Bernie Sanders’ moribund campaign for the presidency has started to stink.
As reported by Politico, a closed-door meeting Sanders attended on Capitol Hill at the invitation of House Democrats on Wednesday morning quickly went sour after legislators, frustrated by the Vermont senator’s public hemming and hawing over endorsing Hillary Clinton, booed him to his face.
The outburst came in response to a ripped-from-the-stump-speech remark Sanders made when asked how he planned to help Democrats retake the House, unite their party, and defeat Donald Trump in November. “The goal isn’t to win elections, the goal is to transform America,” Sanders said, multiple anonymous legislators and aides in the room told Politico, eliciting jeers from roughly a dozen lawmakers.
Some Democratic legislators have since made a show of solidarity, downplaying the drama of Bernie’s reception. Per CNN:
Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly took issue with some descriptions of the meeting on Twitter, saying, “Bernie was respectfully received by Caucus. Some disagreements, yes, but a friendly venue” and “Sanders was reflective and thoughtful in responses. Expressions of disagreement are NOT booing.”
The difference between booing and “expressions of disagreement” aside, Sanders could hardly have expected a friendly crowd. Many congressional Democrats have grumbled of late that Sanders is taking his crusade too far. And many of the more vocal lawmakers at Wednesday’s meeting—among them Ohio Rep. Joyce Beatty and California representatives Mark Takano and John Garamendi, who reportedly exhorted Sanders to reveal when he plans to endorse Clinton—are avowed Clinton backers.
Wednesday’s meeting is further proof that the Sanders revolution, whether he recognizes it or not, is over. If any of his supporters were holding out for a Clinton indictment, Tuesday’s announcement from FBI Director James Comey, who declined to recommend criminal charges be brought against Clinton for using an unsecured private email server as secretary of state, put an end to that. Though his candidacy galvanized the Democratic base, drove Clinton leftward, and could well augur the future of the Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders may end up being remembered for the long, drawn-out, bummer of a way he ended his campaign.
