OK, if this “Bernie’s over after Super Tuesday!” stuff is just regular rah-rah, go-team fluff, then that’s totally fine. You’re allowed to do that. I’ll join in: “Hillary’s going to beat you so badly that Bernie won’t even win the state he already won!” “oh YEAH? Well SEZ YOU! Bernie’s going to beat Hillary by 20 points in EVERY state!” Whoohoo! That felt good.
But if this claim, which I KEEP seeing (but never see bolstered when I point out the following facts, so it’s always offered with no followup questions allowed, I guess), means to masquerade as trenchant political analysis, it is fallacious. Herewith, the reasons:
1) Just over 1000 delegates will be decided around Super Tuesday, almost ¼. Well, Bernie and his supporters never CLAIMED that he’d sweep Super Tuesday. We, and he, know perfectly well that the Super Tuesday states are mostly (with one or two exceptions) the STRONGEST ¼ of states for Hillary. Bernie’s strength comes later, in OTHER states that are better for him; that’s all I’ve ever seen even Bernie supporters claim. Why on earth, then, would he have been planning the whole time “well, if I don’t sweep Super Tuesday, I’ll just quit”? This makes no sense.
2) If the argument were (I never hear what the argument would be, because no one ever answers these points, but maybe someone will below) that “he’s going to run out of money,” that’s comically untrue. He’s LEGENDARY in his ability to raise funds. Never more so than when people perceive him as an underdog; when he was attacked by Chelsea Clinton because, apparently, expanding Medicare is “dismantling Medicare,” he got four TIMES the amount of donations he’d been getting. In this race, he’s raised more money than all but three other candidates (including Jeb! and Hillary, fabulously wealthy and well-connected members of political dynasties who were thought the heirs apparent, walk-ins and shoo-ins for their nominations). He has more money LEFT than all but ONE candidate—Hillary Clinton. And he’s managed this, sorry to bore you with stuff you know, by leveraging small-money donors, LARGE numbers of them, millions of them, very few of whom have maxed out their campaign contributions, or come anywhere close to it. We give $35 at a time, many of us (me, e.g.) give it every month, and there are millions of us. Many of Hillary’s big-money donors have maxed out, and I believe they’re fewer in number than we are.
As the saying goes, “you don’t stop running for president unless you run out of money.” Well, even without super-PACs, he’s got plenty. And more and more comes every day.
3) Did someone tell people “if Hillary wins a state on Super Tuesday, she gets ALL the delegates from that state, so if she sweeps the ~1000 Super Tuesday delegates, we can all get to go home”? She doesn’t. In New Hampshire, in which Sanders had a resounding success, 60+% to Hillary’s 38%, Sanders was duly rewarded with 15 delegates, and Clinton with 9. All 24 didn’t go to Sanders. Therefore, if the state you’re looking at shows Hillary winning by 54% to Bernie's 38%, multiplied by the 9 or 10 Super Tuesday states that look best for Clinton, it means she’ll get a similar proportion of delegates, and Sanders will get a similar proportion (better proportions for Bernie, actually, since most states are looking more like 50 or 54% for Hillary, not Bernie’s 60+% in New Hampshire example). That doesn’t mean she gets all ~1000 delegates. It means she gets several hundred, and Bernie gets several hundred. That’s it. Yes, Hillary may get a few hundred or a couple of hundred more, and it looks better for Hillary IF you narrow it down to only the Super Tuesday states. I hope you’ll forgive me: as a Bernie supporter, WHY am I wanting to narrow the whole race down to only the states that look best for Hillary, and pretend no other, later-voting, states exist? Pardon me if I don't join in.
Then they will move on to all the other states, many of which look far BETTER for Bernie. Also, note a simple fact: Bernie has been narrowing his lead. Here’s just one of a dozen diaries showing the trajectory, which has virtually ALWAYS shown Hillary losing ground, and Bernie gaining that ground, gradually, throughout the race. That hasn’t stopped. (Note, too, that that diary’s numbers EXCLUDE independents, which I believe have broken so far in HUGE numbers for Bernie.) So all the insistence to move the “IT’S OVER! IT’S OVER!" date ever earlier just looks like so much factually incorrect grunting and straining. It’s NOT over, guys (least of all now, when hardly a vote has even been taken yet).
By all means, though: if Bernie DOES quit right after Super Tuesday? His plan SHOULD be (and I think it is) to stick it out through the primaries, through June, taking the initial hit from the strongest pro-Hillary states on Super Tuesday on the chin, but then sticking it out until the Bernie-winning states vote. But if his plan all along has been “I’ll only wait until the most pro-Hillary states in the country vote, and if I don't win there, I’ll give up”? If THAT’S what you’re telling, me, I say nonsense, but if it IS his plan, I’ll be happy to throw him under the bus FOR you. Because that would make you correct, when you said “Bernie’s plans don’t add up,” and it would also make him the DUMBEST son of a b-— ever to campaign for the presidency.
I somehow doubt that’s what he’s planning to do, everybody. Don’t be so eager to go home. This election is going to be hard work, and we don’t plan to quit. If you’re that eager to call it a day, that’s good news for the Bernie campaign.