The primary campaign is half way over and Clinton has a solid lead. Obviously, if things continue along the same trajectory, Clinton wins and Sanders loses. However, the media trumpeting Hillary as having locked up the nomination is simply premature and anyone who takes an honest look at the delegate math would have to agree. I’m not saying that Sanders’ chances are good, I’m just saying his chances are well above zero. He does have a path to a delegate majority in June, but that path involves him winning just about every remaining state. No, he does not have to win those states by fantastic margins, as media pundits have been pronouncing ad nauseam. In fact, if he won every remaining state by the margin that either Clinton or Obama won that state in 2008, he would win the nomination with 20-30 delegates to spare (Superdelegates excluded). So, much as the Clinton camp would like to call it over, it’s not.
If Bernie had a 1% chance, that would be more than enough for me to continue the fight, as I find every other candidate to be unacceptable. Things that have a one percent likelihood do sometimes happen… about one percent of the time. Since Bernie, to me, is easily a hundred times better than any alternative, I’m still ready to fight for his unlikely cause. In fact, I gave my biggest campaign contribution ever to Bernie last night, and I encourage all other Bernie supporters to donate to the campaign this week.
I see two plausible, albeit unlikely, paths to a Bernie presidency. Here they are:
PATH 1: Winning every remaining primary contest. As I’ve implied, I’ve done the research and the math. If Bernie can win every remaining state by 2008 margins, he wins the nomination with room to spare. But, why would Bernie win every remaining state, especially since some of those margins in 2008 were Clinton victories? Good question, and good reason to be cautious with your optimism. The odds are slim, and it will not happen if the primary race continues on the same course. However, anything can happen during two months of a political campaign. Certainly, the worst of the electoral map is behind Sanders and he now heads into serious white bread territory for the next three weeks. Having failed to win sufficient POC votes, this three week period may buy him some time to do so. Thankfully, there are no more Southern states left to vote, and Bernie has done substantially better (but still not good enough) with POC up North.
Bernie could win the next eight states, in which a repeat of the same demographics we’ve been seeing this year would result in a Sanders sweep. The media, the Clintons, and apparently many Kossacks, would love it if the Sanders camp gave up, became demoralized, and failed to excite the younger, pro-Sanders, demographic to come out and vote in large numbers. But, if they do vote in the same numbers that they’ve been voting, Sanders will win the next 8 contests, and that will reduce Clinton’s delegate advantage, generate three weeks of favorable media coverage, and just might buy Bernie enough time to swing more voters his way in time for the NY primary on April 19th. It will certainly give Bernie some momentum. A Bernie nomination is a longshot, for sure, but it’s always been a longshot, and while hope is alive, I will not pretend that it’s over.
Certainly there is historical precedent for campaigns as seemingly solid as Hillary’s completely collapsing within a three week period. Although unlikely, all it takes is a particularly awful gaffe, a hot mic in an inopportune moment, or any major scandal. On the other side, favorable publicity could arise unexpectedly out of any number of unanticipated events. If the ordinary course of business continues, as is most likely, then Clinton will win. But, if, for example, Clinton is caught on a live mic telling a lobbyist that she doesn’t really mean anything she’s been saying or Sanders dives into a burning building to rescue an infant child, a large majority of voters could suddenly come to realize that it is Sanders, not Clinton, who has the character we want to see in a president. The point is: Anything’s possible and it ain’t over til it’s over.
PATH 2: The Emergence of a New Democracy! The 2016 election might be one that goes down in history. Although a disastrous outcome could lead to a Trump or Cruz presidency, it’s conceivable that what emerges out of this mess turns out to be the real democracy that we’ve all been waiting for. For centuries, we’ve been all but trapped in a two party system, usually having to choose the lesser of two evils, while the rest of the world votes in multi-party elections. What has resulted is two highly compromised parties that produce highly compromised candidates. Both parties are owned by campaign donors and neither party represents the American people.
Along comes Trump on one side and Sanders on the other. Trump is without a doubt a scary fascist xenophobe and he must be prevented from taking the White House. But, we would be remiss to overlook the fact that Trump is speaking to the populist right with some parallels to the way that Sanders speaks to the populist left. When all is said and done, the majority of Americans want an alternative to the standard Republican and Democratic fare. The majority want to radically change the way politics are done and don’t want to continually choose between two mediocre candidates, both sponsored by the same list of corporate interests, and both wanting to lead us deeper into the status quo. 2016 could turn out to be the year when this happens, the demise of the two party system.
On the Republican side, the math indicates that Trump will likely win a plurality, but not a majority, of the delegates in the Republican primary. There have already been intimations that, should Trump get the nomination, an establishment Republican might join the race. Likewise, if the nomination is handed to anyone but Trump at a brokered convention, there is a high likelihood that Trump would run independently. Either way, there is more than a negligible chance that the Republicans will run two candidates, one from the center right and one from whatever the hell Trump is. For simplification, call it Republican and Tea Party. But, such a fracture in the Republican party would surely lead to a Democratic victory, and being no fools, errrr, being electorally minded, Republicans are not going to just run two candidates and guarantee a Democratic presidency.
But what if there were a fourth candidate (five, if you include a Bloomberg type), one running as a Progressive, and not as a Democrat? What if the election were between Democrat — Hillary Clinton, Republican — John Kasich, Tea Party — Donald Trump, and Progressive — Bernie Sanders (Bloomberg — Third Way?)? For one thing, that would make America look a lot more like the rest of the democracies of the world, and although I haven’t heard Bernie talk much about the failures of the two party system, I have to believe that a multi-party election would be part of Sanders’ ideal vision for achieving European-style democratic socialism in America. For another thing, that is an election that Bernie Sanders could win. If the choice was between Sanders, Clinton, Kasich, and Trump, a good case could be made that Sanders would garner the most votes.
A Progressive party presidency could be the start of a permanent four (or more) party system, wherein we have Progressive candidates up and down the ballot and Progressive politicians forming coalitions with politicians in other parties to advance a legislative agenda that couldn’t easily be coopted by monied interests. So, even after a pretty despondent night of primary losses to Clinton, I am still hopeful that Bernie Sanders will be the next president of the United States and that what emerges out of the 2016 election will be a better democracy than the one we’ve gotten so used to settling for.