IS BERNIE SANDERS THE HOWARD DEAN OF THIS ELECTION CYCLE?

In 2004 Dean got a bunch of techie people eager to make their bones – and who were convinced that you could squeeze all the moneys out of the Internet. So they convinced the Dean campaign to let them try, and proceeded to raise ridiculous amounts of cash, using techniques that every campaign has more or less adopted since.

The difference, of course, between that krew and Clinton’s is that Hillary’s people know that without their patron, they are nothing. If Hillary is not the nominee, then they will have spent the last decade making enemies in a town that never forgets a grudge. So Hillary must be the nominee. She must. Even if she loses, she will be able to be de facto party head for… a while.  Long enough.

It’s all very sad.  …Well, I assume that it’s all very sad. Objectively speaking, somebody must find this exercise in applied karma to be unfortunate.

Driving to dinner last night in San Jose’s Santana Row complex, I saw multiple Sanders supporters waving BERNIE! placards at the corner of Stevens Creek and Winchester. I assume eventually, they’ll succumb to Hillary’s advice in 2004, as quoted back then by Tina Brown in the Washington Post:

“You don’t have to fall in love,” Hillary Rodham Clinton reportedly reproved a top Democratic fundraiser who was recently moaning about Kerry’s lackluster performance as a candidate. “You just have to fall in line.”

Of course that didn’t work out very well for anyone, either.

Other than in recent months, the Iranian mullahs, that is.