As of yesterday, Nate Silver was giving Hillary a greater than 99% chance of winning the Michigan primary.

[Also posting at NoIWillNotYield.com]

Democrats are united in our belief that we have to win the White House in November. The alternative is simply unthinkable.

But last night in Michigan we heard a loud message, and that message is “Slow down.”

Sanders had a strong showing with white, working-class voters, many of whom were likely swayed to support his strong opposition to trade agreements. Michigan’s manufacturing base has been eroded and jobs have left the state, with many attributing the losses to trade deals like NAFTA, passed under President Bill Clinton’s tenure.

Democrats in Michigan ignored the pundits and the pollsters and gave Bernie Sanders a stunning and historic victory. What does it mean?

It means this race is not over. Democrats around the country want their say, and will have it.

It means the polls have clearly failed to gauge the growing enthusiasm for Sanders and his message.

And it means the pundits, including you, have been consistently and hilariously wrong.

Will Hillary win? Maybe. But there’s no one here, and no Democrat anywhere, who has any doubt about why you’ve chosen March 15th as the date for pivoting to the general election. That’s the date when Clinton’s delegate advantage will be at its peak.

After that, as you know, the landscape changes as the campaign moves to other parts of the country. Voters in more than half the states, including New York and California, will still be waiting to go to the polls. And, after last night, you can’t credibly claim to know how the remaining millions of Democrats will vote. Nate is telling a new story this morning:

So if Clinton underperforms her polls on March 15 in states such as Ohio as she did tonight in Michigan — and pollsters probably ought to be checking their turnout models carefully after tonight — she could have a really long few weeks ahead, even though Sanders’s delegate math remains highly challenging.

You should not be cutting off discussion about our nominees (“If your goal is to make Clinton a better candidate and president, that’s allowed.”) before the race is settled. It’s unseemly, it discredits you and this community, and it does a disservice to Democrats in the remaining states who believe in the democratic process.

Hillary’s friends in the Senate want the debate to continue:

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said he had no qualms with Sanders battling it out until the summer. "I'm satisfied with how the primary is moving along," Reid said. "It's been positive for Hillary," Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat and early Clinton supporter, said of Sanders' presence in the race. "Bernie's issue are important. The way I look at it, unlike the presidential (campaign) on the Republican side, I don't see Bernie as a negative." "He has said he's going to continue to the convention, and I take him at his word -- and certainly is entitled to do that," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut. "There's nothing lost by his continuing." "Our primary is on the merits," Schumer said Tuesday. "People are discussing issues, not calling names at each other."

There are three primaries in the second half of March, eight in April, five in May, and nine in June. Let them play out. We are having a vigorous debate taking place about the future of the party and the country. This debate makes us stronger, not weaker.

Besides, if a person would have to be a bleeping so-and-so to think Hillary won’t beat Trump, why the rush to shut down the discussion? Where’s the harm? Is your candidate too vulnerable to withstand this debate? Because your “right wing talking points” argument is simply not credible. No one here is talking Whitewater, Vince Foster, or Benghazi.

But we absolutely are talking about the corrosive effect of money in politics, her vote against a ban on cluster bombs, her broken campaign promise on the Colombian trade deal, her support for fracking, her pursuit of regime change, and a host of other issues that shine a light on what kind of president (and general election candidate) she would be. Those are not right wing talking points. Those are facts about one of the two candidates in the race.

You can choose to do with your website what you will, but it’s not any way to build a movement that elects more and better Democrats. For one thing, it’s a big fuck-you to the young voters and activists the party desperately needs. And, to be honest, it is too painfully reminiscent of another intervention in the political process — when the Supreme Court stopped the recount in Florida:

It suffices to say that the issuance of the stay suggests that a majority of the Court, while not deciding the issues presented, believe that the petitioner [Bush] has a substantial probability of success," Scalia wrote.

You’re not Scalia, that’s obviously not the point (commenters, please take note). But the “We must stop the debate before it harms the eventual winner” tone is unnervingly familiar and similarly distasteful.

Hillary was given a 99% chance of winning last night. You’ve been consistently wrong with your analysis.

You once wrote, “You can’t change the world without conflict.”

Let the debate continue.