What Bernie Sanders used to say about the superdelegates

[redqueen]

Link to tweet

[LizBeth]

1. Didn't Sanders go to the convention stating he wanted Super delegates to flip?

Is Warren wrong that Sanders helped implement these rules after 2016?

[dumptrump1]

3. the OP shows evidence that Bernie only wanted the delegates in states he won

And for those delegates to go to the vote winner in their states. Not that superdelegates should go to the loser.

[LizBeth]

4. Sanders wanted the super delegates to flip.

“The responsibility that superdelegates have is to decide what is best for this country and what is best for the Democratic Party,” Sanders said on May 1, 2016. “And if those superdelegates conclude that Bernie Sanders is the best candidate, the strongest candidate to defeat Trump and anybody else, yes, I would very much welcome their support.”

Later that month, Sanders told CNN, “I am not a great fan of superdelegates, but their job is to take an objective look at reality. And I think the reality is that we are the stronger candidate.”

On May 29, 2016, Sanders said superdelegates had the “very grave responsibility to make sure that Trump [is not] elected president of the United States. Vote for the strongest candidate.”

Told on June 7, 2016, that his superdelegate convention push would defy history and the will of the voters, Sanders said, “Defying history is what this campaign has been about.”

Even after Clinton had the delegates needed, Sanders was trying to get the super delegates to flip up to the convention. Because of this, the first woman to get a nomination had Sanders supporters creating chaos at our convention.

Facts are facts. Sanders and his supporters do not get to rewrite history. We were there.

[Billsmile]

2. Some Caveats

Sanders didn't write the current rules. They were the result of the work of the Unity Reform Commission. (As one can see in the Washington Post clip atop this thread Sanders was no fan of superdelegates.)

The panel was created at the party’s national convention in July as a last-minute compromise between supporters of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and those of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who were demanding the elimination of super-delegates from presidential primaries.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dnc-unity-reform-commission_n_58f50d1fe4b0b9e9848d92eb

Superdelegates were created to choose candidates that "would fare better in the general election."

After 1968, the Democrats produced some relatively weak nominees: George McGovern carried only one state, plus the District of Columbia, in his loss to Richard Nixon in 1972, and in 1980 Jimmy Carter lost reelection to Ronald Reagan by only a slightly less humiliating margin. In the wake of such losses, leading Democrats decided to reform the nominating process so that the party’s elite members could play more of a role in selecting nominees, and choose candidates they believed would fare better in the general election.

https://www.history.com/news/what-is-a-delegate-and-superdelegate

In May of 2016 Sanders was polling much better than Clinton against Trump and one could easily conclude that Sanders was a better choice to beat Trump.

So Sanders is correct that he fares better against Trump than Clinton does in every poll over the past six weeks -- more than 6 points better than Clinton, on average.
And Sanders is beating Trump by an average of 12 points in these eight polls, so "big numbers" seems like a reasonable description for Sanders to use.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/may/29/bernie-sanders/bernie-sanders-says-he-polls-better-against-donald/?fbclid=IwAR0y2zd4AhPWLWJVJ75WxYlxVcZXnuNGm8isGKTPCeL-vtWakESaTDhM42w