Charlie Pierce’s space at Esquire is arguably the best blog on Politics these days. He told his readers his reasons for choosing Bernie while early-voting in his home state of Massachusetts in his post I'm a Cynic, and I Voted for Bernie Sanders
There is no question in my mind that, without Bernie Sanders and the forces behind him, Hillary Rodham Clinton is not talking like a Wall Street reformer, not bragging about how she's going to go after the shadow banking community, and probably not being as vocal a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement as she has been. I don't really care if it's genuine or if it's expedient; I'm fond of quoting Drew Pearson's fictional President Ben Hannaford's insight that, in a democracy, the right things always get done for the wrong reasons. The point is that she has to be kept to these positions even after she gets the nomination—and I think she is going to be the nominee—and the more states Sanders wins, and the more votes he piles up, and the more delegates come to Philadelphia pledged to support him, then the more tightly she can be fastened to the positions she adopted to beat him. So those are only a couple of reasons why I went to City Hall Friday morning and voted for Bernie Sanders.
His argument is among the best I’ve read for why progressives need to vote for Bernie, even if they expect and maybe even want Hillary to be the eventual nominee. Even Hillary supporters must admit that she would not be espousing the positions she is now — indeed she’s changed many during the campaign, most recently/notably calling for bringing back the public option on healthcare — without Bernie’s influence. So please help keep that influence on her. If we can’t have Bernie as the nominee, the next best thing is to make Bernie’s (and also Elizabeth Warren’s) agenda the one that Hillary fights for. Then we’ll get to see if she’s really “a progressive who gets things done.” Without Bernie’s influence, Hillary will likely go right back to “pleading guilty” to being a “moderate.”
Moderates may be fine when things are going well. But where our country is now, we don’t need moderation, we need bold action. Please keep the pressure on Hillary and vote Bernie! (And, of course, if Bernie manages to win, that won’t be a bad thing for progressive policy either!)