http://nypost.com/2016/05/21/bernie-faces-wrath-of-clinton-mafia-as-he-refuses-to-surrender/News
Bernie comes face to face with the Clinton Mafia
By Michael Goodwin
May 21, 2016 | 11:41pm
Now it’s Bernie Sanders’ turn to feel the burn. Unfortunately, the heat is coming from the Clinton Mafia.
The Democratic National Committee, top members of Congress and their media handmaidens are turning on the formerly adorable, 74-year-old senator with rabid ferocity. His sin: refusing to concede to St. Hillary. Off with his head!
For his impudence, Sanders and his backers stand accused of fomenting violence and using intimidation tactics, of being rude and sexist and of sabotaging Clinton.
In short, they are being treated as if they are Republicans or other infidels.
The New York Times, having failed to kill Donald Trump with a hit piece on how he treated women 30 years ago, turned its Hillary Protection Squad loose on her fellow Democrat. “Sanders is Urged to Quell Threats By His Followers,” screamed a Wednesday front-page headline.
When Sanders didn’t respond with bended-knee deference, the Times used a bigger cannon the next day. “Sanders Willing to Harm Clinton in Homestretch,” it declared matter-of-factly on Thursday’s front page.
The attacks are as ridiculous as the irony is delicious. Trump is quietly pulling together major elements of the fractured GOP, while Dems are noisily growing more bitter and divided.
It wasn’t so long ago that liberals were salivating over a contested Republican convention, but now the real intramural battle is on their team. The same biased media that encouraged Republicans to break with Trump now demand that all Dems submit to Clinton.
For her part, Clinton proclaimed that the race is over. “I will be the nominee for my party,” she said in a TV interview. “That is already done, in effect. There is no way I won’t be.”
Beyond taunting fate, her claims are like pulling rank — if you have to resort to it, you’re in trouble.
In fact, Sanders still has an outside chance of getting to the convention with more pledged delegates than her, and wants rule changes to force superdelegates to vote with their states instead of being free agents. Dems have nearly 700 superdelegates, with more than 500 committed to Clinton.
Even assuming Clinton survives, and doesn’t get indicted, she is being diminished by the day. Sanders is exposing how weak she is and how little enthusiasm there is for her.
Her problem remains as I described it in February: No matter what happens this year, Sanders “has won the future of the Democratic Party.” After eight years of Barack Obama and eight months of Bernie Sanders, it’s not Clinton’s party anymore.
In that way, the duel recalls another race where a long-shot challenger seized the heart and soul of a party while losing the nomination — the Ronald Reagan-Gerald Ford Republican contest of 1976. While this year’s GOP primary had echoes of that race, the Dem primary actually follows the pattern more faithfully.
In the shadow of Watergate, Ford was the unelected incumbent president and a stodgy figure unprepared for Reagan’s bold and principled challenge. Ford held on for a narrow victory but lost the general election to Jimmy Carter.
Four years later, Reagan won the nomination and then two terms in historic landslides. His victories reshaped the GOP and amounted to a conservative revolution that brought peace and prosperity to America and helped force the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Clinton, similarly, began this campaign as the de facto incumbent and expected to roll over nominal opposition as a tune-up for the general. But Sanders captured the party’s passion and forced Clinton to adopt many of his positions. Indeed, she has moved so far to the left that she would be running in the fall on many of Sanders’ positions.
There is, of course, one huge difference between 1976 and now: Sanders’ age means there’s little chance he’ll be running again in four years.
But even that offers Clinton no consolation. Knowing this is his last rodeo, Sanders has every reason to keep his promise to fight all the way to the convention. Who knows — he might be so angry at Clinton’s thuggish enforcers that he mounts a third-party bid.
Imagine it — Trump vs. Sanders vs. Clinton. That would be fun for the whole family.
