Writing in Esquire, this is the headline on what Pierce has to say:
Pierce is looking at the prospect of a convention in Milwaukee in which the Sanders contingent blows everything up if Sanders isn’t awarded the nomination on the first ballot. Pierce has made no secret that his personal choice is Elizabeth Warren, but be that as it may, he contacted someone who is a Sanders supporter and was part of the party’s deliberations after 2016 on how to address the primaries and the nomination process. (From a comment in the quote, it appears that person will be a Superdelegate.) This is the nut of the matter:
“...Superdelegates were obviously important and we had three options and the rules committee...wrote the final rule on that -- we don’t get to vote until the second ballot. We only got that passed by forming a coalition within the DNC...the reformers, the establishment etc. The same thing is going to have to happen in the primary and this is my fear -- that, right now, no candidate will have the majority of delegates needed and that the attitude of ‘whoever has the most, should get it’ is not what our rules say.”
emphasis added
Sanders has taken the position that the candidate with a plurality of votes on the first ballot should be awarded the nomination. This is not the position that he and his supporters negotiated — and they were part of the process, and he went into the primaries under rules he is apparently now considering himself not bound by. (Here are the parameters according to Pierce.)
IMHO this is more than a little like trying to eat your cake and have it too. Sanders and his supporters can’t demand the Democratic Party hand him the nomination because he is leading after three primaries and in polls, and simultaneously reject the authority of the party and its rules too, a party to which he does not choose to belong. As Pierce puts it:
1) Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat. He is an independent who quadrennially cosplays as a Democrat because he wants to run for president. For this, he should be eternally grateful that a) nobody makes the point that at least Ralph Nader had the stones to be an independent and run as an independent; and b) that he is running now and not back in the days when there really was a Democratic establishment that would have been able to crush him like a bug.
2) Bernie Sanders and his campaign are running in the Democratic nominating process at the sufferance of the Democratic Party. Not only that, but the campaign is running for the Democratic nomination under a system of rules that they themselves had a hand in drafting, and under compromises into which they freely entered. (Believe me, after 2016, there are Democrats who believe that nobody in that party owes Bernie Sanders a bean with which to bless himself.) That system was the product of vigorous and healthy debate. Those compromises were hard-won and not unreasonable. They—and the work that produced them—deserve the most basic respect of agreeing to adhere to them.
3) That’s the way it goes.
emphasis added
In case anyone want to dismiss Pierce as just a Warren partisan, read what he had to say after the Nevada primary where he said: “...Bernie Sanders is the clear frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination. He is the clear frontrunner because he and his people have been developing a strategy for five years and they have been executing it splendidly. Those are the facts on the ground and they are incontestable.” That’s not the problem Pierce is worried about here.
It is no secret that there are Sanders supporters who will not accept anyone but Sanders, and who will refuse to accept anyone else as the nominee — even though Sanders has to still demonstrate he can maintain his lead after only three primaries with months to go. Some of them support Sanders because they see him as overthrowing what they view as a corrupt Democratic establishment - even though they are now inside the gates, so to speak. If they refuse to vote for the eventual Democratic nominee or even vote at all (and we sure as hell need blue votes down ballot too), it will be four more years of you know who.
It is also no secret that there are bad actors who are doing their best to sow division and disinformation. The Trump administration and the GOP have made it clear they welcome their help. When Sanders says he can’t be held responsible for everything that’s being said supposedly in his name, he’s not wrong. Facebook refuses to police anything it deems political; dark money, idiots, and ratf*ckers are everywhere.
The problem I have with Sanders and his legitimate supporters at this point is that it seems like more than a little hubris to declare he is the winner and unstoppable this early in the process. Now maybe it’s an effort to create and reinforce the narrative that he is the only one who can win over Trump — which, it should be remembered — can’t happen until he gets past the other Democratic candidates first. There are going to be verbal fireworks and elbows thrown; politics ain’t beanbag. We also know this is a love fest compared to what Trump and his supporters will do once they know who their target is going to be. Pretty, it will be not.
But any suggestion that it’s got to be Sanders or nothing should not be tolerated. The stakes are too damn high to refuse to learn anything from the 2016 debacle. I would offer the following as a statement all of the candidates should consider agreeing to, if they haven’t already.
The Promise
I (candidate name here) do promise to abide by the results of the delegate voting process at the 2020 Democratic National Convention under the rules that all of the candidates agreed to when they first sought the nomination. I will do everything in my power to support the Democratic Party nominees for President and Vice President, and I will strongly urge all of my supporters to do everything they can to get them elected. The rule of law must be our guide.
I recognize that there are differences among us that should and will be respected. Even more importantly however, I recognize that the gulf between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party is now so vast and has such dire consequences that there can be no second thoughts or holding back in doing everything we can to get Democratic candidates elected everywhere we can, from the top of the ballot to the bottom.
Never have the choices been more stark; never have the stakes been so high. Winning the White House and taking both chambers of Congress in 2020 is far more important than the ambitions of any one person; “e pluribus unum” must be our motto against all who seek to divide us. Benjamin Franklin is often quoted as saying that we “have a republic, if you can keep it.” He also said “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
I urge you all to vote Blue, no matter who. Cast aside any differences you may have had with the nominees. Vote as if your life depends on it — because it does and so does the continued existence of the United States as the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
I (candidate name here) will do no less.
I would suggest that any candidate who is unable or unwilling to endorse this or a comparable statement is not the person we need at the top of the ballot.
UPDATE: Read this from the NY Times which explains what happens if no candidate gets the required votes in the first round of voting. It’s a bit more complicated than just going with the Superdelegates and who gets a majority.
...There are a total of 3,979 pledged delegates (who are actual people) eligible to vote on what is known as the first ballot. These delegates are allocated to candidates based on the results of caucus and primary contests in the states.
...Half of 3,979 is 1,989.5. Democratic National Committee officials say that on the first ballot, a candidate must win one delegate more than that, or 1,990.5, which is rounded up to reach the magic number: 1,991. (If a candidate won 1,990 pledged delegates on the first ballot, D.N.C. officials say, that would not be sufficient.)
...there would be a second ballot. And on the second ballot, there are votes from two sets of delegates:
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Votes from the 3,979 pledged delegates, who are allowed to support a different candidate on the second ballot if they so choose
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An additional 771 votes from “automatic delegates,” commonly known as superdelegates
To win the nomination, a candidate still must earn a majority of the votes on a given ballot. In this case, that means she or he must amass more than 2,375 pledged and automatic delegates. (In the second and subsequent rounds, a few automatic delegates get only half votes; the D.N.C. says the magic number is 2,375.5, which this time is not rounded up.)
If they don’t make it on the second ballot, more votes will take place until someone hits the magic number of 2,375.5 and a winner is declared.