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Why It Will Be A Contested Convention: The Current Delegate Count: (Original Post) amborin May 2016 OP
Now that's MATH in graphic terms!!!! highprincipleswork May 2016 #1
Time to monkey-wrench the Clinton Machine's Death Star... NewImproved Deal May 2016 #11
Let's keep it going! Ned_Devine May 2016 #2
The reason 276 is a lot is because delegates are awarded proportionally, not winner take all still_one May 2016 #3
More fun with numbers. LuvLoogie May 2016 #4
Unless you admit they are purchased outright, those "declared" unpledged delegates could change. Dragonfli May 2016 #7
Most of the super delegates are lifelong Democrats LuvLoogie May 2016 #9
You know Daniel Day-Lewis wasn't the hero of that story? Ash_F May 2016 #13
No, but he was the protagonist. And it's a great line... LuvLoogie May 2016 #23
Why not just assume that 100% of California voters will support Sanders? brooklynite May 2016 #17
It won't StayFrosty May 2016 #5
It will likely come down to super d's and if Hillary keeps her CentralMass May 2016 #8
That makes no sense. Why would anyone be pissed off? Those are the rules, people. I get BreakfastClub May 2016 #12
They'll be pissed off because the GOP, the MSM and the Sanders campaign will tell them to be. baldguy May 2016 #15
Your post is a work of art! COLGATE4 May 2016 #19
In state after state that Sanders won, Hillary received a disproproportionate share of the super d's CentralMass May 2016 #16
Aren't Clinton and the DNC trying to change the rules right now? I read that yesterday. pdsimdars May 2016 #22
Why it won't be any such thing. synergie May 2016 #6
I hear that gauntlet of Bros has soured quite a few people to Bernie in California. LuvLoogie May 2016 #10
The superdelegates you so easily cast aside & ignore for their inconvenience to Sanders count also: baldguy May 2016 #14
Before the first vote was cast in Iowa, Hillary had over a 500 super delegate lead. Here is B Calm May 2016 #18
If you have to hold your nose to vote for an accomplished, experienced progressive Democrat baldguy May 2016 #24
Gee, wouldn't it be nice if MSMBC had such clear graphics lagomorph777 May 2016 #20
Graphics speak so much louder than words . . . pdsimdars May 2016 #21

LuvLoogie

(6,855 posts)
4. More fun with numbers.
Thu May 12, 2016, 01:05 AM
May 2016

Even if Bernie gets his catch up target 120 delegates out of 183 available in the next 4 contests leading up to California, Hillary will still get 63 delegates.

This will put her at needing 248 to get 2026 on June 7. She can get that just in California with doing 45% or better, and she only needs about 36% over all when you include the other primaries that day.

She would then win on the first tally at the convention.

Dragonfli

(10,622 posts)
7. Unless you admit they are purchased outright, those "declared" unpledged delegates could change.
Thu May 12, 2016, 01:19 AM
May 2016


You see he superdelegates are supposed to support the one that will win the GE and not lose it, current trends show that Sanders would be that guy, of course in order to keep the people fooled that believe they are supposed to vote mostly as tie breakers, (that is not their actual intended purpose)

Sanders will have to bring down that 250+ pledged delegate deficit down to a much smaller margin, one in the single digits.

For the record however, the superdelegates do have a purpose and it is not a "feel good, I get to be involved!" purpose. It is "about the business of winning again" to quote one of the Committee members that formed the rule change that brought the Superdelegates into being.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Professor Rohde, could you explain why the Democratic Party came up with the superdelegate system and whether the Republican Party follows the same system?

DAVID ROHDE: Let me take the second part first. The Republicans have—do have some superdelegates, but it’s—I believe the number is three per state. So it’s not very important. It’s for the national party representatives from the state.
The reason that the Democrats adopted the superdelegate plan was really because of the possibility of insurgent candidates, not for their own sake, but insurgent candidates who might not be successful in general elections. So it doesn’t do the party a lot of good to nominate a candidate that reflects the wishes of the party and then to go on and lose the general election. And the poster child for this, of course, was George McGovern, and that—who was an insurgent candidate, won out against the party establishment and then got beaten by 20 points in the national election in a gigantic landslide.

So, the Hunt Commission, the commission that was looking at various aspects of the way the party was organized, after the 1980 election, thought that having superdelegates—and they—in the Democratic Party, they are the members of the National Committee, of which there are a little more than 400, Democratic members of the U.S. House, Democratic members of the U.S. Senate and Democratic governors. And that adds up to 712. And the Hunt Commission thought that having those elected officials play a part in choosing the nominee would be a partial balance that would give more weight to the considerations of electability than might otherwise be placed by the delegates that were elected in the primaries and caucuses.

AMY GOODMAN interview FEBRUARY 11, 2016
DAVID ROHDE
professor of political science at Duke University and co-author of a series of books on every national election since 1980.
MATT KARP
assistant professor of history at Princeton University and contributing editor at Jacobin. His most recent article for Jacobin is "The War on Bernie Sanders.


Some history I've been reading regarding the supposed purpose of the Superdelegates and the reason for there existence:

To nominate a candidate who can win.

While the first two rationales are more procedural, the latter two have a somewhat more specific outcome in mind. For one thing, in light of what had happened in 1972 and 1980, there was some surprisingly frank discussion about the electability of the eventual nominee:

Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. of North Carolina is chairman of the 69-member commission reviewing party nominating rules for the fourth time since 1969. He began the first regional hearing by saying that the goal was to give ordinary Democrats ''greater faith and confidence in the nominating process.''

Victory Is the Objective

''We're about the business of winning again,'' he said, in describing the objective of the commission, which is to present recommendations for action by the national committee early next year. (NYT, 9/25/81)

Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. of North Carolina, who heads the latest Democratic rule-changing group, an unwieldy, 29-member agglomeration of the innocent and the experienced, describes its task as one of writing ''rules that will help us choose a nominee who can win and who, having won, can govern effectively.'' The rules will probably matter less than the unemployment rate to a Democratic victory in 1984. But the comments underscore a traditional motive for the task of rule-changing the Democratic National Committee will finish in March. Much of this year's deliberations have seemed infused with a desire to deny future nominations to political reincarnations of the Jimmy Carter of 1976. (NYT, 1/27/82)

The concept was spawned at a meeting of party leaders after the Republicans scored smashing victories in the 1980 elections. ''There was a strong feeling,'' he said.

LuvLoogie

(6,855 posts)
9. Most of the super delegates are lifelong Democrats
Thu May 12, 2016, 02:01 AM
May 2016

Hillary's support is bought with decades of hard work and face-to-face relationship building. The vast majority of the supers are not going to vote for Bernie over Hillary who will have been the outright winner of the pledged delegates and the popular vote, and who has been a Democrat since before she could vote.

The fervent disdain for Hillary on Bernie Underground is not extrapolated to Democrats at large. People WANT to vote for her and do so enthusiastically with confidence that she is the stronger candidate.

They aren't voting under duress for the caricature painted on Bernie Underground and on the MSM. That is the Straw Woman you have erected, and she is your foe.

While the real Hillary drinks your milkshake.

LuvLoogie

(6,855 posts)
23. No, but he was the protagonist. And it's a great line...
Thu May 12, 2016, 01:46 PM
May 2016

illustrating that pretending at moral superiority will distract you from the task at hand.

brooklynite

(93,873 posts)
17. Why not just assume that 100% of California voters will support Sanders?
Thu May 12, 2016, 08:23 AM
May 2016

They COULD change their minds, right?

CentralMass

(15,265 posts)
8. It will likely come down to super d's and if Hillary keeps her
Thu May 12, 2016, 01:19 AM
May 2016

Grossly disproportionate number of super d's at the convention, I predict that there will be a lot of pissed off voters.

BreakfastClub

(765 posts)
12. That makes no sense. Why would anyone be pissed off? Those are the rules, people. I get
Thu May 12, 2016, 02:25 AM
May 2016

that you may not like them, but we all agreed beforehand to these rules, and you don't get to change them when your guy loses. Only a very immature tantrum thrower would be "pissed off" at having to follow the rules that were already set in place before the primaries began.

 

baldguy

(36,649 posts)
15. They'll be pissed off because the GOP, the MSM and the Sanders campaign will tell them to be.
Thu May 12, 2016, 07:32 AM
May 2016

The Sanders campaign has been saying for months that the superdelegates are unfair, undemocratic, and (as the OP insists) really don't count anyway. They've deliberately misrepresenting the process of how the nominee is selected to Sanders fans. But when they lose, they'll cry "foul!" because the superdelegates didn't rush to support Sanders.

And the GOP and the MSM will be happy to egg Sanders fans on in their new found apoplexy to distract from the Republican clusterfuck.

CentralMass

(15,265 posts)
16. In state after state that Sanders won, Hillary received a disproproportionate share of the super d's
Thu May 12, 2016, 08:04 AM
May 2016

Last edited Thu May 12, 2016, 08:58 AM - Edit history (1)

Of course you know this, but for the record.

Of the 3,149 delegates that have been awarded so far from the contested states. Bernie has 1,433 or 45.5% of the 3,149, and Hillary has 1,716 of the pledged delegates or 54.5% of the 3,149.

Yet the reported super delegate count is Hillary 524 to Bernie'Sanders 40. So Bernie's 40 out of 564 superd's that have committed is 7% of the 564 while Hillary's 524 is 92.9% of the 564 superd's that have committed.

If Bernie should tie or pull ahead in pledged delegates by the convention, the disproportionate share of committed superd's would hand Hillary the win..

So if right now the super delegates that have committed to date had done so proportionately by the standard delegate count that each candidate has won the tally would be

Hillary 1,716 + 307 = 2,023
Bernie 1,433 + 257 = 1,690

This would be only a 333 delegate difference at this point in the race with some key states to go. However since the superd's don't really commit until the convention.there is only a 283 awarded delegate count delta between the two candidates right now.

So it is not impossible for Bernie to tie or surpass Hillary in standard pledged delegates by the convention. Then the fraud that is the super delegates system will be laid bare.

 

baldguy

(36,649 posts)
14. The superdelegates you so easily cast aside & ignore for their inconvenience to Sanders count also:
Thu May 12, 2016, 07:21 AM
May 2016


And if you're looking at a brokered convention, the superdelegates are the people Sanders needs to convince. He hasn't been able to so far, what makes you think they'd change?
 

B Calm

(28,762 posts)
18. Before the first vote was cast in Iowa, Hillary had over a 500 super delegate lead. Here is
Thu May 12, 2016, 08:28 AM
May 2016

something you need in November to vote for the DNC candidate.

 

baldguy

(36,649 posts)
24. If you have to hold your nose to vote for an accomplished, experienced progressive Democrat
Thu May 12, 2016, 06:27 PM
May 2016

like HILLARY CLINTON

Then you have no business calling yourself a progressive or a Democrat.

lagomorph777

(30,613 posts)
20. Gee, wouldn't it be nice if MSMBC had such clear graphics
Thu May 12, 2016, 09:18 AM
May 2016

One would think that their multimillion dollar graphics department could produce something like this. Perhaps...they don't want to...?

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