On St. Patrick's Day, Sen. Bernie Sanders granted an interview on The Rachel Maddow Show, and the following exchange took place:
MADDOW: I just want to be super clear with you about that just to make sure that I understand. Are you saying that even if you were behind in pledged delegates—I know you think you won’t be—but if you were behind in pledged delegates you would still take that case all the way to the convention and try to convince the supers?
SANDERS: Well we are going to do the best that we can in any and every way to win. But I think when you have states for example say in New Hampshire where we won by 22 points. In other states where we’ve won by 25 or even 30 points. I think it is not unreasonable for the people of those states to say to their super delegates, hey, how about representing the people of our state and the outcome of the caucus or the primary.
That was the closest Sanders came to answering a question Maddow asked three times, the question essentially being this: If Hillary Clinton goes into the convention ahead in pledged delegates, will you try to persuade enough superdelegates to come over to your side to win anyway?
The above exchange was Sanders' second attempt answer that question. In his first, he expressed optimism that he can still overcome from his current 300+ pledged delegate deficit to win the battle for the most primary electorate votes, in which case he believes the superdelegates should support the people's choice. In his third attempt, he conceded that whoever came into the convention with the most pledged delegates would likely be the nominee, but then added, "there are other factors involved."
Rachel Maddow and the folks at MaddowBlog are taking this as a sign Sanders is planning for a contested convention. But I think a different strategy is in play. Follow me below the fold to learn what I think it is, and why I doubt it will work.
Before a single primary or caucus was held, Hillary Clinton already had a formidable delegate lead thanks to superdelegates, elected Democrats and party insiders who are free to support any candidate they choose. Team Sanders cried foul, and MoveOn.org and others started a petition drive to try to persuade those superdelegates to support whoever won the most pledged delegates in the state primaries and caucuses — which, at the time, they were sure would be Sen. Sanders.
The folks at MaddowBlog, along with other pundits, see Sanders' current attempt to woo superdelegates as a reversal of that principle — they believe what Sanders is saying is that even if Hillary Clinton comes out of the primaries with a lead in pledged delegates, Sanders will ask the superdelegates to switch to him at the convention, thus subverting "the will of the voters" and handing him the nomination. And in his third answer — when he said "there other factors involved" — he certainly seemed to suggest that might be the case. So it's worth looking at what "other factors" would be involved.
During his March 17 Maddow interview, Sanders pointed to polls which show him beating Donald Trump in the general election by a greater margin than Hillary Clinton would, and used those polls to make the case that he's more electable than she is. It is that electability argument he seemed to suggest he would use to try to persuade a majority of superdelegates to switch sides at the convention and support him rather than Clinton.
There are, of course, several flaws in the electability argument. The first is that past history shows most voters don't become engaged in elections until after the party conventions, making polls of hypothetical match ups so far removed from the general election all but useless. The second (and most widely cited by Clinton supporters) is that Sen. Sanders has never faced the full force of the Republican smear machine, while Clinton has been under assault by it for 30 years and is therefore more of a known quantity. And the third is that if he can't beat Hillary Clinton in the primary process, how could he expect to do better than her in the general election?
I'm not going to engage in those arguments now, because I don't think a contested convention is the Sanders campaign's current strategy, though he suggested they could pivot to it if he loses the primary contest. So let's cross that bridge when, or if, we come to it.
What I think Sanders is engaged in now is a scheme to use superdelegates to help him close the delegate gap with Clinton before the primaries are over and head into the convention leading her in the overall delegate total.
Consider again what Sanders said in his interview with Rachel Maddow:
I think it is not unreasonable for the people of those states [which Sanders won] to say to their superdelegates, hey, how about representing the people of our state and the outcome of the caucus or the primary.
What he's saying is that the superdelegates from each state should "accept the will of the voters" by aligning themselves with whichever candidate has won each state, and whichever candidate wins each state going forward. Note that he's not saying he wants them allocated proportionally, as the pledged delegates are, but on a winner take all basis — if you win a state, "it is not unreasonable" for the people of that state to expect you to win all that state's superdelegates.
As things stand right now, that would still give Hillary a pretty big superdelegate lead (251-81), but nowhere near the 467-26 lead she has in superdelegates now. The Sanders campaign has come up with this scheme, I believe, with an eye on California, which has 73 superdelegates — 51 of which have already come out in support of Clinton vs. zero for Sanders. They hope to win California, but that, by itself, won't be enough to give them the pledged delegates they need. However, it would give Sanders a significant boost if he also got all 73 of California's superdelegates.
The Sanders campaign is also expressing optimism about their chances in New York and Pennsylvania, which would help their pledged delegate and superdelegate totals even more if Sanders' superdelegate rule was to be in effect.
So will this work? Is it, in fact, Sanders' path to the nomination? Count me among the skeptics.
First, under party rules, the superdelegates are free to support whoever they wish, and the party won't change its rules in the middle of the primaries. So Sanders would have to go to every superdelegate in the states he's won, and those he will win going forward, to try to persuade them his rule makes sense. Good luck with that working, for example, on former DNC Chair Howard Dean, a Vermont superdelegate who strongly supports Clinton.
And how about New York? If Sanders wins New York (which he says he believes he can), does he honestly believe he can then persuade Bill Clinton, one of that state's superdelegates, to support Bernie rather than his own wife? Again, good luck with that.
Second, to apply the rule consistently, Sanders would also have to release superdelegates whose support he's already gotten, such as Alan Grayson (who allowed his Facebook fans to determine who he would support), to Clinton. Fair is fair, after all, and if he wants to make the case that the superdelegates should be awarded on a winner take all basis to the winner of each state, well, Hillary won Florida.
Third, even if he can pull off the first condition and agrees to the second, the math is still prohibitive.
Consider this: At the beginning of the primary season, Nate Silver's 538 Blog set targets each candidate would have to meet or exceed in each state in order to go into their convention essentially tied in the pledged delegate count (superdelegates were not included). In the contests held so far, Clinton has met or exceeded her targets in 23 contests so far, while Sanders has met or exceeded his in only 10.
But let's assume, in order to examine Sanders' claim that he has a clear path to the nomination, that both candidates exactly meet their delegate targets in all of the remaining states. The first, and by far the most important, thing to note is that Clinton's remaining targets are higher than Sanders' in just three states — Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey — along with the District of Columbia.
So even assuming Sanders wins Arizona, New York, Pennsylvania and California; and even assuming his "winner take all" superdelegate strategy was successfully implemented in every state, he would still fall about 200 delegates short of Clinton going into the convention.
If, given that math, he still decided on a contested convention strategy, Sanders would risk dividing the party at a time when the Democrats need to show unity in the face of Republican chaos and provide a clear contrast to the voters. A chaotic Democratic convention, coming on the heels of a similarly chaotic Republican gathering, would likely manage only to persuade a vast majority of voters to sit out the election entirely, thus making things much easier for the Republicans in November. That's something Sanders has repeatedly claimed he absolutely DOES NOT want to do.
The only way Sanders can avoid that fate and still get the nomination is not just to win nearly every remaining state, but to win them all by "yooge" margins. If you honestly believe he can do that, and are tempted to point to his "Michigan Miracle" to support that belief, consider this: Yes, Sanders defied the polls, nearly every one of which showed him trailing Clinton by 20 points or more in Michigan. And yet, in so greatly defying the pollsters, the pundits and the electorate as a whole, the one thing Sanders did not defy in Michigan was his 538.com delegate target. He and Clinton each hit their targets. On. The. Nose.
So for Sanders' plan to work, he would not only have to completely upend the superdelegate system, he would have to string together at least 24 upsets much greater than the "Michigan Miracle." How likely are those things to happen? If you still believe they can, I have some beautiful Florida swampland to sell you.
I'm hoping this scheme is just a ploy by the Sanders campaign to keep his supporters and donors on board until June. The alternative — that Sanders is beginning to believe his own hype and is willing to go on a kamikaze mission to win the Democratic nomination at all costs, even if it means ripping apart the Democratic Party — is too frightening to contemplate, given the Republican choice voters are likely to face in the fall.