Hillary wants to have her cake and eat it too. Let's recap the primary season… there was the Iowa debacle, sleazy shirt swapping in Nevada, the supposed sabotage of the Sanders North Carolina campaign, widespread disenfranchisement in Arizona, Billy electioneering at polling places in Mass and Illinois, and refusal to give NPP voters a crossover ballot in California. That's a whole lot of campaign shenanigans, and it all took place in states where Clinton had a strong showing.

And now it's time for singing Kumbaya? She should be lucky to get some eventual tepid support and the reluctant votes of Bernie's followers.

There are campaigns after which one endorses, and campaigns after which one does not.

To understand this story is to know the political climate of 2006, when I worked on a Congressional primary campaign as the guy who sends all of the campaign email blasts. Our communications director telecommuted, so I ended up writing many of them, too. Come election night, I had the foresight to think about writing a victory / concession speech early in the afternoon, knowing there wouldn't be time after a win or spirits after a loss to do such a chore. As I was running a draft by the finance director, she stopped halfway.

"No, you can not say we are going to endorse. Let's talk to [CANDIDATE] and get his approval, but I don't think he will want to do that."

"Oh, I thought that was something that one just automatically did."

"No, it definitely is not."

This was not a particularly nasty campaign, as far as primaries go. It had been very much the insurgent Independent-turned-Democrat vs. the Establishment Democrat. But there was one major rift from the very get-go.

In December 2005 our finance director asked our would-be opponent to run. Pleaded with him. But he said he had no interest in it. Time was running out, and someone needed to step up to the plate and announce their plan to oppose the incumbent Republican. That's why our guy got in the race. He was compelled to. Like his military service, he felt it was something he had to do.

He was part of 2006's "Band of Brothers," a group of about a dozen servicemen and women who were running for office, and so he had the support of several grassroots organizations like the BoB and VoteVets.

The Left had grown weary of the war and submission to "you're either with us or against us" rhetoric. There were a lot of people like me out there who were itching to get involved with overthrowing the GOP.

The Republican opponent was a 5 term sycophant and rising star, who was whipsmart and just liberal enough to retain a firm hold of her seat in a Democratic stronghold (58%). She had begun her career on the anti-Clinton wave, but now her seat was in jeopardy due to a growing anti-Bush sentiment.

A flash of discontent was turning into a movement, and our campaign was on the leading edge of it. Within just months, polling had changed wildly. Just a couple points in our race, but nationally, approval of Bush and Congress was dropping precipitously.

At this point our would-be primary opponent started having talks with inside-the-beltway types, who predicted that he could now beat our GOP Rep. And so, with a week left until the deadline, he filed to run.

It turns out he had never stopped considering it. He was waiting to see if a political wave was sweeping the country, which, helped by our campaign, it was. He wanted our guy as a foil to run against him to create more media buzz about his campaign during the primary.

During that campaign, some organizations declined to support a candidate (DNC, DCCC, TOP) but it turns out they were just pulling an Elizabeth Warren - not supporting the underdog so as to not fall from grace with the winner with whom they had already been in talks.

Our campaign had really activated the grassroots, the true believers. We were bringing in young volunteers, and yes, the Independent vote. The beltway crowd wanted this, but they wanted it for themselves.

I've always felt that whole setup was kind of sleazy, and I guess the rest of the campaign agreed enough to withhold our endorsement.

The Democrat won the November election in the big Democratic wave of 2006. On election night all of the pundits pointed to his race as a bellwether for how the rest of the nation would swing.

There are a lot of parallels between that campaign and Bernie's. Discussion around Bernie's campaign began with strategizing how his Left-wing supporters were virtually guaranteed to support Hillary in the general. She needed to goad him along just enough to keep his supporters engaged, after which he would pass the torch on to her and let her lead the way.

Well, people don't like being used like that. The DNC and the rest of the DC crowd thinks of voters as entities to be corralled and manipulated. Blood, sweat and tears have literally been shed. I can't imagine the crass disregard needed to actually encourage an opponent to run unnecessarily. At first they loved Bernie's campaign, because he brought all the hippies out of the woodwork as if summoned by a siren song from John Lennon. They wanted someone to stir the pot for them.

They need us but they won't empower us.

In my case, our candidate finally did come around before the election to offer some tepid support, as I suspect Bernie will, too. Although I'd like to think that he's got the tables turned. Is it possible that Hillary is the one being used as a foil to keep the media interested? Do the insiders know that she's doomed and indictments are just a matter of time?

I changed my voter registration to Green yesterday, and a little voice said "if you're doing this to protest the Democratic party, you may have acted rashly."