Sanders’s path to victory involves unprecedented and absurd delegate math

[RandySF]

However, with his prospects of winning a majority of pledged delegates dwindling, Sanders’s case for winning the primary now relies on winning over superdelegates. As Devine explained on Tuesday night, “We acknowledge it’s a difficult route, we acknowledge it’s a substantial lead, but we do not believe it’s set in stone…The factors superdelegates will take into consideration include who’s won more pledged delegates … but also who’s gotten stronger, not weaker, over the course of primaries, and who matches up best against Donald Trump or whoever the Republican nominee is.”

A majority of superdelegates have already indicated that they support Hillary Clinton, and as has been noted before, the only thing that could get them to defect would be Hillary Clinton losing her lead among pledged delegates. There simply isn’t a plausible scenario in which either candidate wins the nomination without winning the majority of pledged delegates.

Besides, to argue that your path to victory hinges on superdelegates after your campaign and supporters have been raising hell about superdelegates for over a month is quite ironic.

This is where Sanders’s campaign — Devine, specifically — runs off the rails. On his “path forward” call yesterday, Devine made the rather strange claim that some or even many of Hillary Clinton’s pledged delegates could wind up supporting Sanders.

That’s…not how it works.

If Bernie Sanders wants to stay in the race, that’s his prerogative. He’s got tons of supporters in states that haven’t voted yet who want the opportunity to cast a ballot for him, and he’s plenty of cash on hand to keep broadcasting his message. He’s been a net positive force on this race, and he can still do a lot of good work to energize the progressive base, and he can still call Hillary Clinton out if she tries to pivot toward the general election sooner rather than later. But his case for actually winning the nomination — a case that was always pretty shaky — has almost completely dissolved.

There’s desperate, and then there’s fantastical.

http://americablog.com/2016/03/sanders-victory-unprecedented-absurd-delegate-math.html

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. I think we may have heard this sort of thing before.

What do I have to do?

I don't really want to start hiding threads.

[truedelphi]

2. ALL we need to do is to counter the canned and Party-approved messages.

After all, the probability of Sanders having to drop out of the race due to a scandal or two impairing his ability to run is nil. While Hillary has some explaining, and perhaps some dropping out to do.

[RandySF]

7. That won't happen.

[truedelphi]

25. GET back to me in three or four years.

The smugness and the acceptance of the corrupt status quo - that was super evident back in the early 1970's. All that rotten energy came to a head during the 1972 election season, when the Status Quo voters got their fraud man in the WH. I remember mentioning "Watergate" and being laughed at, as it was "insignificant."

But they were taught a lesson, and I see a lesson is coming to this party's fraud "masters" as well.

[kgnu_fan]

44. Are "we" capable of learning the lesson?

[JeffHead]

3. He's in this until the convention. Get over it.

Bernie has not given up on us and we are not giving up on him. There goes another 27 bucks.

[KingFlorez]

4. This will end in a convention floor fight

Sanders won't prevail, but it would still be quite a mess at the convention.

[FarPoint]

5. I doubt that it will go that far.... To the floor.

I sense he will close out soon.

[Ed Suspicious]

29. Yeah. What gives you that impression?

The huge crowds? the money that keeps flowing? the favorable map? The honest guy repeatedly announcing his intention to let the people vote? What gives you the impression he will "close out soon?"

[RandySF]

6. There will be no floor fight.

She'll have a majority of pledged delegates by July. They'll call the roll and she will win on the first ballot.

[wendylaroux]

9. yes there will,bet me bro.

[RandySF]

10. Over what? The platform?

If she has a majority of pledged delegate, there won't be anything to fight over?

[wendylaroux]

11. he is going,it will be grand.

[RandySF]

13. Of course he'll be there.

All the candidates traditionally show up. And he will endorse Hillary.

[wendylaroux]

16. I don't think so.

[DrDan]

42. you don't think he will endorse Hillary? are you kidding me?

[MoonRiver]

58. If he doesn't endorse her he will lose his Senate seat - count on it.

Vermonters are not stupid.

[Bluenorthwest]

39. This routine in which you folks say the West Coast does not count is vile and voter suppressive

It is not the action of a good Democrat at all. The same people who raised holy hell over those who said the South is not so important because it votes GOP are now saying the rest of the country is not important, they act as if it is June when it is March and they act as if their slice of the country is the whole country when it is not.

I think of Hillary's own very extreme rhetoric about staying in the race in 08 and the contrast to what you type makes me think this: she always wants it both ways. Whatever serves her is 'the principled thing'.

If she's the nominee, I will never forgive this Party. Reagan was a force of evil and he killed my friends, she said he tried to save them, she lied about the whole thing. The fact that you support such crap makes me think poorly of you and of all her supporters. You spit on the graves of the dead. About 12,000 of those graves are fresh this year in the US, over a million in Africa this year. That crap should not be acceptable to anyone in this Party. Period.

[kgnu_fan]

45. kick

[RandySF]

48. I did not say don't vote.

But Hillary will have a majority of pledged delegates by the time they get to California.

[brooklynite]

59. Funny, I can remember when the SOUTH didn't count...

...they were RED STATES that were MEANINGLESS for a Democratic candidate.

...like Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, Idaho.....

[redstateblues]

12. Hillary and Bernie are in agreement over 90% of the time

[JDPriestly]

28. No. They are not in agreement over 90% of the time.

[Ed Suspicious]

31. Mice are 90% human.

[kgnu_fan]

46. 99% vs 1%

[72DejaVu]

40. It's understandable that none of the Sanders supporters here have never been to a convention

But it seems like none of them ever even watched one on TV.

[DrDan]

43. this is what happens when they spend the last 6 months exclusively in GD-P, ignoring all else

a false-sense of reality sets in . . . .

[72DejaVu]

47. They also don't understand

that the vast majority of national delegates for Sanders will be career politicians or party operatives who respect the party and the system and are not so foolish as to ruin any chance they have of maintaining a career in politics after Bernie is defeated.

[MADem]

50. ^^^^^^^^^^^ This!! ^^^^^^^^^^^^ nt

[KingFlorez]

14. Sanders supporters won't accept that

There will be some vocal protests over that. To them such a move would equal fraud.

[RandySF]

15. Say what?

It would be fraud for the delegates Hillary rightly won in the primary process to vote for her? I'm not talking about super delegates, by the way.

[KingFlorez]

17. That's just what I'm predicting

Sanders supporters seem to be crying fraud a lot lately, so I can see them claiming fraud no matter what happens.

[Dawson Leery]

18. If Sanders pushes a floor fight, he is done.

A Democrat will challenge him in 2018.

[JonLeibowitz]

19. And the people of Vermont should give a shit who the Democratic people nominate?

They will vote Sanders no matter what ticket he is on.

[JDPriestly]

27. He won the primary in Vermont by 86%. He is in no danger from a challenger.

[Happenstance24]

41. True but he is in danger of....

being kicked off all committees and basically blackballed from them. He could always join up with the Pugs but I doubt it. Bernie's could quickly become a permanent lame duck Senator if he pisses off the Dem party. Fact.

[JDPriestly]

49. Bernie will not become a lame duck.

He has thousands of people attending his rallies. He will win in some if not all of the Western states that are yet to vote, especially Washington.

Bernie is starting a movement, and he will have clout in Congress because of it. It won't be just Wall Street that is afraid of him. A lot of Democrats will come to fear him also.

His success in 10 months of campaigning is phenomenal. He will be a force to be reckoned with in the next few years.

Feel the Bern! Cause it is not going away even after the convention.

[Ed Suspicious]

32. That is some uber-brilliant fucking analysis, right there.

[wendylaroux]

8. floor fight!!! yup!

gonna be fun,lots going to be said, and heard by all!!!

[rjsquirrel]

20. Lol yeah right

The naïveté it burns.

[wendylaroux]

21. ok,we shall see.

[Onlooker]

22. Sanders should stay in the race

He still has a chance. If he closes the gap in the coming weeks, he will be viewed more favorably in the remaining states. If he continues to close the gap, it's just possible he can still win. But, more importantly, if he steps down, he gives his supporters in the states that haven't voted nowhere to go. If he stays in, they can vote for him, and if he loses, they will still be engaged, and support him when he calls for unity. Of course, there's the risk he'll decide to launch a third party bid, but then he'd be handing the presidency to Trump, so I think that's very unlikely.

[RandySF]

23. Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling on hit to exit

But I think it's a more honest rationale for him to say he wants to get his message out.

[Ed Suspicious]

33. Get real!

Ever the Bernie supporter you are.

[Garrett78]

24. Even if he gains a bit of ground...

...I doubt that will have any bearing on what happens April 19th and April 26th. By the end of April, Clinton's lead will almost undoubtedly be greater than it is currently. If Sanders is down by 400 delegates at the end of April, he will not win. At that point, he should consider the potential repercussions of continuing to run.

[JDPriestly]

26. So what!

Bernie is leading people in a new direction.

It will take time for the Hillary supporters to see the light.

That's all it would mean if Bernie were to have fewer delegates than Hillary.

For me, it is about campaign finance reform first and foremost, and Bernie is leading the way on that.

I will vote for all the other Democrats on my ballot, but not for Hillary. She has taken too much money from the oligarchs. I will not vote for that.

[Cha]

30. Yeah, they're losing and they're desperate. I thought they rejected Super Dels until it seems

they're back on board.. good because Hillary's going to win with them and her Delegates.


Mahalo Randy!

[longship]

34. Hillary Clinton loses to just about any GOP nominee.

So good luck with your DNC orchestrated, MSM election.

I have a better idea. Why don't we let the people decide?

We have a long way to go, and the Clinton hubris is getting tiring to just about everybody but her Democratic opponent, Bernie Sanders. He seems to be building on his energy, which seems to be unboundable.

But by all means, spin, spin, spin.

[highprincipleswork]

35. Don't worry yourself about the math. Many are going w how they really feel. That's a powerful force.

We'll see how the numbers add up in due time. And then we'll see how we heal the divisions to create a stronger Democratic Party than we see today.

I'm pretty sure that Bernie supporters would say that that would be when we embrace and stick with Progressive values. I'm not sure what degree of compromise or giving up or adopting Reaganesque Republican values would be encouraged by others around here.

[DesertRat]

36. k&r

[Bluenorthwest]

37. "unprecedented" was the word Hillary kept using about calls for her to drop out in 08 "Historically

unprecedented" she said, then pondered why she was being treated so differently than everyone else ever, which we now see is exactly how she treats her rivals.

It was the Argus Leader editorial board interview, May 23, 2008. It was the one in which she invoked RFK's murder as reason to stay in the race...but that's after the 'historically unprecedented' stuff....

Unprecedented = Happens ever cycle.


Clinton Remark on Kennedy’s Killing Stirs Uproar
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/24/us/politics/24clinton.html?_r=0

[stonecutter357]

38. K&R!

[revbones]

51. That says one of two things

If true, then it speaks to deficiencies of your own, since there would be no reason to post such other than to gloat and rub it in.

Otherwise, you are either worried or feel it to be false and want to tamp down on people's enthusiasm.

[yardwork]

55. This is a message board where we talk about politics.

I believe that must people reading here are not fragile flowers who will be devastated to read analysis that is not good news for their candidate.

If you want to be in an echo chamber where nobody ever says anything you disagree with, a political message board might not be the right place.

[revbones]

56. Speaking of echo chambers

have you looked at the Hillary Clinton group here? pa-dump-pump Thanks folks, I'm here all week. Try the veal.

Sorry, that was the perfect setup.


Anyway if that's the case then, they probably don't need your input to defend them, and my comment is just an observation about what that type of post says about the author.

[Gothmog]

52. The concept that Sanders will be able to flip super delegates or pledged delegates is sad and wrong

[TheFarseer]

53. Glad I never played any team sports with you.

Down at halftime? Just give up! Seriously though, it would be impossible to quit when all these people have donated money and shown up to rallies. Wouldn't that totally lose a generation of liberals?

[JonLeibowitz]

54. These posts have absolutely no point other than to beat people when they're down.

[TheFarseer]

62. +1

[ladjf]

57. Why are you wasting your time informing us about an outcome that is certain? nt

[ecstatic]

60. No different than his platform. nt

[ibegurpard]

61. we know

The primary is not over until Clinton crosses the necessary delegate threshold or Sanders withdraws.