Nate Silver says Clinton’s superdelegate surplus may not last if Sanders shows more diverse support before convention.
Clinton leads 362-8 among superdelegates, who are Democratic elected officials and other party insiders allowed to support whichever candidate they like.
If you’re a Sanders supporter, you might think this seems profoundly unfair. And you’d be right: It’s profoundly unfair. Superdelegates were created in part to give Democratic party elites the opportunity to put their finger on the scale and prevent nominations like those of George McGovern in 1972 or Jimmy Carter in 1976, which displeased party insiders.
Here’s the consolation, however. Unlike elected delegates, superdelegates are unbound to any candidate even on the first ballot. They can switch whenever they like, and some of them probably will switch to Sanders if he extends his winning streak into more diverse states and eventually appears to have more of a mandate than Clinton among Democratic voters.
Surprised? Is Nate Silver’s skepticism about Sanders waning?
Silver always blows in the wind depends on what his models are saying. I don’t trust him as a pundit, I trust him to read the numbers.
Obama was way more of the party than Sanders is, though. I really don’t think they want Sanders at all. They’ll only switch if they are absolutely forced to. Or abstain.
Super delegates are also a by-product of us allowing tiny, non-representative of the mass US demographically, and inconsequential states like Iowa and New Hampshire to set a false tone for the primaries. They are totally a party insider tool to ensure the rollercoaster of insane primaries doesn’t go against their wishes.
This is all a game played by the parties and the media. For there to be millions of dollars spent on campaign commercials there must be a story, and the media creates one. Nate Silver is very clear on this. The polls we hear about via MSM channels are only the most skew and likely to get ratings.
We knew it would be like this. Did we really think Bernie could take Iowa and/or New Hampshire and that would be a wrap? LOL. If it’s a revolution, as in a sea change, then that means disruption on all levels, sustained through all the primaries and convention and November and beyond, because there’s congress and state governments that need to be changed, districts to be ungerrymandered, etc.
The process of constructing and marketing narratives about the primaries is fascinating.
And with Sanders’s non-corporate, community-centered, participatory democratic socialism, we get to see the seams and gaps of those narratives more clearly.
This is the most interesting election season I can remember.
