Bernie Sanders Should Have Dropped Out Last Month

Bernie Sanders finally came to the conclusion everyone else under the sun came to more than a month ago - Joe Biden will be the Democratic Party's nominee in November.

Today, Sanders finally dropped out of the race after last night's chaotic Wisconsin primary. No results have been released (and won't be until next week by court order). But I'm sure Sanders saw his internal polls and finally realized his candidacy had no viability.

But in all honesty his candidacy had no viability after Democrats began coalescing around Biden on Super Tuesday (save for Elizabeth Warren). That was March 3rd. But Bernie kept going. A week later, Biden won 5 out of 6 states including Michigan where Bernie had triumphed four years earlier. Still Bernie kept going. Yet another week later Biden swept Bernie in Arizona, Georgia and Florida only 48 hours after the two debated in an empty studio. One would have added Ohio to the list had Governor DeWine hadn't postponed proceedings because of a little thing called the Coronavirus. That was March 17th. Bernie's campaign was over.

And yet he did not drop out for another 3 weeks. Meanwhile more than 14,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. While fewer than 100 people have died in Wisconsin I suspect those numbers will go up because people went out to vote yesterday. No doubt a lot of blame belongs to Democratic Governor Tony Evers who hedged in delaying the vote. Even more of the blame goes to the GOP controlled state Senate which countermanded Evers' order and the GOP controlled state Supreme Court who upheld the Senate's decision. Yet had Bernie dropped out of the race 3 weeks ago there's a good chance this doesn't come to pass. If Bernie Sanders wasn't still running for President would so many people have risked their lives to vote?

Bernie supporters will argue that campaign resources were directed towards health care organizations fighting COVID-19. The simple response to that Bernie doesn't have to run for President to fight COVID-19. Now that Sanders is out of the race it will be interesting to see if fighting COVID-19 remains a priority.