Independent who is a carpetbagger.

First, they need to win a majority of pledged delegates.

Second, they need to demonstrate that they have commitments from a majority of the delegates to the Democratic Convention, from pledged and super delegates.

This is the standard that was set eight years ago under Barack Obama. Before that it had been 24 years since we last had a closely contested race. Back then we didn't even have mandatory proportional representation voting. In 1984 there was still winer-take-all voting in many states.

A precedent was set back in 2008. From that point forward the party would agree to nominate the PD winner. And the media would recognize a presumptive nominee once a candidate won the PD count and secured a majority of delegates to the convention from PDs and SD commitments.

The only difference between Hillary '08 and Bernie '16 is that nobody told Hillary going into the 2008 race that this would be the standard. The official rules and past precedent had both been quite different. So Hillary looked at other standards, like winning states that taken together constituted a majority of the electoral college in the GE. In the end, the party decided that they liked the PD standard and so a new precedent was set.

In 2016, Bernie knew that going into the race. He had no reason to believe that the party would nominate him, even if he lost the PD count.

occupies another plane of reality.

May is going to be a very difficult month.

that will flip all the SDs to Bernie.

Tell your friend no.

Sid

so while she may have an oral endorsement of those supers, much can happen between June 7 (the earliest by which she could make this pitch) and July 25 when all the delegates vote.

and that Sanders will climb down from it after California votes and Clinton is ahead in pledged delegates.

Under those circumstances, the headlines will be "Clinton wins Democratic primary: First woman to win major party nomination for President."

He's not crazy.

surpassing them. There just aren't enough of ANY kind of delegate left to take the lead, once someone reaches that number.