"He was the Republican candidate with the best capacity on paper to make a future versus past argument versus Clinton," explained Dan Pfeiffer, the former communications director for President Barack Obama.
Without a dissenting vote, a party whose past arguments on peace and war have sometimes been very damaging united in support of a "precise and proportionate" military response, consistent with the principles of international law and avoiding civilian casualties "as far as possible".
On Thursday, Sanders doubled down on his past argument that Israel's invasion of Gaza in 2014 in response to rocket attacks was "disproportionate," said the U.S. and Israel need "to treat the Palestinian people with respect and dignity" and argued that the U.S. "cannot continue to be one-sided".
A response to this would be to cite past arguments or disagreements, and to have a few excuses in your back pocket for back up.
Past arguments that this reflected a laudable long-term focus have been thoroughly gutted by two decades of deadweight stock prices.
Past arguments have settled into a familiar pattern: When the political opportunity arises, the Democrats venture a mild criticism of Mr. Bush's policies.
Once again, the echoes of past arguments are there to be heard.
If this dispute lacks the fierce tone of past arguments about AIDS laws, experts say it remains more heated in New York than just about anywhere else.
They searched day in, day out for weeks because Mr. Hall's story broke their hearts and, many said, because his case inspired them to look past arguments over whether the war was right or wrong.
In the past, arguments around prostitution and pornography (which Banyard characterises as "filmed prostitution") centred on morality, with women in the trade dismissed as vectors of disease and immorality.
