Bernie Sanders didn’t endorse Hillary Clinton the day after Barack Obama launched his own "I'm With Her" campaign — actually, he got booed by House Democrats fed up with his slow walk to the finish line — but there were growing signs that an announcement may be in the works.
Clinton’s campaign hastily released a new college affordability plan, offering free college tuition to working families, just hours before the presumptive Democratic nominee was set to excoriate Donald Trump’s business record in the heart of his failed Atlantic City casino empire.
She wasn't planning to address the big policy shift in this down-on-its-luck casino town, but the announcement was intended as a peace offering to the Vermont senator — and the first major public step towards an endorsement sources close to the negotiations now expect to arrive before the Republican convention.
By leaking the plan, Clinton made a significant concession to Sanders on one of the driving issues of his campaign — free public college for all — a pledge that has in part accounted for his stunning 5-to-1 margin over the party's nominee among voters under the age of 30.
Clinton’s new proposal, the product of weeks of negotiations between the campaigns, outlines a plan to provide free college for families earning $125,000 or less at in-state public colleges and universities, which would include about 80 percent of the college-age population.
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The college plan designed to bring Sanders and his supporters along was part of a time-consuming end game weeks in the making.
Over the past few weeks talks between Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook and his Sanders counterpart, Jeff Weaver, have lurched along without, until now, producing a clear result. The issue wasn't ideology, necessarily, and the two operatives have developed a decent working relationship. In addition to the concessions on free college, Clinton and her team, according to two people briefed on the talks, have been willing to discuss further strengthening rules on Wall Street banks — though she remains opposed to the re-institution of the lapsed Glass-Steagall separation between vanilla banking and high-risk securities investment.
The two sides had bogged down of the specific details of policy — not surprisingly, Sanders has insisted on the biggest possible proposals while Clinton's bean-counting policy team has focused on the details of funding, legislation and implementation.
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But, in general, sources from both sides said the talks have been more focused on getting Sanders and his wife, Jane, acclimated to the idea that his revolution came up short — and it's time for him to play a supporting role in the fight against Trump.
Since Clinton’s victory speech in New York when she clinched the nomination on June 7, her aides have consistently said they believe Sanders should be part of the convention and that they were open to “celebrating what he has accomplished.”
