It is my understanding that the super delegates in the Democratic Party have existed since 1982, and so you, once again, would be wrong. They almost entirely consist of elected officials. That being the case I don't see how their presence is anti-democratic in any general sense. And of course you have no evidence that the Party has been trying to ram Clinton down anyone's throats for years or whatever. National polls fwiw show she is leading over Sanders. The point here is once again an example of what is wrong with the Sanders campaign. Everyone who is opposed to them is guilty of a moral transgression by being so. Clinton did not change the rules, or have any part in adopting them. Too bad for Sanders if she benefits from the way those existing rules play out. Does the Sanders campaign think after all these years the rules should be changed to their benefit? Why? What is so "special" about them? The irony here is I bet the GOP leaders wish they had more super delegates.
Super delegates exist for the Democrats because smoke-filled backrooms went away as the primary nominating factor during the 60's. The party was determined not to let activists become that main force in the nominating process so they reserved 20% of the delegates to be party functionaries who would act in an anti-Democratic way to influence the nomination if necessary. Anybody who see it any other way just doesn't understand how politics work. It's all nice to suggest that the Democrats didn't want activists forced to compete with party officials for delegate spots but the reality is the Democrats didn't want activists beating safe party officials in a year like this one. The Republicans are about to discover why the Democrats chose to create as many super delegates as they did. Trump or Cruz is likely to be the person with the most delegates going into the convention and the other will have the second most and there won't be a group of GOP functionaries who can swing the vote the way that seems the safest. Instead the Convention is going to be very messy and unpredictable and probably ultimately completely undemocratic in the process.
^ I don't see how having ELECTED OFFICIALS be super delegates is anti-democratic. They were ELECTED. You know, by a majority of voters. Yes, it somewhat discourages or limits the effect of a specific primary, which after all is not the same thing as an election to an actual government office. As I said it gives somewhat more effect to the longer than the shorter term. The main point is it has been this way for 34 years and is not part of some recent plot to beat Bernie Sanders.
I think with how things are fairing, we are nearing a HRC and Bernie ticket...This probably decimates the Republicans in the general election
He'll never do that. There's no scenario where he wins running as a 3rd party candidate in the general election if Hillary is one of the other two candidates. The scenarios that show him with a possible win are all Trump-Rubio-Sanders and Trump-Bloomberg-Sanders. Hillary would take 35% of the vote walking away in a three-way race with Sanders in it and he'd maybe get 19% and elect the Republican. He'd be playing the same role that H.R. Perot played in '92 only he'd be handing the White House to the GOP instead of the Dems. He's idealistic but he's not an idiot. No 74 year old politician wants to be remembered as the guy who handed Donald Trump the White House and in the current political reality giving it to Rubio would be nearly as bad with the gerrymandered House majority the GOP will maintain. There was an interesting piece a couple of days ago about how much money Hillary has raised for state parties and how much Sander has and she's raised like a thousand times more funds for local parties at this point. If Sanders ran as an independent he would probably break the Democratic Party at the local levels and we'd have blowback from that run for another decade and a half. Obama is in an interesting position, because after he edged Howard Dean out as DNC Chairman he basically took the fund-raising apparatus and moved it into his own organizing-oriented movement. If he doesn't do something major in terms of helping the local parties after he leaves office his legacy will be that he contributed to the destruction of the Democratic Party as a national force. I'm expecting him to be raising huge amounts for state parties for a decade or more after he leaves office. If he doesn't, well history is not kind to ineffective self-aggrandizing leadership.
I don't think Sanders can get the nomination at this point however I do think he can get 48% of the primary votes along the way. I think Hillary is positioning for the Clinton/Sanders ticket at this point with Sanders delegated to getting the youth vote to the polls for a change. It will be a hard sell is my guess. Young voters only vote when they are excited and the Dems are going to have to sell the first woman President angle heavily while Sanders tries to corral his voters and get them to the polls. Sanders will be a great attack dog if Trump is the GOP nominee. That's like a slow curve into Sander's wheelhouse given that Trump is NYC establishment and very representative of the 1%.
So what happens if Bernie wins the popular vote and normal delegates, but loses due to super delegates? Would that be the party's worst nightmare? Sent from my SM-N910U using Tapatalk
I read up on this, the actual count (delegates) only is something like 55 Bernie 65 Hillary Dems have a weird thing with Super Delegates that were auto delivered to Hillary, but once all the delegates are handed out they essentially move them around to winner. I find this to be an extremely stupid way of handling wins and delegates. Dumb as shit. EDIT: Found the actuals If we take out the super delegates.... Hillary Rodham Clinton - 502 - 431 SD = 71 actual delegates Bernard Sanders - 70 - 16 = 54 actual delegates. 71 to 54, very close... hence the super delegates is where, Clinton is ahead, she is not ahead by nearly as much with delegates that she has actually won.
Hillary had all the super delegates in 2008 too. Then Obama started winning primaries and the super delegates began moving his way. He had about two-thirds of them in his column by the time she suspended her campaign. Sanders isn't going to have that happen. He doesn't have the charisma nor the inevitability that Obama had going for him. I suspect he will win another primary or two and Hillary will win like ten and he'll suspend his campaign, the same way Hillary did in 2008 when Obama became inevitable. The margins of victory aren't going to be huge for Hillary outside the south but 51-49 means just as much as 64-36 when you're the 51 over and over again.
And that was my point, that "71 to 54" like it or not will be taking a back seat to "Ta - da!" Btw, the 502/70 breakdown was courtesy of the New York Times: Mrs. Clinton has 502 delegates to Mr. Sanders’s 70; 2,383 are needed to win the nomination. These numbers include delegates won in state contests and superdelegates, who can support any candidate. She is likely to win a delegate jackpot from the overwhelmingly black and Hispanic areas in the Southern-dominated Super Tuesday primaries on March 1, when 11 states will vote and about 880 delegates will be awarded.
