This is nothing like 2008. First, Obama had many more superdelegates even at this stage in 2008. (There were also many fewer committed at this point in 2008, IIRC.) He was an acceptable candidate to party officialdom and office holders. Sanders has only a handful, and is very unlikely to gain any more. He is not an acceptable candidate to all but a few party officials and office holders. Second, in the easy and likely case in which Clinton achieves at least a very small majority of the elected primary and caucus delegates, the superdelegates will tip things decisively for Clinton. Third, in a case in which it's essentially 50/50 they will do the same thing. They will all back the party loyalist, not the independent from Vermont. Fourth, if Sanders eeked out a small majority of the elected delegates (still unlikely), the superdelegates might still throw things to Clinton provided the numbers were muddled enough. Or let's at least put it this way: they'd all be looking for a way to throw things to Clinton. Fifth, the only way the committed superdelegates switch would be if Sanders managed a decisive victory in the elected delegates. This is very unlikely. Look, in all likelihood we just witnessed the Sanders high water mark. That's not me doubting Sanders. That's me doubting the importance of Iowa and New Hampshire to the contests that are yet to come. -- edit -- Yes things were very different in terms of superdelegates at this point in 2008: https://reason.com/blog/2016/02/02/bernie-sanders-superdelegate-problem
By the way, I just realized this -- though it should have been obvious. Currently Bernie Sanders has 14 superdelegates. But it's really actually 7. Why? Because Bernie Sanders is himself a superdelegate. He gets to vote for himself as a delegate. Hillary Clinton is not a superdelegate. So she doesn't get to vote for herself. However, Bill Clinton is a superdelegate. Presumably his vote will cancel out Bernie's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Democratic_Party_superdelegates,_2016
I was just wondering if I had missed some archaic super-delegate rule in which Bernie and Bill's votes were worth 7 each. Thanks for the clarification.
The media spin this week is that Bernie could win the nomination. There are two outcomes that I see: 1) If Bernie's vote share exceeds 45% in both Nevada and South Carolina, he will most likely become the nominee. 2) If Bernie's vote share does not exceed 45% in Nevada and South Carolina, Iowa and New Hampshire will get some serious scrutiny from the Democratic Party in 2020.
My GOD people need to remember that New Hampshire and Iowa are white. White, white, white, white, white. White. WHITE! They're the type of states where white friends of mine from high school would go off to college and then transfer elsewhere ... anywhere... b/c it is so damn white there. So let's see how people of color feel 'bout the Bern before we dig HRC's grave, m'kay.
Of course this was the same thing people were saying in 2008. At the same time people were assuming that Clinton would win SC because she would win the black vote. That didn't work out as planned.
Well that's a bit of a misrepresentation. Obama won a white state (Iowa). That changed things completely. W/ that victory, a lot of the grassroot evangelism really kicked in and Blacks quickly began recruiting other Blacks to vote for Obama. In 2006-7, Obama was very underwater among Blacks, and he slowly made inroads. Iowa opened up the floodgates for the later states. IIRC, he already was polling extremely well in SC, so it wasn't a surprise. Ppl *may* have been saying that HRC would pull out a victory, but it wasn't based on reality.
I read somewhere that Bernie was very competitive with Clinton among minorities in NH, gaining 49%. Of course, Sanders has massive natural advantages he doesn't have elsewhere that go beyond "it's whiter than cheesecake". But still an interesting stat IMO.
It's still a tiny sample in a state that isn't representative of the experience of P.O.C. Hillary is up by ri-DIC-ulous amounts amongst Blacks in SC, like 74-17%. Now, keep in mind that he's starting to get endorsements from prominent Blacks, so that number will get better, but Bernie's still got a massive climb ahead of him. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/it-gets-harder-from-here-for-bernie-sanders/
Once it all shakes out, it looks like Hillary Clinton will have battled Bernie Sanders to a delegate draw in New Hampshire. They will both leave the state with 15 additional delegates. http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box...ely-to-leave-nh-with-same-number-of-delegates
Actually, it's scenarios like this that demonstrate that the delegate system is functioning exactly as the party intended. Somebody brought up 2008 before. The delegate system wasn't intended to stop a candidate like Obama. And it didn't and never would. But it is intended to stop a guy like Sanders -- a candidate that is nearly completely unacceptable to party officials and office holders. And it's doing so effectively.
Exactly. Its beyond disingenuous that you make the masses vote for a candidate and then go back and say "oops, sorry, your vote actually didn't matter, go back to the kids' table, the adults will now make the real decision".
And it's irresponsible for a party to stand by while a whimsical electorate nominates a whimsical candidate. This is party politics, and party politics ain't a democracy -- not even Democratic Party politics.
So then dispense with the fable that the party's supporters make the decision, and just eliminate the votes altogether and just have the delegates make the decision.
That's how it used to be -- not so long ago even. The primary and caucus system was added to give party voters more participation and more say. But it was never intended to give them total say.
Good point. And the delegate numbers appear to be what matters more. But if he keeps the delegate race close through South Carolina, I can see a path to the nomination for him. The media certainly wants a more interesting race.
You've been drinking a little too much BernieBrew if you think "close" is remotely enough. You are discounting just how toxic party officials and elected Democrats think a Sanders ticket would be. The only way they flip is if Sanders beats Clinton so handily in elected delegates that they believe rejecting Sanders is even worse for them than accepting him. And no matter how inept HRC is, that's not gonna happen. The best that Bernie can hope for is to continue to more or less split elected delegates with HRC. And even that hope is powered by a great deal of wishful thinking.
I don't want a Bernie nomination by any stretch of the imagination. The idea of our President raising taxes by the amounts he would need to to fund programs that I don't think need expanded (such as Social Security) is appalling to my more libertarian tastes. This is what makes me see the Bernie path more plausible: When the exact same problems crop up in separate campaigns, with different staff, at what point do the principals say, "Hey, maybe it's US?"— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) February 8, 2016
I was the first to quote that tweet on this board. And when this election year started I figured I'd spend most of political discussion energies detailing the various ways in which HRC was and remains a campaign moron. But I believe in demographics. And that's why I don't believe in Bernie.