How do you feel about this idea being floated?

[floriduck]

Andrea Mitchell was talking with Tad Devine of Bernie's campaign and asked him the following: If Bernie wins in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, there is talk about replacing Hillary with someone else like Joe Biden because the establishment doesn't think Bernie is electable. How do you feel about that? Tad said as more people get to know Bernie, they'll recognize that he is electable.

This just shows how despicable the Dem establishment is. Claire McCaskill said the GOP ads against Bernie will contain a hammer and sickle. I say we throw out establishment fools like McCaskill and turn the DNC on its head.

[Motown_Johnny]

1. Whatever.

Anyone jumping in that late will be seen as illegitimate.

I don't have a problem with Hillary being replaced, but it may as well be by a ham sandwich.

[KittyWampus]

2. I think they are spinning yarns trying to make up drama rather than reporting it.

[BlueMTexpat]

24. Exactly!

DU is becoming more surreal by the hour.

[JustAnotherGen]

28. Plus 1000

[peace13]

3. Aaaaa...no.

But I bet that kind of talk rattles the HRC camp. For almost a year she has been the only game in town.

[99th_Monkey]

4. You kind of answered your own question.

In a word: despicable.

And I totally agree btw.

[Robbins]

5. Fact they are even talking about this shows we are winning

remember how bernie was dismissed like a joke and Clinton was inevitable and now they talk up her losing first 3 states and being replaced to try to stop Bernie from getting nomination

Do they really think GOP won't run negative ads against Clinton.Obama was able to win in 2012 with negative ads against him.
Bernie would have one big advantage in GE.he will likely be facing Trump.

[CoffeeCat]

6. All they have to do is look at the polls

and they will see that Bernie not only wins the GE against Rubio, Trump or Cruz; he beats those candidates by wider margins than Hillary.

They know that he can win. I don't think "electability" is the real issue for these DLC types.

They know that Bernie will bust up their decades-long party of corruption, dirty money and quid-pro-quo schemes with their corporate bedfellows.

They're all corrupt. They know it's game over for their elitist cocktail circuit of corruption.

They won't have it. They can't have it.

[in_cog_ni_to]

12. Exactly and he will air ALL of their dirty laundry for the world to see. The majority of Congress

will be exposed as corrupt. Congress has to be shaking in their boots! Bernie has served in both houses. He knows full well who's ethical and who isn't...


PEACE
LOVE
BERNIE

[restorefreedom]

21. you nailed it, coffeecat

bernie's electability is PRECISELY the problem. they would rather see trump in the wh becsuse the corporate gravy train will end under bernie. they can see the numbers are with bernie. they do not want him to win period and they know that bernie v trump gives us pres sanders. they can't have that.

i heard tad say "lets let the people decide" and i knew mitchell must have alluded to some dirty dnc trick to sandbag bernie

not. gonna. work.

oh and i love your on the ground reporting from iowa!

[in_cog_ni_to]

7. Voters have rejected Biden twice already. What? Third time's a charm? He doesn't have a chance in

hell of beating Bernie.

PEACE
LOVE
BERNIE

[tularetom]

8. Aside from the schadenfreude at the thought of the Clintons getting smacked upside the head

And toadies like McCaskill being even more thoroughly embarrassed and discredited, my reaction is pretty much, meh.

At some point the establishment is going to have to recognize that Sanders is the real deal and either get behind him or risk becoming completely irrelevant.

Its their own fault. Instead of learning from 2008 that Hillary Clinton is a loser with no personal magnetism or popular appeal and a very shady past, the party elders embraced her to the point of ignoring every other possible candidate. I believe Biden and Kerry would tell the party to go pound sand if they were approached to run as a stop Bernie candidate. They both have a higher opinion of Sanders than they do of Clinton.

[kenn3d]

13. ^^^What tularetom said ^^^

And this from the OP:
" I say we throw out establishment fools like McCaskill and turn the DNC on its head."

I'm in Missouri btw... McCaskill's day of reckoning is coming.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. It's the usual "too liberal" argument of the "not as bad" wing of the party.

[NorthCarolina]

10. Isn't it obvious WHO they are fighting for?

Hillary...the undisputed "frontrunner", yet her Corporate Benefactors are already looking for her "replacement" AND THE FIRST VOTE has yet to be counted!

Oh, but Bernie is not electable they say. Yet they are ALREADY looking for a replacement because Bernie is cleaning their clocks, Oh... but he's not electable.

This logic is so skewed it's beyond laughable, it's pathetic.

Establishment voters take note:

Bernie is 45.

Get used to it.

[Punkingal]

11. Got my torch and pitchfork all ready!

[BlueStateLib]

14. History shows Biden could get the nomination

If nobody gets to the 2,250 delegates and neither side will capitulate and give the nomination to the other side, a 1924 or 1952 or 1968 could easily happen

1924 John W. Davis won the presidential nomination as a compromise candidate following a virtual war of attrition between front-runners William Gibbs McAdoo and Al Smith.

1952 Estes Kefauver got 65% of the primary vote but the nomination went to Adlai Stevenson who was not even a candidate

1968 where Eugene McCarthy got the majority of the votes but the nomination went to Hubert H. Humphrey who did not run in the states that held a primary

[MoonchildCA]

16. Yes, and none of them became president.

Which is probably fine with them, as long as they keep Sanders out of office, they keep their corporate puppet masters happy.

[jeff47]

15. Some may try, but they will fail.

First, this plan requires Clinton to go along with it. That's not going to happen.

Second, it's too late to get the replacement on many state ballots. Which means the only way they could actually do it is a brokered convention. Which would be massively public, and shred the party. Most of the superdelegates needed to actually pull this off will be on the 2016 ballot too, so shredding the party right before they try to get re-elected requires them to be utter morons or have zero interest in self-preservation.

Third, to even accomplish it via the convention, they need a close primary. If Sanders has enough pledged delegates in the first ballot, he's the nominee no matter what the party leadership wants. Which means Clinton would need something like 30-40% of the primary vote despite giving up.

So to make it happen, Clinton has to give up yet still receive something like 30-40% of the primary vote. Then the party has to decide to destroy itself, and then their substitute can go on to be utterly annihilated in the general election, taking many other Democrats down with them...the same superdelegates who would implement this replacement plan.

It's not going to happen. The only "replacement" scheme that is remotely possible is if Clinton has a medical catastrophe or is indicted.

[MoonchildCA]

18. Don't want to put my tinfoil hat on, but...

...they may actually be willing to throw this election, because the true power in this country comes from the corporations. A Sanders presidency threatens to destroy that. I think they are frightened to their core, and will do anything to remain in power.

As extreme as it sounds, I know, I'm not willing to discount it as a possibility.

[jeff47]

20. If we're going there, it's far more effective for the same groups

to engineer that medical catastrophe or indictment.

[mmonk]

17. The DNC is already doing what the Republicans

would do.

[bahrbearian]

19. but , But , Super Delegates

[karynnj]

22. Did Mitchell indicate any study showing there are enough states where Biden could get on the ballot?

Looking at this color coded map that shows the dates by month, the answer is NO even if every single superdelegate wanted to reject BOTH HRC and Bernie. https://ballotpedia.org/Important_dates_in_the_2016_presidential_race There are way too many states for which the deadline will have passed by then - in fact, there are too many now.

It seems clear to me that sitting now in mid January - our choice is HRC, Bernie or O'Malley.

[winter is coming]

33. I assume their "reasoning" is that whatever delegates HRC wins would go to Biden.

This is a stinker of an idea, IMO. If they go for a brokered convention with a result that defies the popular vote, we'll lose in November and some will leave the Party for good.

[karynnj]

34. Wow - not just a stinker, but very weird

Let's say Biden is pushed to enter mid February, and they race to get him on all the ballots that are still open.

I don't see HRC dropping out - even if she loses the first three to Bernie. Most of the remaining states will have just HRC, Bernie and O'Malley on them. I guess people could write in Biden, but - especially if you assume that HRC stays in, it is unlikely he could win.

At any rate, the delegates are allocated by a formula based on the percent of the vote in the state. It is hard to imagine that Biden could become the leader - given the number of states that happened before he was in plus those where he had to be written in.

So, to give the story the most credence let's assume that he gets 100% of the superdelegates. Even with this HUGE thumb on the scale , I don't see him getting the needed numbers. You suggest the Clinton delegates would go to him -- but they can't unless they are released. I don't see this happening if she personally has more pledged delegates than he has. (Not to mention, this whole story ignores the earlier, simpler idea that the superdelegates all going for HRC let her win even if Sanders gets more pledged delegates - as long as the number of superdelegates can make up the difference.)

[jwirr]

36. Exactly.

[Matariki]

23. Does the 'establishment' really think he isn't electable

or do they simply not want him, and his ideas, elected?

[SheilaT]

25. This silliness has been floated

about a dozen times already in the past two or three days.

Not gonna happen. Not possible for anyone new to get a campaign up to speed this late. People also keep on posting here that the super delegates will throw the nomination to Hillary. That likewise won't happen if Bernie gets enough delegates to win. There aren't that many super delegates to begin with, and they always go with the winner of the primaries and caucuses.

The early super delegate endorsements of Hillary will disappear if Bernie starts amassing delegates on his own, which will definitely happen in Iowa and New Hampshire.

[Yupy]

26. Very bad for D. party behaving as the R. party.

[ieoeja]

27. That would ensure a Bernie victory.

As other posters have noted:

1. No way Clinton drops out before Super Tuesday.

2. It is too late for a new candidate to get on enough state ballots. So their only choice is replacing Hillary with O'Malley.

If they try the O'Malley substitution with Clinton refusing to bow out, all they would do is split the non-Sanders vote thus guaranteeing a Sanders victory.


How do I feel about that idea? It kind of gives me a burning sensation.


On the other hand, I see a lot of would-be Clinton voters switching to O'Malley on their own anyway as the first 3 primaries make Clinton look like the Dennis Kucinich of 2016.

[Lordquinton]

32. Hillary Clinton looks like the Hillary Clinton of 2016

Going down the same path as before, running her finances into the ground, except I don't think she'll get a bailout from Bernie.

[rosesaylavee]

29. Or we leave the DNC in droves for a continuous stream of stupid ideas

This is ridiculous and I doubt that Biden would play. Can you imagine what that would do to the Clintons and their supporters? Holy hell. The DNC implodes and hands this election to Trump.

What the hell.

[ViseGrip]

30. The party is and has been despicable with these continuing shenanigans thwarting our democracy

and choosing our candidates for us. It is DESPICABLE!

[FSogol]

31. LOL, you are taking something Andrea Mitchell said seriously!

[lumberjack_jeff]

35. He's gaining on Clinton precisely because he's electable. n/t