How Bernie Sanders Blew It

Bernie Sanders will not be president. During Tuesday's primaries, Hillary Clinton decisively won the key states of California and New Jersey, bolstering her already-pretty-insurmountable delegate lead to 2,184–1,804. That's pledged delegates, not superdelegates—if you include those much-derided free agents, Clinton had already clinched the nomination Monday night, according to the Associated Press. Sanders supporters were enraged that the race was called before Tuesday's primaries (some even harassed reporters covering Clinton), but it's becoming harder and harder to deny the simple truth of Clinton's victory.

That doesn't mean that Sanders completely lost. He proved that an old Jewish man who called himself a socialist and spent his campaign railing against American inequality and injustice can be not just a viable presidential candidate, but a beloved symbol of America's youth. He earned the right to name members of the Democratic platform committee, which could push the party's official stances leftward. He forced Clinton to answer his critiques on everything from Palestine to health insurance, and it was partly thanks to his consistent pressure that she endorsed some more liberal economic policies. He's also energized a generation of voters who felt left out of politics, many of whom say that they'll continue his movement after the election.

Some Sanders supporters no doubt feel in their bones that the process was rigged, that they were squeezed out by an unfair system. But insurgent campaigns always face long odds and disadvantages. It's not strange that Sanders fell short. It's strange how close he came.

The rub is that he could have come closer, were it not for some campaign miscues that made it even harder for the Vermont senator's campaign. Here are a few of the most obvious reasons for his defeat:

In the beginning, no one thought Sanders could win—not even Sanders. Unlike Clinton, who has been preparing herself for the grind of her second presidential campaign for years, the Vermont senator split his time between Congress and campaigning in the months after announcing his run.

"He thought he could compete effectively by campaigning about three days a week while the Senate was in session and then making weeklong trips when Congress was on break," the New York Times reported in April. "As a result, he had limited time to campaign in crucial states like South Carolina; he canceled a visit to Charleston in mid-June after the church shootings there, and he did not return to the city until late August."

The problem, according to the Times, was that "he was originally skeptical that he could beat Mrs. Clinton, and his mission in 2015 was to spread his political message about a rigged America rather than do whatever it took to win the nomination." He certainly spread that message, but by the time it became apparent he might have a shot to win the nomination, he wasn't well positioned to actually do so.

In one of the most famous moments of the early campaign, Sanders told Clinton during a debate that "the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails." It was a big applause line, an indication that the Democrats, unlike those mudslinging Republicans, were going to keep their campaign arguments in the realm of policy, not personality.

It was also an indication that Sanders, at least at the time, wasn't really running to beat Clinton. There are reasons to care about those "damn emails"—the former secretary of state hiding her government correspondence on a private email server is an indication of her intense desire for secrecy, and after an Obama administration noted for its lack of transparency, that's a problem. Sanders could have used the moment to denounce a governmental culture of obfuscation and surveillance; instead he played it safe and ended up handicapping himself in the future. From that moment on, he wasn't able to attack Clinton over the email scandal, even as new details trickled out about the FBI's investigation of her use of a private server.

Another consequence of Sanders's initial reluctance to fully commit to the campaign was that he essentially forfeited primaries across the South, allowing Clinton to build an insurmountable lead early on in the race. As noted above, he missed out on opportunities to visit states like South Carolina early, which was particularly important because Sanders needed to shore up his support among black people, the region's key Democratic voters.

As the Washington Post reported earlier this week, he was hesitant to inject his progressive personal history into speeches, didn't emphasize race enough, and simply didn't know how to work with black crowds. "No slowing down to receive or acknowledge affirmation or an 'Amen' here or there," a black South Carolina state senator told the Post. "He was brusque. He didn't appear to feel comfortable—and it showed."

By most accounts, Sanders was more comfortable with black audiences by the time he got to California—but by then it was too little, too late. No long-shot campaign can afford to simply surrender an entire region of the country—Barack Obama was able to succeed as an insurgent candidate against Clinton in 2008 thanks in large part to his Southern black support.

Running against a former secretary of state, it was always going to be hard for Sanders to win a debate on foreign policy. But early on, the Vermont senator seemed hesitant to even mix it up with Clinton on these issues, although her record includes not just passive support for the Iraq War but an active role in the Libya intervention, something that could have been a vulnerability.

Sanders's single-minded focus on income inequality won him fans, but it also allowed Clinton to cast her opponent as a single-issue candidate and a foreign policy newb. By April, when another Democratic debate rolled around, Sanders had seemingly found his bearings a bit and hit Clinton for being excessively pro-Israel, a valid left-wing line of attack. But by that point, he was too far behind in the delegate count for the attack to matter much.

As Politico reported late Tuesday night, Sanders himself was calling the shots throughout the campaign, so the rancor of the final weeks of his campaign can't really be blamed on rogue aides or supporters. No one pushed him into dismissing Clinton as "unqualified" before the New York primary—a rash remark that ignited a blowback against him—or told him not to condemn outright the fracas that broke out at the Nevada Democratic Convention.

Sanders was under no moral obligation to treat his opponent with kid gloves; Clinton certainly didn't pull her punches when she relentlessly attacked Sanders for his record on gun control, or criticized him for not releasing his tax returns. The problem is, none of Sanders's attacks worked. Maybe they came too late to matter, maybe they weren't artful, maybe they tarnished his image as a prophet of left-wing economics. But after his defeat in California, it's clear that his bitter rhetoric was more damaging than helpful.

Someday soon, Sanders will have to concede. His supporters will have to find a new burn to feel, new candidates to crowdfund. Sanders himself will go back to the Senate with new fame and a bigger grassroots base than any of his colleagues. Whoever takes his place as the designated insurgent in 2020 or 2024 may not have his firebrand style or his unexpected youth appeal, but they'll have one thing he didn't have: They'll be able to study the Bernie Sanders campaign and learn from it.

Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.