I find the "Bernie has already won because he's changed the debate and pulled Hillary to the left" comments to be subtly self-defeating, because it takes the urgency away from fighting to win the primary (yes, yes, however unlikely), which is how the debate is being changed. But i really was struck watching last night's debate about how much the conversation really has changed. It hit me on social security. Eight years ago, i was shouting at the television for Obama to challenge the moderator's framing that social security was going broke and does he have the strength to stand up to his base and make the cuts that are necessary. Last night, Wolf Fucking Blitzer was pressing Hillary Clinton on whether or not she was on board to expand social security, and she was tripping over herself to say that she is, despite her past and current equivocations.

The fact that Bernie has found his footing on foreign policy has made a big difference, too, as Hillary was entirely on defensive on that subject, having to defend her interventionist policy. And i think we had a serious conversation about Israel for the first time ever on national television.

It's also been true in proxy appearance on cable news. We've had people like Nina Turner, Michelle Alexander, Jeffrey Sachs, Robert Reich, and others repeatedly on television pushing views that would not have gotten the attention otherwise. It's also given Tulsi Gabbard a spotlight, and if she can't be my vice president next year there's now an opportunity for her to become a Senator and beyond in the future. So i do think the debate really has been changed, and not just in a 'Hillary might endorse more moderate versions of Bernie's positions for now and then pivot back to the right for the general' sort of way. The cable news pundits now have new ideas bouncing around in their empty heads.

On that last topic, though, one tangential thing i want to get off my chest, about Hillary's strange parsing of her minimum wage position. By definition, the minimum wage is a floor. Saying you are for a $12 minimum wage as a floor but that you're ok with local areas going higher is a truism, designed to mislead. I was glad to see her flailing to explain that last night, and getting booed.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/bernie-sanders-yada-yada-nothing-is-radical-160605124.html

“The Brooklyn-born Sanders urged an estimated 28,000 at his rally in Prospect Park Sunday to help him overcome her edge.

'When I was a kid growing up in Flatbush, our parents would take us to Prospect Park,' he said. 'But I was never here speaking to 20,000 people. This is a campaign that’s on the move. This is a campaign that one year ago was considered a fringe candidacy — 70 points 'behind Secretary Clinton. Well they don’t consider us fringe anymore.'

'This is a movement of people who are prepared to think big, not small,' Sanders added. 'People who want to elect not just the new president, but to transform America.'”

Too bad all those people had to be registered to vote last October in order to participate in the primary. :-)