Clinton and the DNC Are Not Just Colluding — They’re Changing the Rules for Superdelegates

[Playinghardball]

The award for most deliberate and egregious burying of a lead has just been handed out.

It goes to NBC News, for a story entitled, “Bernie Sanders Makes Things Awkward for Hillary Clinton’s DNC Takeover.”

Put aside for a moment that the story’s central premise is the uncritical repetition of a nonsense: the idea that a major-party convention can’t — as in literally cannot be — planned without a nominee being declared at least a month and a half in advance. We know that’s untrue because, up until a week ago, that’s exactly what the GOP was (with minimal public grousing by RNC Chair Reince Priebus) planning to do.

More importantly, in the context of Democratic National Committee rules — which, as DNC officials Luis Miranda and Debbie Wasserman Schultz have both explained to the media repeatedly, dictate that super-delegates cannot be tallied until July — there can be no doubt about which sentence in the above-cited NBC News story is the most important. It’s this one, about what the Clinton campaign and the DNC have been up to since April (more than three months prior to the Party’s late-July convention):

Back-channel conversations have already begun between Clinton’s campaign and the DNC about what role the party will play in the general election. These discussions are happening out of sight for now to avoid the appearance of collusion before the party has formally selected a nominee.

Where does this information appear in the article? In the very last sentence, of course.

That’s the spot in a hard-news article reserved for (assuming there’s no “kicker”) the least important piece of information in the article.

Or it would be, had not some editor at NBC News switched the rules around.

That’s something that’s becoming not just a trend in, but a cancer upon, the 2016 presidential election, so let’s go back in time to find the root of the problem. If you can, cast your mind all the way back to February 19th — less than 90 days ago. On February 19th, only two states — Iowa and New Hampshire — had held primary votes for the Democratic presidential nomination. The results in Iowa (a tie) and New Hampshire (a landslide victory for Bernie Sanders) had at that point made Sanders the front-runner for the nomination.

Sanders was the leader in the popular vote.

Sanders was the early leader in the all-important pledged-delegate count.

And here’s where the super-delegate count stood on February 19th:

Hillary Clinton: 451
Bernie Sanders: 19
Now it’s May, and we’re being told that the sole purpose of the Democratic “super-delegate” has all along been to acknowledge the popular-vote and pledged-delegate leader.

Except that’s nonsense.

Hillary Clinton courted hundreds and hundreds of super-delegates at a time when there was no popular-vote or delegate-count leader, and in 2016, as in 2008, she worked hard to keep her super-delegates even in those times she was neither the leader in the popular vote nor the leader in the delegate count.

The reason for this is that super-delegates have absolutely nothing to do with the popular vote or the delegate count.

And Clinton knows it.

Read more here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/clinton-and-the-dnc-are-not-just-colluding----theyre-changing-the-rules-for-superdelegates_b_9876274.html

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. The DNC is playing Calvinball.

[Renew Deal]

2. We get it. The Sanders campaign wants to overturn the will of the voters.

[merrily]

3. They even changed Obama's rule about super delegates.

Lobbyists get to be super delegates, but that PLUS millions in lobbyist $$$ affects no one, right?

Give me a damn break.

[onehandle]

4. Cool story, bro. nt

[amborin]

5. The DNC and the Supers are intent on losing in November

[CrowCityDem]

6. How about a title that isn't a lie? Nothing changed.

[rhett o rick]

8. And another one bits the dust

[CrowCityDem]

10. No response at all. I must be right.

[Waiting For Everyman]

7. Yes, cheating right out of the gate.

A person who is an actual winner doesn't need to cheat. This sort of election-throwing is a lesser preliminary version of a Bush-Gore type of theft.

I don't get why people think a cheating amoral president would be good to live under. I don't see that going well.

[rhett o rick]

9. The DNC and Democratic Party Establishment are corrupt and we need change.

Problem is they have the backing of the Big Money Fat Cats and make the rules to keep themselves in power.

But they underestimate the power of the People, the people they've long abandoned.

[felix_numinous]

11. K&R

Prepaid delegates, a significant number of them lobbyists for companies that are paying into the system, and hoards of online pundits to cover for them, they are all complicit.

I sure would like to know how to peacefully regain the rule of law in this country, because these people's plan to just take power from the people isn't a peaceful plan.

[Jim Lane]

12. Collusion yes, rules change no. All they're changing is the spin. (n/t)