2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Bill Press: Sanders didnt damage Clintons public image [View all]Saviolo
(3,321 posts)Bernie staying in the race all the way to the convention was helpful for the Democratic party. As long as there was a race on the Democratic side of things, the media was going to keep talking about it, which gave much needed visibility to the left when the right dominated the news cycles for months on end, mostly because of Trump's verbal diarrhea. As soon as there was a winner declared in the Democratic primary, the media would have just said, "Okay, it's all done, this is boring, but WOAH!! Check out what Trump just said! Again!!!" So long as Bernie was holding on and in that race, the media could talk up the race as a pitched battle despite (as has been pointed out by a number of folks in this thread) the fact that it was NOT a particularly acrimonious primary.
If you really feel the need to blame someone, I feel like the media deserves the massive majority of the blame. Millions and millions of dollars worth of free advertising for Trump in the form of news cycles and coverage of his statements and pressers. Hell, they decided to cover an empty podium WAITING for Trump to show up instead of speeches by Bernie OR Hillary. The primary system is a part of the race and must take place, according to the system in place. The media giving massive amounts of free advertising to the GOP is NOT something that must take place, but seemingly has become part of the system. THAT'S what you've got to fight.