For Sanders campaign, Indiana offers good news and bad ~ Rachel Maddow Blog (HRC BLOG)

[Her Sister]

After losing five out of six primaries over the last two weeks, Bernie Sanders was eager to win Indiana. While Hillary Clinton shifts her focus to Donald Trump and the general election, the Vermont senator made a real effort in the Hoosier state, investing nearly $400,000 in television advertising – Clinton spent literally $0 – and holding multiple event to rally the faithful.

The good news for Sanders is that his efforts were successful enough to deliver a primary victory. The bad news for Sanders is that the delegate math required him to win by a huge margin, and that didn’t happen. MSNBC’s Alex Seitz-Wald reported overnight:
Every time the [Democratic] race seems headed to the finish, voters decide to extend it, as they did in Michigan in March. But that could change now that Ted Cruz has dropped out and Donald Trump has effectively secured the Republican nomination, putting Hillary Clinton squarely in the billionaire’s sights.

Sanders’ win does nothing to knock Clinton off her glidepath to the nomination, since the few delegates he picks will barely dent her massive 300-plus pledged delegate lead. But it will be a much-needed fundraising and momentum boost to a fading candidate who has pledged to stay in the race until the Democratic National Convention in July, even though his only path to victory involves improbable landslides and fanciful schemes to flip superdelegates.
It’s a dynamic that causes endless frustration for Sanders’ die-hard supporters. He’ll win a race, which raises his backers’ hopes, only to learn soon after that the victory wasn’t significant enough to change the broader circumstances.

So let’s be more specific about Sanders’ quantitative challenge. The senator can try to win the nomination by convincing party insiders to overrule the will of the voters, but even Sanders’ top aides recognize this is unrealistic. The other avenue is catching up to Clinton among pledged delegate – he’ll need roughly 66% of those still available – by racking up some big wins in the calendar’s remaining contests.

How big? If Sanders won each of the remaining primaries and caucuses by 30 points each – an improbable task, to be sure – he’d still come up short. That’s how significant his current deficit it. None of this, by the way, factors superdelegates into the equation. I’m referring only to pledged delegates, earned exclusively through nominating contests decided by rank-and-file voters.

Unfortunately for his ardent fans, this equation includes Indiana, where he prevailed last night with a six-point victory, but where he needed a win that was vastly larger if he intends to catch up to the rival he trails. It may seem counter-intuitive, but a modest win in Indiana actually leaves Sanders worse off than he was 24 hours ago – it was not only too narrow a victory, it also shrinks the number of remaining opportunities he’ll have to close the gap.

I suppose the obvious question is why Sanders and his supporters seemed so pleased last night if the results were actually discouraging. The answer, of course, is winning beats losing. A victory in Indiana will lead the Sanders campaign to once again return to his activist base for more fundraising, touting last night as a morale booster for the whole team.

But the underlying arithmetic nevertheless remains stubborn.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/sanders-campaign-indiana-offers-good-news-and-bad

[Her Sister]

1. Sanders hopes to prioritize later primaries over earlier ones ~ Another entry in Rachel Maddow Blog

On the surface, the race for a presidential nomination seems relatively straightforward: candidates compete in a series of primaries and caucuses, hoping to earn pledged delegates to their party’s national convention. Get enough delegates and you’re the nominee.

But just below the surface, things get a little complicated. Especially for candidates who are likely to come up short, there are often spirited attempts to suggest the only metric that matters isn’t the only metric that matters. In recent months, for example, Bernie Sanders’ campaign has put forward a variety of arguments intended to shift the focus away from the fight for pledged delegates: maybe blue-state contests matter more; perhaps Southern victories “distort reality”; maybe successes in closed primaries are less impressive, and so on.

Yesterday, Sanders’ top campaign strategist, Tad Devine, came up with a brand new one. The Huffington Post reported:

“Let’s suppose that in the next six weeks, Bernie Sanders goes on a tear like he has gone on before. And let’s suppose in the 10 states and the four other contests that are out there, he wins the vast majority of them – he wins California by a huge margin, he racks up an impressive set of victories,” said Devine. “Should we then say the only benchmark is who has got more pledged delegates? Shouldn’t those superdelegates take into consideration a totality of the circumstances?”

Asked if he believed that later contests were more important than earlier ones, Devine didn’t flinch. “I think they are,” he said,
I’ve seen some Sanders critics already suggest, in response to Devine’s comments, the idea of later victories mattering more than early victories is absurd. And while I can appreciate the point, history offers an interesting counter-example.

MORE in Link... http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/sanders-hopes-prioritize-later-primaries-over-earlier-ones

[pandr32]

7. Wow! Beating a woman who is no longer fighting back is a game-changer!

Not!!! Hillary has moved on. I am sure those superdelegates will be smart enough to take note. Bye-bye bernie.

[Treant]

8. Later Primaries, really?

Good, that means NY, PA, and MD count even more than before, and my vote in the Acela primaries far outweighs anything that happened in Washington state!

/snark

No, really, let's cheapen the votes and voters in early states, some of which happen to be swing states and that you'd need in the general election. Yeah, that'll work out well.

[Her Sister]

2. Think Rachel Maddow not buying

at all!

[Cha]

3. It's Steve Benen.. an awesome political analyst! I love reading Benen.. Mahalo, HS!

[DemonGoddess]

4. K&R!

[SharonClark]

5. How many Sanders rules are there now?

Sanders says: Determine the nominee by rally size, supporters on the internet, small money donations, ignoring southern states, ignoring closed primaries, ignoring pledged delegates, ignoring actual votes, who polls best against Trump, and now ignoring early states. What could they possibly come up with next?

[NurseJackie]

6. If Sanders won each of the remaining primaries & caucuses by 30 pts each he’d still come up short!

LOVE IT!!