His positions and consistency are better than anyone else on the list. That is inarguable. However, I see a problem with your logic. The Republican party opted for the candidate that won the right wing purity test (trump), while Democrats opted for the candidate that represented stability, continuity and White House experience. Normally, you could argue that the Primary is about ideological purity contests, but that only happened on one side here. That said: if the DNC had better gauged the populist sentiment of the nation they may very well have pushed in a different direction. In other words, hindsight has 20/20 vision.
At this point I think it's fairly clear the current Dem brass/leaders care more about retaining power within the party than seizing on populist sentiments/zeitgeist to win elections (nevermind the conflict of interest causing debt obligations of the DNC vis a vis Hillary); this seems readily evident in the DNC's 2017 purge of FDR/Bernie progressives from leadership positions, replacing them with Clinton/Perez supporters and lobbyists, and the stocking of Perez's transition team with just two (2!) Bernie supporters (
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/10/tom-perez-dnc-shake-up |
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry...ellison-loyalists_us_59ea6a44e4b0a484d0634a08 |
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry...nsition-committee_us_58cab459e4b0ec9d29d9695f ), including longtime veterans, and repeated/ongoing attempts of the DCCC to sabotage and push out progressive candidates (
The DCCC's Long, Ugly History of Sabotaging Progressives ).
Two particularly egregious incidents of the latter include Dem Minority House whip Steny Hoyer's recent pressure on progressive Levi Tillemann to step down and clear the way for establishment favourite Jim Crow, a corporate lawyer faithfully towing the third way/Clinton Democrat policy lines, (
https://theintercept.com/2018/04/26/steny-hoyer-audio-levi-tillemann/ ) and their attacks on Laura Moser (
https://www.vox.com/2018/3/7/17084808/dccc-laura-moser-texas-democratic-primary-2018 ). The DCCC predictably tries to cover for such ham-fisted interference by sophistically arguing that it is only attempting to pick the most 'viable' candidate, but then continually fails to produce any evidence supporting their claims whatsoever, and moreover, has never sabotaged/hindered a Clinton wing democrat in favour of Bernie-Warren wing candidate.
Overall, said Democrat brass appears to want to have their cake and eat it too: they want to retain power and wagon circle/hedge out Bernie's people while also winning, and seem to think they can coast on enmity against Trump to somehow thread the needle and achieve this; a strategy that has already proven to be dangerous, risky, and, above all, losing (in the case of the DNC I suspect there is also a strong desire to continue obfuscating their budget).
The whole framing of this conflict as being about ideological purity is incorrect at best and dismissively, and deliberately, disingenuous at worst: we already know that FDR progressives tend to poll, on average, better than the third-way/Clinton Dems with the general electorate. This isn't about one faction holding off the plebeians and barbarians at the gate, doing what they must to anoint those with the best chance of winning; rather, it is about that faction trying to retain power at all costs, including at the expense of electoral competitiveness and success.
My problem with Sanders is that I'm genuinely concerned he's physically too old. I just don't see how somebody of that age could handle the rigors of the White House. One term? Possibly. Two terms? I just don't see it.
Now this is an actual, legitimate concern, as energetic and vital for his age as Bernie is.
That said, I'm confident he will pick someone who can faithfully bear his torch should the worst happen, such as Warren.