advertisement
“It’s hard to imagine why anyone would vote for that agenda”, Sanders said.
