I'm sure we've all heard the figure being slung around recently that Unity! is coming to pass and that all the Sanders voters are now making s'mores and singing Kumbaya with the Clintonites over the Democratic campfire. 90%!

Leaving a paltry 10% of Sanders unenlightened curmudgeons to slink back to their dwellings in remote caves or under bridges, only to pop out occasionally with cries of "TPP!" or "Universal Healthcare!" or some other favored windmill joust with TPTB. Sanders supporters - you don't want to be one of those losers, do you? Don't you want to live proudly in the sunshine with the candidate who shatters glass ceilings and causes a wholesale reprinting of diner placemats around the country? Don't you realize that a vote not cast for HRC is a wasted vote? Does the name "Ralph Nader" mean anything to you? Such are the powerful blandishments meted out to this truculent minority.

Where did this 90% figure come from anyway? It came from this recent Pew Poll and Washington Post story, 90% of unwavering Sanders supporters plan to vote for Clinton in November Go ahead and read the story please, and look at the graphs. One aspect of the story addresses what's up with the obvious divide at the convention then? Which is answered that these are the MOST virulent Sanders supporters and not representative of the whole. Oh. . . . . . . okay. Yeah, sure, that must be it.

I have to say when this figure was first being promoted, I had lots of initial skepticism, most of it anecdotally based on my own experience. I haven't seen this movement towards Clinton myself. Instead I have seen many more people discussing their disgust with the political system in toto and considering not voting at all, writing in Sanders or investigating Greens. I'm sure that indeed some percentage of Sanders voters have moved with varying degrees of enthusiasm to Hillary as the pragmatic choice to stave off Trump, but I definitely question the 90% figure.

Is Daily Kos suddenly inundated with shamefaced Sanders prodigals returning to the fold? Does your Facebook reflect this? How about your friends and acquaintances? If anything, my husband commented the other day how shocked he was to see numbers of people he would never have in a million years suspected of ever announcing Trump support now say they are considering him! (Aside - I will never ever ever vote for Trump or advocate a vote for Trump, just in case you are in doubt)

Okay, so back to this 90% figure. Take a closer look at the Pew chart. The people being polled are "Democratic" or "Democratic leaning" voters. Aha! That may be the answer. People who self-identify as Democratic or Democratic leaning are, not surprisingly, going to stick with the Democratic nominee. How much of a surprise is that?

For reference, let's take a look at another article written by Nate Silver back in May: The Hidden Importance Of The Sanders Voters Please take the time to read the entire article, because it is very interesting and pay particular attention once again to the words "self-identify".

Notice how that even back in Silver's May article, the Dem voters were 87% behind Clinton in a matchup with Trump! So the 90% figure being touted now is possibly, in reality, a paltry 3% pick-up. Here is his key conclusion:

Thus, citing Clinton’s reasonably strong general election numbers among self-identified Democrats — she had the support of 87 percent of Democrats in a recent NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll in her matchup against Trump, for instance, and 83 percent in a Fox News poll that showed her behind Trump nationally — may miss her problems among liberal-leaning, Sanders-voting independents. In the Fox News poll, only 30 percent of independents went for Clinton, and in the SurveyMonkey poll, just 36 percent did. But both surveys showed a large pool of undecided independents, potentially the Sanders voters that YouGov identified.

Here's the issue for the Clinton campaign. The greatest danger now facing them is that they believe their own hype about 90% of Sanders voters being with them and falling into a complacency believing that now the Sanders contingent can be safely ignored in their swing rightward. I think this is potentially the reason for the Kaine VP pick which was a real finger in the eye to liberals, given his stance on TPP and some other issues. (Find his 2005 ad when he was running for Governor where he says "I am a conservative").

Being told that if you are still part of a recalcitrant minority of 10% if you STILL insist on supporting the Sanders agenda or any other alternative to Clinton, is simply one way to make you believe that you are part of a group that no one would choose to belong to - the terminally grumpy disaffects who have no influence and no commonality with the others of their ilk who have pledged to fall in line. It's similar to the tactic that was deployed when Sanders supporters were told they were all white males or even worse, sexist, racist, misogynists. It's an attempt at shaming any remaining Sanders supporters into thinking they are "losers" and have no option but to return to the Democratic herd.