[D]reams die hard, and love is blind.
Old clichés, but sometimes the old clichés tell the story, and the day after the New York primary is one of those times.
After a defeat that all but ended any chance he will be the Democratic nominee for president, a grouchier-than-usual Sen. Bernie Sanders, back in Burlington to “recharge,” vowed to fight on.
And his campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, had already explained how the fight could succeed: by enticing hundreds of superdelegates to switch from Hillary Clinton to Sanders.
Hence the two clichés. So powerful is that dream of the nomination that Sanders is in denial of the all-but-fatal numbers. So devoted to their candidate, Weaver and other Sanders supporters see no inconsistency when they embrace a strategy they also deplore as “undemocratic.”
Notice the two “all buts” above. They are necessary because bizarre events occur in this life, and one could occur in this campaign. No, Clinton is not going to be criminally charged in that email nonsense. But she could have a heart attack, or be run over by a bus, or something else that we mere mortals can neither foresee nor imagine.
But put the bizarre occurrence prospect aside. Without it, there is no way Sanders can win the nomination. The delegate math is devastating. Before Tuesday, he was faced with the challenge of having to win 57 percent of the pledged delegates still to be chosen to overcome Clinton’s lead among those delegates.
Now that’s 59 percent, and the latest polls do not show him winning at all in any of the states that will hold their primaries Tuesday. In Rhode Island the polls show the two candidates about even. But Rhode Island has only 24 delegates.
In both Pennsylvania (189 delegates) and Maryland (95) Clinton leads by more than 10 points. In a primary, a 10-point deficit is not insurmountable. For a voter, switching from Clinton to Sanders is not like switching from Clinton to Sen. Ted Cruz; the voter is making a strategic adjustment, not reversing his or her philosophy of life.
But overcoming a 10-point shortage in a week isn’t easy, either. Sanders couldn’t do it in New York, and there’s little reason to think that what failed in New York will succeed in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Maryland or Delaware.
And remember, to have any chance at catching Clinton for the support of pledged delegates, Sanders would not simply have to win these primaries; he’d have to win them by — well, by at least as big a margin as he lost New York.
Not all the news is bleak for Sanders. He has, for the nonce, just about caught up with Clinton in national polls of Democratic voters (though her win in New York could bump her up by a few points). He could win the May primaries in Indiana (83 delegates), West Virginia (29), Oregon (61) and Kentucky (55). And according to some polls, he has closed the gap in California (475 delegates).
But Clinton still leads there, by 6 points in one poll, by 12 in another.
It is possible, of course, that those superdelegates could be persuaded to change their minds. Toward that end, in Burlington on Tuesday leaders of a group called Rights & Democracy delivered an open letter to the pro-Clinton Vermont superdelegates urging them to vote for Sanders, the landslide winner of the state’s Democratic primary last month. On its website, Rights & Democracy said it “demands (the superdelegates) listen to the resounding will of the Democratic primary electorate.”
That’s a plausible argument. But it’s the polar opposite of the Sanders campaign’s new strategy as outlined by Weaver on MSNBC Tuesday night. Weaver said that if Sanders wins California and some other late-voting states, his campaign would be well-situated to urge superdelegates to switch, arguing that polls show him running better against Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
They do, but usually not by much, especially in the swing states. The most recent Ohio poll, for instance, has Clinton beating Trump 48 to 42 percent, Sanders up by 50 to 41.
Whether or not that’s a big enough difference to get a superdelegate to switch, the basis of Weaver’s strategy is clear: to get pro-Clinton superdelegates in states Clinton won to vote for Sanders anyway.
That’s precisely the “undemocratic” approach the Rights & Democracy types excoriate. But — love being blind — this was an inconsistency they either refused to recognize or chose to ignore.
The superdelegates are arguably undemocratic, though “counter-democratic” might be the better description, and counter-democratic processes are an integral part of the American system. Think: the U.S. Senate, deliberately designed to offset the transitory passions of the people so worrisome to the Founders.
At any rate, the superdelegates are no more undemocratic than caucuses, from which Sanders drew a disproportionate share of his pledged delegates. It isn’t just that hardly anyone attends caucuses — 7,000 attended Wyoming’s, where Sanders won easily, and where almost 70,000 voters chose Barack Obama in 2012. It’s also that caucuses dispense with one of democracy’s central precepts, the secret ballot. A caucus participant intending to vote for Smith might be intimidated on finding out that his boss, her boyfriend’s mother, or their teacher is planning to vote for Jones. Caucuses are very grass-roots and kind of fun. They’re not very democratic.
Approaching the point of desperation, Sanders is increasingly attacking Clinton, her character as well as her policies. This is what he said he would not do.
“This campaign is not about Bernie Sanders,” he said when he announced his candidacy in Burlington in May. “It is not about Hillary Clinton.” His campaign, he said, “will be driven by issues and serious debate; not political gossip, not reckless personal attacks or character assassination.”
That was then. This is now. Dreams die hard.
