2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumAccording to the AP, Hillary now needs just 219 pledged delegates Tuesday to get a PD majority.
Demrace.com suggests that winning just 30% of California will gain her 142 PDs.
A 50/50 split of New Jersey will give her 63 more PDs.
That would leave her just needing to get 14 more in any of the other four states voting that night. Hillary will win a majority, not merely a plurality, of pledged delegates on Tuesday night.
Bernie, and many of his supporters, may be right when they say that it would be better to have a system like the Republicans do, where the simple majority decides it. But the superdelegates allow a three-way race won by a strong plurality winner rather than a straight majority PD winner to get a "magic majority" without having to have a brokered convention or multiple ballots. They are supposed to vote, as a group, in the way that best benefits the Democratic Party, and had Superdelegates who originally supported Hillary in 2008 not moved to Obama when it was clear he had a pledged delegate majority, there would have been an outcry beyond belief.
Just as there would have been had Bernie been the one to finish out ahead, and then superdelegates who initially supported her stayed with Hillary in too large of numbers to let Bernie hit the majority.
I've met one of them, Lottie Shakelford, Little Rock's first female mayor. She was giving a radio interview at the Little Rock Hillary watch party on Super Tuesday. Some like her may have remained dedicated, or asked another SD to trade around so there would still have been enough SD votes for Bernie to get the "magic number", had the numerical situations been reversed today. But in total, as a group, they have a responsibility to vote in a way that reflects the will of the voters.
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Does this mean that Bernie supporters shouldn't vote until the voting stops? Of course not! Heck, Hillary voters might be the ones who get too overconfident. And I am genuinely sorry for the people who feel they never had a voice in this primary. Looking at news reports, it looks like California will be voting earlier in the next primaries.
Does the mathematics of this race mean that people who support the causes Bernie worked for (besides the defeat of Hillary Clinton herself) should stop working for those things to happen, even if it's under a Clinton administration? Again, of course not! The causes Bernie speaks about are far more importantly than any one man or woman.
Does this mean they are required to embrace, or vote for Clinton in the general? Of course it's not a requirement to still be a "real true" whatever, just please remember that Hillary and Bernie do agree on more than Bernie and Trump do in November when you make your choices on the downticket ballots at least.
I do hope, though, that we can all be civil as this wraps up. Don't call anyone a "loser" except Trump, for example.
dchill
(38,324 posts)And who knows what that would have been had they known when they voted what they obviously know now. All the myriad lies Hillary has told about the spurious server and whether it was allowed and what the meaning of "is" is.
Who knows? Maybe those superdelegates aren't such a bad idea, after all...
moriah
(8,311 posts)... to keep him from nuking a country if someone throws a shoe at him than I am that we can keep a tight enough IT security staff around Clinton to make up for the fact she's far from an expert on all the technology and keep her transparent.
merrily
(45,251 posts)With all the investments Trump has made overseas, including the Middle East, he'd have to aim the bombs and drones very skillfully
dchill
(38,324 posts)You're joking, right? For Hillary to be transparent, she'd have to advocate for all the conservative ideologies she believes in, and just declare as a Republican, already, instead of lying to Democrats about things that are "never gonna happen."
moriah
(8,311 posts)Dem2
(8,166 posts)Say what you will, the majority of Democrats disagree with you.
beachbum bob
(10,437 posts)sanders is spouting nonsense
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)MineralMan
(146,192 posts)this primary season is over. Anyone who thinks that Super Delegates will switch to vote for the candidate with a minority of pledged delegates is not thinking clearly at all.
It's my prediction that Hillary will have a majority with about 100 votes over the 2026 pledged delegates required to gain that majority. In fact, I'll predict her total of pledged delegates on Wednesday morning at 2132. Let's check on Wednesday.
The results from tomorrows elections will make her win crystal clear. Then, it will be time for us to move on and support the nominee for President.
It is that simple.