Platforms Are For Posing Impotently Presidencies Are For Real

According to John Nichols at The Nation the big reason that Bernie Sanders is hell bent on having a "contested convention" is for that stupidest of all election year exercises, getting the party platform written to his liking.   Political writers in magazines of the left have a really silly fixation on party platforms.  Maybe you do that when your job essentially involves writing that will have little to no effect in the real world.  You wonder why Bernie Sanders, an independent who has not, to my knowledge, ever felt the need for a party platform during any other decade of his long career in public office is suddenly so enamored of one.  Platform fights are all about posing for the camera and the audience, maybe that's something that leftish political writers also like about them, they give them something to write about.   I've seen platform fights before, there is no bigger waste of time, effort, resources and good will in the political process.   I have never known of a politician who allegedly ran on one who felt bound by any of its provisions that they wouldn't have supported anyway or who wouldn't abandon planks in it as was necessary or expedient.   Their primary use is made by the opponents of the candidates who need to run away from the thing when it's an unhelpful burden or ballot box poison.  

A far more productive use of any clout which Sanders has gained would be in private negotiations with Clinton over his support, negotiations which will never be made public during the campaign.  Considering that their voting records in the Senate were not all that different, it should be easy to get something accomplished.  But the price of the loser in a nomination battle to have influence is the one thing that Sanders seems to be loath to put up, his full endorsement and support of the person who won the most votes of Democrats.   His continuing on could sour any potential for him to have major influence on the course of her possible presidency.   If he doesn't support her and she wins she will, rightly, conclude that she didn't need his support.   If she loses, it discredits him and his supporters, which would be far worse than if he'd never run in the first place.

The best thing for the left is if it is seen and felt to be a dependable margin of victory for Democrats and a reliable force in both presidential and mid-term elections.  It is the ability to ensure someone's election that gives you influence, not blackmail that you will defeat them.  Unless you prove that you can provide a politician with success, you're not their potential supporters, you're their opposition and they will have to go elsewhere to find support.  If the left had been the reliable margin ensuring election instead of the lunatic, tantrum prone, third-party deluded numbskulls they have too often been, they would have a far greater role in making laws and policies and putting those into effect.

Sanders isn't giving me much reason to be optimistic about what he and his campaign will do, I am afraid there is going to be a lot more reason to wish he'd never made the run in the first place.  But that is up to him and the extent to which HE will convince his supporters to vote for Hillary Clinton.  It is his campaign which has whipped up the Hillary haters on the left, many of whom, when you question them, don't know anything about her other than Republican lie-machine talking points.  He is the one who encouraged that, he's a long way from his statement that no one cared about her e-mails.  If he'd kept on that track he'd be in a position to have far more influence on something that really matters, what her administration will be.

Dump the stupid posing on the platform, the platform is a stupid exercise in posturing.  It is more likely to be politically counter-productive than important.  Holding office and making laws is what's important. but you've got to win the election, first.

Update:  If I were going to hire a copy editor I wouldn't start the hunt with an idiot of an Atriot.