The Pro Hillary Thread

The Democratic party has strong armed the primaries to the point where we are less of a democracy than some the countries we criticize.

Its still a contested primary. Why do folks have such a hard time understanding that?

After the early days of the campaign, no underdog has ever won the Democratic nomination. <snip>

The reason for this is pretty simple: Proportional allocation of delegates makes comebacks really, really hard. You can’t just notch wins in a string of states, as Sanders did in late March and early April. You have to start consistently trouncing your opponent by large margins in every contest. You need, well, a political revolution.

But what about Obama? Sanders supporters have compared their candidate’s current deficit to Obama’s in 2008, but at this point in that election Obama was actually winning by 143 pledged delegates — enough that Clinton, despite still holding a lead in superdelegates, was receiving pressure to drop out of the race. In fact, Obama was at no point in 2008 actually behind Clinton in pledged delegates. It’s just that the media usually included superdelegates in their counts in 2008, and the DNC has instructed them not to this time around. That’s because we’ve learned our lesson: Superdelegates can change their mind. Unfortunately for Sanders, pledged delegates can’t.

Why has Sanders opted to stay in the race this long? Without a window into his campaign headquarters, I can only speculate. I suspect the uncertainty on the Republican side has bled over to media coverage of the Democrats, giving everyone the impression that a Sanders nomination is more likely than it really is. Beyond that, Sanders could be trying to pull Clinton, the de facto nominee, further to the left (though she’s pretty dang liberal already). Maybe he feels less responsibility to hold the Democratic Party together than previous runner-ups, having only joined it recently. Or, he may really just believe that Clinton is an unacceptable nominee, and won’t concede the race to her.

She isn't going to take the nomination in the first ballot at this point. Its still a contested primary. Why do folks have such a hard time understanding that?

She isn't going to take the nomination in the first ballot at this point. Its still a contested primary. Why do folks have such a hard time understanding that?

you keep focusing on the messengers because you can't deal with the message...

Monday on his radio show, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh suggested he may “reactivate” his 2008 “operation chaos,” in which he urged his listeners to participate in the Democratic Party’s presidential primary and vote for then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) against the eventual nominee, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), in order to prolong the Democratic Party’s primary contest.

In this case, Limbaugh said he would reactivate it in order that he could urge his listeners to vote against Clinton’s 2016 Democratic opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

“This stuff is just continuing to mount here and Stephanopoulos is talking about Democratic primary devolving to a delegate count,” Limbaugh said. “That’s huge and Stephanopoulos admitting now this is going to take a long time. We may – folks, before this is all said and done, we may have to reactivate ‘operation chaos,’ but this time for Bernie depending on how the Democratic hierarchy seeks to treat him.”

Limbaugh said he was asked about reinstituting it for the GOP side of the presidential primary race, but dismissed that idea and instead explained why doing it for the Democratic side would be more appropriate.

“Bernie Sanders is not supposed to win these two states and he’s not supposed to be outraising Hillary,” he continued. “None of this is supposed to happen. And the effort by the drive-bys to make it look like casual ordinary everyday business in the Democrat party, believe me — it’s not that.”