Democrats’ Bernie Sanders problem: Damned if they do, damned if they don’t

Scott Jennings in USA Today:

What’s worse: choosing a socialist for your party’s presidential nominee, or taking the nomination away from one at a contested convention?

And there are these excellent observations too:

His small-dollar donor army is stable, unmoved by news cycles and the ups and downs that befall other campaigns. The Bernie Bros stick through thick and thin, unlike, for instance, the fickle supporters of Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren. Party rules require a candidate to win 15% of the vote in any state to qualify for pledged delegates, and Sanders’ is the only candidacy guaranteed to do that in almost every state.

Sanders is in a similar position to Donald Trump in 2016’s Republican primary, benefiting from fragmentation below him among people who don’t know when to quit. The only difference is that Republican Party rules enabled Trump to rack up massive delegate hauls in several states while winning less than a majority of the votes, while Sanders cannot.