Can Anything Convince Bernie Fans to Vote for Hillary?

On Saturday, at the New Hampshire Democratic Party State Convention, Elizabeth Warren demonstrated the skills that have put her on the shortlist of Hillary Clinton's vice-presidential nominees. The Massachusetts senator has taught at Harvard Law, she's done important work on high-level economic commissions, she midwifed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau into existence after the financial crisis. But what really excites some Democrats these days is her role as the political equivalent of an insult comic.

Taking Twitter beef offline a la Drake, Warren uncorked a bevy of jabs against Donald Trump. She rattled off a list of the GOP nominee's abandoned enterprises before declaring him "a proven failure." She used the phrase "thin-skinned racist bully" at least twice and "fraudster in chief" once. And she came within waving distance of calling the guy a pussy, wondering why he doesn't "just man up and take his licks" when it comes to the legal action former students are taking against Trump University.

"I really could do this all day," she said in the middle of one diatribe.

One thing she avoided doing all day was touch on the issue of Bernie Sanders, who has still declined to officially concede the 2016 race even though Clinton is the presumptive nominee. Warren and Sanders have both worked to pull the Democrats to the left on economic issues, yet Warren has stayed out of the primary infighting that has divided the party. Presumably part of the reason she's being considered for the VP slot is her ability to appeal to passionate Sanders supports who still aren't ready for Hillary, but she seems determined not to mention the 74-year-old elephant in the room.

Warren avoided delving into any specific policies where she and Sanders agree, like cracking down on big banks. Even when she talked about the minimum wage, it was just to say it should be higher, not to take a stand on the Clinton-Sanders debate over whether $12 or $15 an hour is the fairer number.

If Warren didn't do much to extend an olive branch across the intra-party rift, some Sanderistas in the crowd showed little interest in being reached out to. At a few points during her speech, a small group of them chanted "Bernie!" and waved signs for their candidate.

One of the chanters, delegate Felicia Teter, said afterward that she was "a little sad about Warren's speech." Teter told VICE she'd liked Warren's past willingness to criticize the Democratic Party as well as conservatives and was disappointed to see her just calling out Trump. Indeed, in 2014 Warren was widely seen as the voice of a dissenting left wing of the party when she fought against a deal that included weakening the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law.

Teter said she's holding out for the party to change course and nominate Sanders. "Yes, I'm terrified of Donald Trump being president, but the Democratic Party right now has the opportunity to stop this," she said. If the Dems just changed course and gave Sanders the nomination, Teter argued, he'd handily defeat the orange menace.

In an effort to tamp down tensions, convention organizers had asked delegates to leave anything bearing the names "Clinton" or "Sanders" at home (the protesters during Warren's speech acknowledged they were acting against the wishes of the party leaders). A couple dozen Sanders sign-holders were present, but relegated to lining the sides of a driveway outside the convention. Among them were Vickie Abbott, age 70, and her friend Marie Clark, who, like Teter weren't convinced Sanders wasn't about to become president.

"We've just begun," Clark said. "For us, this is forty years in the making."

Clark and Abbott laid out the standard case for the eliminated-by-normal-standards Sanders: There are still a lot of votes being recounted, the party ought to get behind Sanders as the more electable candidate who can win independent and even Republican votes in a matchup against Trump, anything could happen at the Democratic National Convention. If all else fails, maybe Bernie should think about a third-party run.

Other Sanders supporters, like delegate Karen Day, are unhappy with the way Clinton was favored by superdelegates early in the process, but expect the party to come together after the national convention. Day's ready to move into the Clinton camp if she really has to. "Whoever gets the nomination's got my vote," she said. (Polls have mostly found that a large majority of Sanders fans would vote for Clinton, provided he endorsed her.)

Another Sanders-supporting delegate, David McKenzie, said he's backing Clinton now, and expects others will do the same. But he said he isn't eager for his first-choice candidate to step aside and endorse the presumptive nominee just yet. McKenzie said he thinks Sanders's choice to play hard-to-get may force the Democratic Party to move to the left to placate the Vermont senator's passionate progressive base.

Some Sanders supporters were clearly working through their position on the fly. Alex Rego, a college student who's running for New Hampshire state representative, said he's troubled by Clinton's past, particularly her remarks about " superpredators" and her husband's role in promoting mass incarceration.

Rego said he's "not too sure I'll end up voting for Hillary." A moment later, though, he said he'd do it if it turned out to really be necessary to make sure a Democrat holds the highest office in the land.

That's the rub: Few people who disagree with Clinton from the left would rather see Trump in the White House. Eventually voting for Clinton might be a matter of picking the lesser of two evils; it also might mean going through the six stages of grief.

Delegate Zoranda Pringle said she supported Clinton in the tough 2008 fight against Barack Obama, so she knows where Sanders voters are coming from. But she thinks they'll come around, just like she did.

"I remember the pain, and it's real pain," she said. "I cried, and I'm sure that they are crying too."

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