No One is Stealing The Nomination for Hillary Clinton

Let's be clear here for a second- a candidate needs 2,383 delegates to win the Democratic nomination for President. They need 2,026 to win the elected delegate count. There is no rule saying this must come from the elected delegate count, or that we can't count super-delegates until the convention in July, or anything else. The popular vote has literally no influence on this process, or Hillary would have won in 2008. The Democratic system of nominating a candidate was agreed to before the election began, and Senator Sanders' campaign made no issue with it prior to this year's events.

I'm hearing a lot of complaining though. There are complaints that the "corporate media" is trying to make it look like Bernie can't win by including the super-delegates. They are complaining that the press is covering this race as though Clinton is way ahead, and she's not. They are complaining that the super-delegates aren't listening to them, as though that is somehow a part of this. Basically, there is a belief that this race is being stolen for Secretary Clinton, amongst some.

It's not. Let's step back for a minute here. According to the AP, at this time (an important note, because state conventions for caucus states will change this a little), Hillary Clinton leads the elected delegate count 1,243 to 975. We will put aside the super-delegates for a minute and remind everyone that a 268 elected delegate lead is based on election results, the preferences of Democratic voters. Let's also remember that Barack Obama never held an elected delegate lead of anywhere near 268. In fact, President Obama did not win enough elected delegates to win the nomination, and got the remainder he needed amongst the super-delegates. There are 1,747 remaining pledged delegates out there- around 1,300 of which reside in California, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Indiana, and Wisconsin, all states that Clinton leads in the polls. They will all be apportioned proportionally to the results of those primaries. In other words, even if Bernie gets all of these states to 50/50 splits, if Clinton took home 650 delegates from these states, she'd only need another 133 or so in the Bernie-supporting states to win the elected delegate count. That's a low bar for her. Bernie has to not just catch her in these states, he has to beat her badly in a few of them- and that's just amongst the pledged, elected delegates that the voters got to pick. It's hard to say that Hillary is not the choice of the Democratic Party if she wins the elected delegate count, right?

But let's say you want the super-delegates to change their mind, and back the will of the people- something that some Bernie supporters are directly saying to super-delegates. This is not a requirement of the super-delegates by any stretch, but it's a standard that some want to apply to them. By that standard, Hillary Clinton has a popular vote lead of 2,526,500 according to Real Clear Politics. This number stands to grow if she wins in the states I mentioned above- like the delegate count would- and undercuts the whole argument of "the corporate elites pushing back against the political revolution." If the super-delegates simply follow the popular vote to make their decisions, Hillary wins then too. Again, in order to change that, Bernie must change the status of the race in some of the biggest states in the country.

If Bernie Sanders manages to come back and win the elected delegate count, I absolutely believe and hope that the super-delegates would give him a hard-earned victory. To not do so would destroy the Democratic Party and divide us permanently. While the odds are stacked against that happening, i'll entertain the impossible and say that if it does, we should nominate him. It's not happening right now though, because the voters are not choosing it. This isn't about the corporate elite, the Democratic Party, super-delegates, or anyone else "stealing" the nomination from Bernie Sanders and his political revolution- the Democratic voters are rejecting it, by every standard, and choosing Secretary Clinton. Calling her a corporatist, not a progressive, corrupt, or any other negative term, is not productive to changing anyone's mind, by the way.

With the state of the race as it is, I will just say that I do count the super-delegates- because the current results give no rational reason to assume they will change their mind. If Clinton reaches a combined 2,383 delegates, using both elected and super-delegates, at any time in the next two months, I will personally begin to view her as the presumptive nominee of our party. If something changes in the race, that is fine, but we have the system we have. By no metric is Hillary leading a "rigged" race. She leads 1,243-975 amongst elected delegates. She leads 1,712-1,004 amongst all delegates. By every metric, she is ahead.

Don't mistake this for a call for Bernie Sanders to drop out, his supporters to stop trying, or anything else. As I said above, if Sanders ends up flipping Wisconsin, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland this month coming up, he may just have a shot to win this yet. If that doesn't happen though, people will have to face the fact that the voters didn't choose it. So for now, the Sanders supporters should get on their phones, call voters, knock on doors, and do anything they can to try and win the nomination- that's their right. Just don't claim the party is taking away the opportunity though.