Democratic Lawmakers: Time's Up, Bernie

Politico interviewed about a dozen Democratic lawmakers about the Bernie Sanders campaign and finds that a clear consensus is in the air: "The time has come, they say, for Sanders to start winding things down." The general view is that he can't possibly win and that if he wants to stay in the race, that's OK—as long as he starts directing his fire more toward Donald Trump than at Hillary Clinton. Sen. Claire McCaskill is one of those quoted in the story, and her remarks sum things up: “What’s important is not whether or not he gets out, but how he campaigns," she says. "If the contrast is now about what separates us from Donald Trump, then I think it’s fine." The story echoes the sentiment behind a recent New York Times story that said President Obama has been privately telling donors that it's time to get behind Clinton so she can focus on Trump.

Blogger Ed Morrissey at Hot Air sums up the Democratic viewpoint toward Sanders as "keep campaigning ... but for Hillary." And he thinks that party leaders are probably on the mark with the strategy. "Perhaps Hillary will offer Sanders a Cabinet post, such as HHS, where he can indulge all of his single-payer healthcare fantasies if Hillary wins the election," he writes. "But it may take a couple of more major-state blowouts to get the message through to Bernie that it’s over … and it’s been over for a while." Sanders, though, clearly disagrees. On Sunday, he began raising pressure on superdelegates in states he's won by big margins to respect the will of voters and back him at the convention instead of Clinton. The whole issue of unbound superdelegates is "problematic," he says, per the Hill. (The latest campaign finance reports had some surprise winners and losers.)