Discussion: Sanders Predicts A Contested Convention: 'We Intend To Fight' For Votes

I only really know of how they interact in Oregon races like Reps. and Senators. And they don’t really get involved beyond endorsing AFIK.

Thanks. I just remembered reading this at NY Times, and wondered if they had voiced their opinion about this contested convention talk now that the outcome of the primaries is clear.

Repeating the same idiocy doesn’t make it any more connected to facts or
reality. I already posted what the math is. That you somehow think
superdelegate a only get counted if pledged delegates don’t reach a
magic number only shows you really and truly don’t know what you are
talking about.

Sigh, if teh pledged delegates for a specific candidate reach 2,383, the supers don’t matter. If they don’t reach 2,383, then the supers’ vote counts, and they vote “for the good of the party.”

at this point, one national poll (which doth not a trend make) suggests that Clinton would lose against Trump, and such polls in favor of either candidate, would factor into who the supers would pick:

Obviously, if Clinton has a vast majority of pledged delegates, but still shy of 2,383, then the supers would go with her automatically. However, if the race is a near-tie, then other factors become more important. According to the Communications Officer of the DNC, the supers should not be counted by ANYONE until the convention as they can and do change their minds. However, that same official says that the supers have never actually decided the nomination before:

Saijanai… For a candidate to win a majority of the pledged delegates they only need 2026, then the super delegates “don’t matter” as the candidate has reached 50%+1 of the pledged delegates, and the supers have never gone against the will of the party as a whole before so why the hell do you think they’d do that now… And in Sander’s favor?

The threshold of 2383 is INCLUDING the super delegates not a bulwark number that must be met before Supers count.

How many times do you need to be told this?

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There was an article in the new York times I believe about the Reddit Donald Trump page and the main moderator said the most popular articles were anti Hillary ones because both Sanders and Trump supporters loved those ones.

While there is little in common in Bernie and Trumps positions, there’s a lot in common in their political stole of resentment and making promises they obviously cannot fulfill.

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What the hell is wrong with this man?? Does he want to just rip apart the party?? I’m sorry, I used to have respect for him, admired his campaign and the issues he brought a spotlight to. At one point I was considering to vote for him (as I’m in California I have yet to cast a primary ballot). Those days are long long gone now. Anyone in one of the state’s or territories yet to vote should do the Democratic Party a favor and vote against this kind of thinking. It’s like he wants to be a gadfly just to be an irritant to the party. Even if the “establishment” adopted everything he wanted I have the distinct feeling he still would be raging against the party.

In this interview he talks about how super delegates in states he’s won should flip to him and honor the “will of the people.” But then for some reason the super delagates in states Hillary has won should still disregard their state’s voters and vote for him instead because he thinks he’s a better candidate in the fall?? Well I’m sorry he should do the same thing he’s preaching to super delegates in the states he’s won and listen to the will of the voters. Even if we allocated the super delegates of each state to the winner of that state Bernie would still loose and if we allocated supers proportionally just as we do with the pledged delegates we’d be left with results that proportion wise match today’s pledged delegate percentages, with Bernie having something like 11% fewer delagates.

And to top it all off he’s ranting about a “rigged” election process, now though it’s not the super delegates he’s complaining about (since he now is relying on them for his proposed “conceivable” pathway to the nomination), it’s closed primaries. I’m sorry but he made a lot more sense when he was raging against this group of “establishment” elites with power to disregard the entire primary process and crown a winner than when complaining about state parties that simply require you to be an actual member of that party to select that party’s nominee (the only quibble i think is legitimate here is New Yorks ridiculous requirements to change registration months and months in advance). The sad truth is if you want to influence and shape a party you should actually take a stand and become a member of that party! In my mind that’s a much more effective model then the vision it appears sanders embraces where you should stay out of the party and complain. A national party is naturally a big tent coalition of people and movements and ideas, I get that Bernie may be unhappy with some of the party’s or its candidates ideas and proposals or their unwillingness in his eyes to go far enough but parties can and do change to reflect the sentiment of its membership (see the Democratic Party and gay marriage relatively recently), but to get that change in the party you have to fully embrace and commit to the party and push it to look more like the party you envision, you have a chance to succeed if you bring about untold numbers of fellow believers into the party fold… This is all not to say I think all primaries should be closed, it’s just that I think far from being “undemocratic” there is definite arguments for a “closed system” (just as there are arguments for an open primary system). The far more undemocratic system and process though, is the entire concept of the “caucus”, which just happens to be a format Bernie performs well in (so we don’t hear him ranting against them at all). Like i mentioned earlier, I at one time truely did admire The Sanders Campaign, mostly because I thought it was a campaign that appeared full of idealistic integrity. That cannot be said about the sanders campaign of today. A better word today would be “sanctimonious.” A campaign that still thinks and preaches itself as some sort of moral superior to all other presidential campaigns, that’s fighting to make the primary more responsive to the People, of building a “revolution” from the “bottom up” with millions of voiceless citizens. But in practice all its preaching about giving a voice to “the people” is thrown out the window in favor of finding “the people” who are, in Bernie’s view, simply voting the right way.

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This, a 100x. Well put.

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Rachel Maddow did this takedown last night about the “contested convention” thingy (from 9:45-ish). I know even that won’t clarify a thing for some people, but hopefully more people see how nutty and absurd Sanders’s claims are.

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YOu seem to take delight in both lying and in being 100% wrong.

You DO understand that 58.8249814860528% of the total pledged delegates is 2,383, which is the number required to win, right?

If the candidates reach 2,383 with pledged delegates, then the number of supers supporting them is irrelevant. If they don’t reach 2,383 pledged delegates, then the supers matter.

According to the Communications Officer of the Democratic National Committee, there has never been a need for super delegates to vote since 1984 and that they shouldn’t be counted before the convention because they can and often do change their vote:

why should I pay attention to YOU instead of him?

What I understand is how incredibly wrong you remain.

There are a total of 4765 delegates.
2383 are required to win—which is 50% plus one.

You remain astonishingly ignorant of the facts—and you revel in your ignorance.

You have no clue about anything, and you’re unlikely to get one.

I’ll try again:

there are 4,051 (from memory) pledged delegates. One needs 2,383 delegates of any type to win.

2,383/4,051 = 58.8249814860528%

So one needs 58.8249814860528% of the pledged delegates to win outright. If no candidate gets 58.8249814860528% of the pledged delegates, teh super delegates step in and vote.

According to the Communications officer of the Democratic National Committee, super delegates have not needed to vote since they were created in 1984:

What Bernie Sanders is claiming is that neither he nor Clinton will get 2,383 (or 58.8249814860528%
) pledged delegates, and therefore, BY DEFINITION, the convention will be “brokered” (the official term for a contested-ish convention in DNC-speak).

The brokering is taking place as we speak. Sanders’ press conference is part of that brokering.

It is not true that any candidate must win with only pledged delegates. Nowhere in the DNC convention rules is there any such statement.
The convention will not be brokered, because Hillary will have enough total delegates to win the nomination.

You continue to beat the same dead horse.

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You are continuing to misunderstand both what I am saying and what a brokered conventino is.

By difintion, if no candidate gets 2,383 pledged candidates the supers decide who wins.

This is called a brokered convention in DNC-speak:

Under the Democratic National Convention
rules, "A majority vote of the Convention’s delegates shall be required
to nominate the presidential candidate" and "Balloting will continue
until a nominee is selected".[7]
The role of the superdelegates was established in-part to limit such
conflicts and multi-rounds of voting on the convention floor, and
instead allow the candidates to woo these delegates before the convention.[8]

Whether or not the voting will take mre than one round will be played out at the convention. I suspect that only one round will be needed, but the party leadership may allow a 2nd round as a show of democracy for bernie supporters.

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All of the times, apparently. And that likely won’t be enough times, even so.

Don’t feed the imbecilic troll. Mock the imbecilic troll. At least as productive and substantially more fun.

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I don’t see a problem with that. As an Independent he’d have been a spoiler, and he didn’t want that, nor did the Dems. He’s always caucused and almost always voted with the Dems, so is a good fit anyway. As for it being somehow deceitful, how about Eisenhower who wasn’t even much of anything, both parties courting him to run with them, and he chose the Republicans because he was advised he’d be more likely to win as a Republican in that election. That certainly didn’t make him a bad Republican (except in today’s Republican definition). The Dem Party approved Bernie’s running on the Dem ticket and supported him with data etc. What’s underhanded about all that?

I think the Dem Party has benefited substantially, with increased awareness and excitement about the election, greater opportunity for publicity and discussion of real issues, more just plain exposure. None of that was coming their way in any positive sense anyway, what with the media antipathy to Hillary and their nearly complete ignoring of Bernie. And though I think too that he didn’t really push Hillary herself to the left (they’ve always voted almost completely the same), I also think he has strongly shored up that position and made clear just how broadly the Dems support an actual left political agenda. That has to give Hillary increased confidence in her position, which should help her keep very strong through the grueling campaign to come.

I don’t see a problem with Sanders being independent. I do not see a problem with Sanders running as a democrat. Until recently I would agree with you that the Democrats and the country benefited from his run. I think that depending on his actions in the next couple of months his net effect could still be positive.

Nevertheless in the context of the post that I was replying to – this is a newly adopted party for him (which, once again, is fine). Over the years – while he was a reliable ally – he has not done much to build the party and its support. From the tone of you post I surmise you agree that Democratic party was fair to him by the very fact that he was allowed to join. And he was running under the rules that existed before his joining. The rules that in 08 did not prevent Obama from beating establishment candidate Clinton. The rules that in some aspects (caucuses) favored Sanders. If you agree that the party was fair to him, you should agree that it is wrong and underhanded for him to campaign now on claims of being treated unfairly. And that’s what the discussion in the thread was about as far as I am concerned.

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I agree with that… but not with starting with the notion that it’s more egregious because he became a Dem in order to run. He’s a Dem now for good reason and supposedly intends to stay that way. But his behavior recently has been cringe-worthy. I suspect It’s largely because he’s way in over his head, and as Hillary said with some empathy “It’s really hard to stop a campaign!”.I think his net impact will still be positive, but his reputation will suffer somewhat. I hope he comes down soon off that high!

Our discussion went beyond my short original comment – its point was simply to reiterate that Sanders indeed joined the democratic party just recently. Nothing more.

At the same time, while it’s a minor disagreement, I do think there is something untowards about joining the party for his benefit and then almost immediately attempting to ruin it (which is what his recent behavior feels like). And I’m saying this as someone who has no allegiance to the party (aside from the fact that there is only one sane major party in the country right now).

Another reaction that I have when considering Sanders’ actions towards the party – it’s like instead of rebuilding and improving it, he wants to tear it down and build a new better party. It looks to me that he has the same attitude towards many other issues. And (at least most of the time) this is not how you make progress in the real world.

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