Hillary Clinton
Related: About this forumMarkos Moulitsas: Sanders: Time to bow out
Markos has an opinion piece up at The Hill. It makes sense!
...snip...
In short, there is no plausible route for Sanders to overcome the advantage Clinton enjoyed of 319 pledged delegates before Tuesdays contests. Since the former first lady leads the pledged delegate race 58 percent to 42 percent, with roughly half of the delegates to take the nomination already allocated, Sanders would have to win nearly 60 percent of delegates in the remaining states just to tie her.
Clinton beat Sanders in the South on the strength of the regions Democratic base: African-Americans. She beat him in Hispanic-heavy states like Nevada and Florida. She beat him in white-dominated industrial states like Ohio. In fact, shes beaten him just about everywhere Democrats came out to vote in numbers of the nine states the Vermont senator has won, five have been low-turnout, undemocratic caucuses. While Sanders has gotten an impressive 6.3 million votes this cycle, Clinton has far outpaced him, with 8.7 million votes.
Just like Howard Dean taught us 10 years ago, you cant build a meaningful progressive campaign without the support of African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians.
Now, its true that the second half of the primary schedule looks far more favorable to Sanders than the first half was. Most of the South has already voted, diminishing the role of African-American voters in the months ahead. Caucuses in Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii, North Dakota, Wyoming and Washington should favor Sanders, as well as primaries in less diverse places like Oregon and Utah. But he would still need to perform exceedingly well in states like New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, winning them all by an average of 16 points. Anything less than that anywhere and his necessary victory margins down the line get that much larger.
In short, while there is still a mathematical path to victory for Sanders, its not a realistic one. Clinton never trailed Barack Obama by anything more than around 150 delegates at any point during the 2008 primaries. And that race wasnt particularly close.
So the Sanders campaign is left to make dangerous suppositions about its path to victory. We acknowledge its a difficult route; we acknowledge its a substantial lead, but we do not believe its set in stone, Sanders adviser Tad Devine said after Sanderss 0-5 performance last Tuesday. The factors superdelegates will take into consideration include whos won more pledged delegates ... but also whos gotten stronger, not weaker, over the course of primaries, and who matches up best against Donald Trump or whoever the Republican nominee is.
In short, the Sanders campaign is now making the same argument it was decrying just a few months ago that Democratic superdelegates should subvert the choice of the Democratic electorate to hand the nomination to the primary loser. It was an absurd argument when Clinton made it in 2008, and its no less absurd today. And if anyone was a beneficiary of such usurpation of the will of the voters, it certainly wouldnt be an outsider like Sanders.
http://tinyurl.com/j3s8w7c
workinclasszero
(28,270 posts)Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,741 posts)charlyvi
(6,537 posts)question everything
(47,434 posts)they way they did in 2008 when they saw that Obama was gaining (and Jesse Jackson Jr. pushed the members of the Black Congressional Caucus..)
But the super delegates are elected officials. Democrats elected officials. Why should they support an unpredictable person who, all of a sudden, decided that he wants to be elected by the Democratic party?
charlyvi
(6,537 posts)I've been saying this since Super Tuesday when Bernie started talking about it. Super delegates are Dem party apparatus people. The overwhelming majority have worked for the party for years. And he thinks he can just walk in and flip them? With nothing more than momentum and GE polls taken before the right has laid a glove on him? After dissing the Party and its members for years? Please.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)LoveMyCali
(2,015 posts)I tried wading through but couldn't find it and now I just feel angry and woozy.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)LoveMyCali
(2,015 posts)I try to avoid scrolling through GDP at all costs but I'll definitely give this a read and a rec!
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)LoveMyCali
(2,015 posts)Just not me!
Cha
(296,848 posts)They are vicious!
Cha
(296,848 posts)Walk away
(9,494 posts)Response to charlyvi (Original post)
Post removed