When it’s a two person race I would mostly agree with you. Where it would be interesting would be an almost even 3 way race with the establishment’s choice being slightly behind. Say it was 34% Lieberman, 34% Sanders, 32% Clinton.
Not this year. The only other candidate they had with a respectable delegate haul was Cruz. I suspect they mistrust and despise him even more than Trump, and that he’d do at least as badly in the general.
That would be a pretty interesting situation - but the superdelegates only account for 15% of the total delegates. This year that means that the supers could only make someone win on the first ballot if they had 1668 out of 4051 pledged delegates (just over 41%). A situation where you had three candidates where everyone got 1/3 of the delegates would revert to a contested convention knife fight like the old days, I guess. It also limits just how much shoving the supers are actually capable of.
Hardly. They get on the Winner bandwagon. The SuperDelegates went to Obama in 2008, even tho before the elections started he was a outside contender.
On the contrary. It would make the supers quite powerful and give them reasonable justification to flex that power.
Well, to a small extent. But no more that the undemocratic caucus system or open primaries have.
But Clinton is now, and have always been, leading by a very comfortable % in the popular vote.
If every state had no supers and just a plain closed primary, Sanders would never even have been a blip.
The “shenanigans” helped Bernie. Immensely.
If the Bernie Bros want to really fight the establishment, the answer is not to hound the Democratic Party by suddenly jumping into the game and then getting mad when they can’t change the rules so they can win.
Bernie Bros need to go after all the little rules and policies that Republicans and Democrats have put in place over the years that make it nearly impossible for any other parties to become relevant. Things like polling limits before another party can enter a debate.
Sanders wasn’t a democrat and openly admitted that he only used that platforms for coverage and relevance. Only democrats should be allowed to vote for who will be on the democratic ticket.
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Ordinarily the superdelegate issue would never have been an issue. The problem this year is that the democrats included in their nomination process someone who was never a democrat but an independent, non-party progressive, who wanted to use the party platform and process to promote his message. Sanders was committed to his own message, not the democratic party. I suspect in the years going forward they might tinker with the delegate process to ensure that it avoids the appearance of impropriety, but they’ll also probably go to great lengths to make sure that outsiders never again become disruptive political forces.
Tell you what. I’ll agree to throw out ALL the superdelegate votes if the Bernies will agree to abide by the pledged delegate totals.
Or by the primary vote totals.
Cinton: 16 million
Trump: 12.3 million
Or by the total number of primaries and caucases won:
Clinton: 34
Sanders: 22
Feel free to suggest another metric.
Applauseometer?
Percent of what?
If one candidate was dramatically ahead in votes, and a different candidate had a tiny lead in the number of pledged elected delegates, I think the superdelegates then would be justified in picking either.
In a situation where, by all measures, one candidate is ahead, that who they should, and will, support.
The real rigging is in the rotten boroughs like caucus states, territories, and Democrats Abroad, where one vote has far more power in terms of electing delegates than where I live. The reform that’s needed is to equalize the number of primary votes it takes to send one delegate to the convention.