Tuesday, June 07, 2016

Why The Superdelegates Aren't Going To Switch To Bernie

Democratic Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders debate during the CNN Democratic Presidential Primary Debate at the Duggal Greenhouse in the Brooklyn Navy Yard on April 14, 2016 in New York City.
There is this persistent fantasy being pushed in Bernie World that Sanders will get the superdelegates to massively switch to him and give him the nomination because 'it happened to Hillary in 2008'. .

Yeah right.  That has as much chance of happening as moi walking the runway of the next Victoria's Secret runway show.

Let's approach this logically shall we?

First, let's talk about exactly who the superdelegates are.  438 of them are Democratic National Committee members with 434 votes.  They also include the chairs and vice chairs of all 50 state Democratic parties.


20 are distinguished party leaders (DPL).  That means current and former presidents and vice presidents, former congressional leaders and former DNC chairs.   That DPL list of supers includes President Obama, Vice President Biden, former president Jimmy Carter, and former vice president Al Gore for example.  

The 193 Democratic members of the US House of Representatives (including DC and the US territories like the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico American Samoa and Guam)

The 47 US Senate Democrats and the two DC shadow Senators, and the 21 
Democratic governors.

Now that we know who the supers are, let's start breaking down why Sanders attempt to get superdelegates to switch will ultimately fail.

This is 2016, not 2008.  Just as wars are not fought with the same tactics you used in a previous one, neither are political campaigns.  The events that happened in presidential campaign 2008 while instructive and you can learn lessons from them, are not guaranteed to repeat themselves in the next campaign.

Let's get it out there the first dirty secret of the Sanders campaign.  Bernie only joined the Democratic Party last year and admitted he did so only to go after the Democratic nomination and stated it would be harder for him to run for president as an independent. . He is not a Democrat, he is a DINO.

Bernie also has a long history of demonizing the Democratic party going back to 1985. He also called for the primary challenge of President Obama, which means he is not going to be successful in getting President Obama's superdelegate vote, much less many Black superdelegates who haven't forgotted Sanders dissing southern Black Democratic voters.   They also haven't forgotten many of you Berners racistly dissed Rep John Lewis (a superdelegate BTW) and Black voters consistently rejected Bernie at at 86-14% clip. .

Bernie does slightly better with Latinos, being rejected by them by a 75-25% clip. They have issues with Bernie as well, which means he won't be getting many Latino superdelegates to switch either, especially after he accused the Puerto Rico Democratic Party of 'fraud' and the Berners dissing of Latina civil rights icon Dolores Huerta early in the campaign.. And like Black voters, a majority of Latinx voters aren't feeling the Bern either as was demonstrated on Sunday in Puerto Rico. 

And note that out of all his senate colleagues who are superdelegates, only Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon supports him. That speaks volumes 
Sanders acting like a vanillacentric privileged spoiled brat and blaming everyone but himself for his various primary losses is also not endearing him to the superdelegates.

Contrary to what the Sanders campaign is telling you, Sanders is not the better candidate against Trump. He wasn't really vetted and his dirty laundry wasn't given a proper airing. The Repblicans are praying we'll be stupid enough to nominate a candidate they desperately want to run against and paint his 'Democratic Socialist' behind as the second coming of Marx and Lenin.  Trump would spank that behind once they unleash all the unvetted hell on him that Hillary didn't do. 

Then there's the fact that Hillary has 40 years of Democratic Party history, was the First Lady in her husband Bill's administration, elected twice as the US senator from New York and the former secretary of state serving under President Obama .  Being she was on the losing end of a tighter presidential race in 2008 and hadled it with dignity and clas , female Democratic leaders, and especially seasoned Democratic female leaders see this as the best chance of their lifetime to make their presidential dream come true and they aren't throwing away this opportunity for a DINO.   .

Attacking Sen. Barbara Boxer (another superdelegate) in addition to the sexist and nasty commentary that has been aimed at Hillary Clinton in this campaign, in addition to stating you will continue to attack her will only ossify their support for Clinton.

In 1984, Gary Hart tried the same tactic that Bernie Sanders is about o attempt in flipping superdelegates that committed to Walter Mondale before the convention and failed miserably.

We know the stakes of the election this November and see the big picture.  Many of the Bernie or bust people tragically don't.

So good luck with that quixotic doomed to failure attempt to flip the superdelegates.
 

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