Many have been comparing Senator Bernie Sanders' surge in the primary polls and his increasingly competitive battle with Hillary Clinton to 2008 and her fight with Barack Obama.
It's not the same in two ways. Number one: Bernie Sanders is no Barack Obama. Sanders is older (at 74, he would be the oldest person ever elected president) and while he is a populist and makes great arguments for his case against Wall Street, being white and from a primarily white state, he does not have the appeal to black voters that our first African American President had. Bernie is attractive to millennials but is trailing with women and Latinos.
Number two: After being an Independent-Socialist Mayor of Burlington, Vermont for eight years, Vermont Representative for sixteen years and a Senator for nine years, Sanders just became a Democrat last year to run for president. Obama has always been a Democrat and is loyal to the party.
In 2008, a few months into the campaign, the Democratic establishment abandoned Hillary for Obama beginning with Senator Ted Kennedy leading the revolt. One by one the big-wigs endorsed Barack Obama. Despite this, the battle lasted until all of the states had primaries and Clinton won the popular vote while Obama won the delegate count to take the nomination.
There has never been a Democratic nominee that has won the primary without the support of the Democratic party establishment. Bernie has not been embraced by the Democratic National Committee. The fights that his campaign have had with Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), chairwoman of the DNC have been well chronicled.
It is true that this election year all bets are off and many voters are so sick of DC that they don't want establishment, career politicians. But that is much more true of Republicans than Democrats. The rise of Donald Trump, Ben Carson and even Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) shows that the Tea party and grass root Republicans feel betrayed by their party. And who can blame them? They won the House and the Senate last election and they still have not stopped President Obama on issues such as healthcare, immigration, gay marriage, normalizing relations with Cuba, the Iran nuclear deal and climate change pacts.
The same reason that the GOP is mad at their establishment is why Democrats still admire President Obama and his accomplishments while getting zero support from the opposition. This is why Hillary Clinton has been touting her time as his Secretary of State and singing praises for President Obama's record.
The more Senator Sanders talks about a revolution, the more it seems like an indictment of the Obama years. And this does not sit well with those who have stood behind the president and his agenda these past two terms.
In essence, even though there is a progressive, Elizabeth Warren wing of the party that Bernie Sanders has tapped into, the Democrats are much more united than the Republicans. The Democratic debates, though limited, have proven this in their civility and tackling of the issues (as opposed to the cage matches of the GOP.)
Just as in 2008, after a tumultuous long campaign, the party came together behind its nominee, Barack Obama, I believe the same will happen in 2016.
Just as Hillary Clinton made Barack Obama a better candidate, Bernie Sanders is doing the same for Hillary. Thanks to Bernie, she has highlighted the issues of income inequality, equal pay, raising the minimum wage, criminal justice reform, campaign finance reform and affordable college. She has come out against the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement and the Keystone Pipeline.
As Democrats we should welcome Senator Sanders for his honesty and the enthusiasm he has generated among the youth, independents, progressives, socialists, and occupiers. The Democratic party is one of a big tent. But unless we stay united that tent can collapse. We need to acknowledge how far we have come in the last seven years which began with a great recession and two multi year wars.
I believe Hillary knows all of this and what it takes to enact change and how we need to continue to go in the right direction with what was begun by President Obama. I believe the majority of the Democratic party agrees with me but time will tell and Iowa is looming.