Monday, May 2, 2016

Sanders looking to flip superdelegates where he won AND where he lost


AROUND THE BLOCK

News with a Twist


Sanders calls for superdelegates to switch to him or face contested convention

Claims he should get support of delegates in states where he won “landslides” (and others as well)


The Washington Post reported that Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders urged Democratic Convention superdelegates who are supporting rival Hillary Clinton to switch their allegiance to him.

Sanders said, “They’re going to have to go into their hearts, and they are going to have to ask, do they want the second strongest candidate to run against [GOP front-runner Donald] Trump or do they want the strongest candidate?”

Sanders statement was based on polling data suggesting that he is the strongest candidate.

Sanders said he thinks it is highly unlikely that Clinton will have won the 2,383 delegates needed to claim the nomination based on primary and caucus results alone and, in that case, the Democrats would have "a contested convention," even though a contested convention, by definition, would occur if no candidate reached the required 2,383, including the superdelegates. 

At this point, 520 superdelegates have pledged support for Secretary Clinton compared with 39 for Senator Sanders.

Even if superdelegates in states in which Sanders won an overwhelming percentage of the popular vote in primaries and caucuses switched to him, it is estimated Sanders would only pick up 77 delegates. So in reality, for Sanders to win enough superdelegates, he’d have to flip delegates in states where Secretary Clinton won the majority of votes, which he said is his new objective.

Wait, what?

In the news conference in which he talked about the need to woo superdelegates to his side, Sanders said, “Look, I’ve been railing about the system since day one; and I always said the voters should choose, not party insiders. But now that my campaign is in an untenable position it’s time to forget about that, embrace the system, and remind those insiders not worry about what the voters want but to support me because Bernie Sanders, not Hillary Clinton, is the best candidate to beat Donald Trump in November.”

Sanders, an independent from Vermont, who has never been a big “D” Democrat, appears to be abandoning the concept of small “d” democrat as well.