Indeed. Super delegates exist in the DNC for a reason.
And of course, it is always forgotten how it was that Bernie became aware of the Democrats’ internal discussions: Via emails of the DNC leaked by Wikileaks at the behest of Russia.
Bernie was enraged by something he learned only due to Russian subversion into our election.
His anger over it was the main thing that caused him to delay getting out of the race and ceding the nomination to Clinton until the convention, forcing her to continue to spend money, time and energy to run against him instead of being able to focus exclusively on Trump.
Sigh. The Democratic party- and by that i assume you mean the DNC- can not make any such decisions- if they could Hillary would have won vs Obama. Yes, one member of the DNC did aid Clinton a bit in one debate.
Nor could the RNC- in which case trump would not have been the candidate in 2016. The “new” RNC, is purely a trump vehicle now.
Sigh. Quick name the other Democrats in the primary. Not the non-party member who came in to stir things up. No serious candidate stepped forward to fight for the nomination. It was like she was the incumbent but she wasn’t. The party, the smoke filled room or the DNC decided to let her run basically uncontested. Then the party outsider threw a spanner in and exposed the weaknesses of the campaign.
The RNC did no such thing. Everyone and their brother tried for the nomination. Why Trump beat all the big names has been done to death here.
No, that’s not how it works. Let me quote someone that seemingly understands how the political parties have chosen their candidates for the majority of our lifetimes,
Actually, in retrospect, I might have voted for Bernie in the primary – for what little good that would have done. But I figured that as a Socialist, he’d have no chance against Trump. Given how much mud had been thrown at her for many years, it would have been reasonable to discount Hillary’s chances, too.
Sanders, O’Malley,. Webb, Chaffee. And Sanders fought long and hard, even after he was numerically eliminated. Sanders was not a member of the Democratic party, but he always caucused with them. And the DNC can not order anyone to not run.
There is no “smoke filled room” at the DNC. They have little power. The polls going in made it clear Hillary was going to be the candidate.
But note she also ran against Obama in 2008, and was the favorite in the Polls- why didnt the DNC “fix” that election also?
And yes- dozens of candidates ran against trump in 2016- as he was seen as weak. How many serious candidates ran against him in 2020?
The Clinton DNC super-delegate strategy was to get commitments from nearly every super-delegate and announce it before the primaries started. She was proud of manipulating the system to give herself a huge delegate lead right from the start. That’s a reason other candidates didn’t toss their hats in the ring. It also pissed off a lot people because this was obviously the result of a lot of political dealing and didn’t represent the same level of support she had among the voters. Clinton already had a reputation for trying to manipulate the primary candidates back in 2008 when she tried to get Obama to join her in narrowing the field of contenders.
I went to one of her booksignings, and we were told not to speak to her so everybody could get through the line. Well, I was near the end of the line and risked asking a question: “How is your hand holding out?” She looked up and gave me a big sincere smile and said she was doing fine, thanks for asking. I liked her.
I met Ronald Reagan when I was in high school, and he gave off a very cold, distant vibe. Fake smiley.
Was a supporter in '08 and in '16 and my experience with her is also that of someone who, up close, in persondoes have the likeability factor, but somehow has had a hard time translating it on the larger stage. Can’t say what is it that makes it so. That’s a problem when elective politics are a game of perceptions, and you never fully control that, it was already being taken from her even while she was still just a candidate’s wife in 1992.
Maybe this is better for the other thread but: It is of course a fallacy to try to binary it into either her campaign did nothing wrong and she’s a victim OR she was “a terrible candidate” the only one who could blow such a sure thing. There were failings both honest and dumb from inside, as well as both the usual ratfuckery and unusual interference from outside, and all that combined just right. In the end, in spite of all that let’s not forget, more people still did vote for her, she got tripped by the Electoral College.
I didn’t vote in 2016 because I could not vote for either. At that time, I was a life long Republican. I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Hillary for many reasons. I also would not vote for Trump.
In hindsight? I don’t know. In 2020, I voted as a Republican for Biden. Straight ticket blue, in fact. I wanted to vote against him as a Republican. After the election was “settled” I re registered as a Democrat. I will never vote Republican again. Whether I remain a Democrat remains to be seen.
Only 15% of the superdelegates were unpledged. The rest couldn’t change their vote without being released by the candidate or if no one was nominated in the first round.
Oh dear, a President who does political dealing? And getting commitments from people? Who ever heard of such a thing in the running of a government? We really dodged a bullet, can’t have a person like THAT in charge of stuff.
We needed a guy who got outraged that his opponent talked to Democratic leaders about her candidacy at a time when he couldn’t because he hadn’t technically joined the party yet.