A member of the Bernie Sanders campaign left behind in a Los Angeles hotel a memorandum titled “End Game,” detailing the terms the team evaluated demanding of the Democratic National Committee in return for an endorsement of the Clinton candidacy.  It was written and discovered just before the June 7 California primary and was turned over to lefty site BuzzFeed, which is publicizing it now.  BF summarizes:

The document reveals a campaign in its final days, considering whether to fight on with a “divisive critique” of Clinton, yet attuned to diminished influence inside the party. (snip)

The memo begins with a pressing question: Should Sanders concede defeat and endorse Clinton, appeasing the Democratic establishment? Or should he fight through the convention and “force a roll-call vote for the nomination,” re-opening “a divisive critique of Clinton” and casting the party’s controversial superdelegate system in a negative light?

The campaign concedes that the latter scheme would require a robust plan “beyond the scope of this memo,” but acknowledges that regardless of a delegate strategy or convention floor operation, Sanders would face “two difficult challenges”: attacking Clinton “on viability and substance,” and engaging “in divisive committee and floor battle over rules and credentials.”

In other words, the campaign knew that many of its followers wanted a fight to the bitter end but also knew that it would be difficult and futile.  Instead, why not consider the upside of surrender, such as a private plane for Sanders, paid for by the DNC, “for a series of fall rallies in battleground states”?

Once you are used to taking off when you are ready and flying to the airport closest to your destination, it is very hard to go back to commercial airlines.

Is Sanders likely to want to change the terms of the deal he reached now that the chicanery has been exposed?  We’ll see.  But keep your eyes open for the kind of plane (if any) Bernie gets to campaign for Hillary.