Hillary Clinton

“Bernie’s been at the helm of this campaign from the beginning,” said Weaver, “and the overall message of this campaign and the direction of the campaign and the strategy, has been driven by Bernie.”

“They would be very smart to understand that the best way to approach Bernie is not to try to push him around,” Devine said. “It’s much better if they try to cooperate with him and find common ground. They should be mindful of the fact that the people he’s brought into this process are new to it and they will be very suspicious of any effort to push him around.”

Aides say Sanders thinks that progressives who picked Clinton are cynical, power-chasing chickens — like Sen. Sherrod Brown, one of his most consistent allies in the Senate before endorsing Clinton and campaigning hard for her ahead of the Ohio primary. Sanders is so bitter about it that he’d be ready to nix Brown as an acceptable VP choice, if Clinton ever asked his advice on who’d be a good progressive champion.

Every time Sanders got into a knife fight, aides say, they ended up losing. But they could never stop Sanders when he got his back up.