Sanders is in a fight with Clinton for the nomination. Right now he needs to focus all his time, money, and energy on getting as close to winning as possible for reasons that are obvious.
That's not a valid excuse, though. A serious presidential contender needs to consider raising money/supporting downballot candidates as vital to his or her campaign as ad buys or GOTV efforts. It's simply a requirement if you want to implement your agenda. And starting early is crucial if you want to get liberals elected, as you need to get involved in the primaries. Clinton was raising money even before voting started and has continued to do so as best as she can while Sanders hasn't raised a dime, even when he's raising far more money than her! There is no excuse for his bs behavior on this!
Sanders just sort of joined the Democratic party to take advantage of its organization and party name, while he has done nothing for the party itself, save for possibly creating internal generational divisions. If Sanders can outraise Clinton by, what, 20 million dollars in March? He should be raising quite a bit for other races.
As I said before - There is no excuse for this. He is selfishly using the party while doing nothing to help bring in a Democratic Congress that will be needed to implement any of his policy ideas.
Honestly, I don't know if Sanders or his campaign has any idea what they are doing. They are so narrowly-focused that they are failing to see that, at least for Democrats who don't have numerous billionaire donor groups fully bankrolling state/Congressional races, a presidential race isn't just about winning your own race.
I'd argue that the fact that he's involved in a competitive primary race is the only valid reason for focusing on his presidential run at this time. I know a lot of folks are pushing the narrative that its already over, but from the Sanders camp perspective, it isn't. And thus calls for them to spend time supporting other candidates doesn't make sense right now, especially as they're presently behind. If they didn't see a shot at winning this, then you might see them still 'running' but sharing the wealth a bit more actively and dialing back their presidential efforts. But as its kind of obvious they are at that point, its kind of silly to get upset at the Sanders campaign for not wanting to divide their time and resources. You may disagree with their assessment of the state of the race, but getting upset over their difference of view here is in effect demanding that they surrender. Which is a tad silly.
There is of course the other side of things, the possibility that Sanders might not necessarily be welcomed if he wanted to help more. The fact that at this point, as is pointed out over and over again by the media, that Clinton has a wide majority of super delegates at this point. That means, elected officials across the country are supporting her, some of whom are in tough races this year. And its not too much of a stretch of the imagination to realize that many Democratic candidates are also backing Clinton in some fashion. And thus it would be excessively awkward to try to swoop in and raise money for someone that's in opposition to you. It would be basically, 'Hey, I like this candidate! Despite them not thinking I'm qualified to be president!' Aka, kind of a stupid move.
So yeah, tactically it doesn't make sense and getting all upset at a candidate in Sanders' position at this point in the race on something like this is kind of silly.
