Having won resounding victories in New Jersey and won New Mexico and South Dakota, and leading 56% to 43% in California with 92% of the vote tallied, Hillary Clinton claimed the Democrat presidential nomination, become the first woman to ever win the nomination for such a high office. Not surprisingly, Bernie Sanders' enormous ego continues to keep him from admitting that he lost fair and square. Rather than concede and rally his supporters to Clinton and the need to put a focus on defeating Donald Trump, Sanders is delusionally vowing to fight on. His refusal to grasp objective reality is to the point where one can wonder whether he is mentally fit for the U.S. Senate, much less the presidency. A piece in the New York Times looks at Clinton's historic achievement. Here are excerpts:
Hillary Clinton claimed the Democratic presidential nomination on Tuesday night after decisive victories in the New Jersey and New Mexico primaries, and quickly appealed to supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont to unite with her against Donald J. Trump.
But Mr. Sanders refused to yield, insisting that he would continue his campaign and barely acknowledging her achievement.
With the 14-month Democratic race nearing a close, Mrs. Clinton savored the biggest night of her extraordinary journey from lawyer, wife and first lady to senator, secretary of state and, now, the first woman to win a major party’s nomination. At a rally in Brooklyn, she took the stage with her hands clasped over her heart in gratitude, then threw open her arms in joy and savored a long moment as a jubilant crowd waved American flags and chanted “Hillary.”
Reaching for history, Mrs. Clinton pledged to build on the achievements of pioneers like the 19th-century leaders at Seneca Falls, N.Y., who began the fight for women’s rights in America.
“Tonight caps an amazing journey — a long, long journey,” she said, nearly a century after women won the right to vote nationwide. “We all owe so much to those who came before, and tonight belongs to all of you.”
As six states voted on Tuesday, Mr. Sanders’s political lifeline frayed with each loss. He was left hoping for a long-shot victory in the California primary, where Mrs. Clinton held a wide lead, to justify staying in the race and lobbying Democratic officials to support him in a contested convention next month.
President Obama plans to meet with Mr. Sanders at the White House on Thursday at the candidate’s request, an administration spokesman said, adding that Mr. Obama had called both Democratic candidates Tuesday night to congratulate them on “running inspiring campaigns.”
As Mrs. Clinton sought to turn her attention to the general election, Mr. Trump, who had a weekslong head start, was busy reckoning with problems of his own making.
Part of Mr. Sanders’s challenge is that his justifications for continuing his campaign are increasingly thin.Mrs. Clinton has now won a majority of the 4,051 pledged delegates at stake in the Democratic primaries and caucuses, crossing what Mr. Sanders had long held up as a critical threshold. She also has support from 571 super delegates to Mr. Sanders’s 48; only about 100 uncommitted super delegates remain.
Other campaign advisers said they expected Mr. Sanders to consider his options during his flight from California to Vermont on Wednesday. One recalled that Mrs. Clinton did much the same when she found herself in a similar situation eight years ago.
The resistance of many of Mr. Sanders’s supporters to Mrs. Clinton is likely to soften once Mr. Sanders leaves the race, and especially if he endorses her. But Clinton advisers and allies say they will need his help to bring around the many younger voters and liberals who prefer him.
If Mrs. Clinton is beginning the general election with many Sanders supporters incensed at her, Mr. Trump is in the midst of his own self-made crisis. He is forcing Republicans to confront a painful choice: Embrace his brand of racial politics, one that could taint the party’s image well beyond this election, or abandon their presumptive nominee and hand the White House to the Democrats for another four years.
But Mrs. Clinton’s supporters, pointing both to the threat from Mr. Trump and to her chance at making history, predicted that she would have an easier time bringing her party together than Mr. Trump would his.
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