You can save your Hillary math, Bernie is really the one in the drivers seat and they know it

Another Progressives Rant

The mainstream media and our Hillary supporting friends like to constantly remind us that that no matter what Bernie does from here, he can’t catch Hillary in delegates. The pundits love going to their computer maps on TV and showing us that even if Bernie wins the rest of the states 55 to 45 he still won’t catch her in earned delegates. Lets just be honest, they are trying to convince you to give up so you won't vote or will give your vote to the establishment.

But what they aren’t telling you is that neither candidate is on a path to win the minimum number of earned delegates needed to win the nomination. That both will need super delegate support to secure the magic number on earned delegates alone. And that super delegates wont actually be voting until the convention when all primary and caucus voting is done. At that point they as super delegates are tasked with selecting the candidate who will be the best candidate for the party to win not only the white house but also down ballot races in the general election.

The following breakdown will show why this is still anybody's race to win and why Bernie not Hillary actually has the inside track at the nomination.

Bernie is winning blue and purple states, Hillary won red states

So let’s look at the map. Hillary so far has done very very well in the deep red southern states (solidly republican). These states all ran early in the primaries and she ran up a big delegate lead largely because of these conservative states. She did this at a time when few people knew who Senator Sanders even was, let alone his record or what he was advocating for. In the south they don’t generally look for change, so they stuck with who they were comfortable with and that was Hillary. Its not an accident that the red states run early, having conservative states vote before the challengers are known gives a huge advantage to the establishment candidate who is generally the best known candidate going in.

By contrast Bernie is doing very well in well in blue (solidly democratic) and purple (swing) states which will be critical to a win in the general election. The vast majority of the remaining states are democratic leaning or swing states and Bernie is surging hard in all of them. He is even taking a national lead in the polls.

Bernie expands the base.

Who supports who? Well few will argue that Hillary has broad appeal with the Democratic base and that Bernie has overwhelming popularity with the young and Independent voters. How this plays out going into a general election is that both can count on the establishment vote who are just as concerned with with who they are voting against as they are about who they are voting for… they vote for the D in part because they fear the GOP.

But only Bernie Sanders can expand the base beyond the establishment democrats. History shows that the Democrats win when they have a large voter turnout and lose when it’s a small voter turnout. Obama turned out the young and independent voters in Presidential years and the democrats won up and down the ballot. But in midterm elections the expanded base stayed home and the democrats lost. Bernie has been clear throughout the campaign that for his revolution to be successful he needs a big voter turnout and he needs that support not just for him, but down ballot to give him a congress and state houses he can work with to pursue his bold agenda. Those young and independent voters who will make the difference between wins and losses up and down the ballot have been clear that not just any blue will do, they want their votes to be earned. They have also been clear that they will not vote for Hillary. So super delegates if paying attention have been put on notice that the broad base they need to win back the congress and at the state levels likely won't show up unless Bernie is the nominee.

Last point about the young and independent voters. They are not only critical to winning this election, but they are in fact critical to the very future of the party.

Bernie has the momentum

Again back to the math the pundits keep pushing. They gleefully point out that if Bernie wins the rest of the states by less than 57% (some use even larger numbers) that he wont catch Hillary. But in this argument they often concede that Bernie is likely to win a lot of the remaining states (which as was pointed out earlier are mostly blue and purple states). So following this scenario, if Hillary keeps losing even if she keeps them to single digit losses, she will be asking the party to support the candidate who has lost almost all the states for the three months leading into the general election and did so with all the media and party support. Sports fans back me up on this… how many sports teams that build a big lead early in the season and back into the playoffs clinging to that lead with a bunch of late losses go on to win championships? Not many. A politician on a losing streak with lots of negative stories of their late collapse and on the issues they are losing on is badly damaged going into the general election and even the party and its super delegates know it.

Super Delegates are there to protect the party, not prop up a loser

Since neither is on track to win the nomination without super delegate help and most believe the earned delegate count will be close. That puts the power of who gets the nomination on the super delegates. Before we even knew who was running a majority of the super delegates endorsed Hillary. But as was mentioned earlier, they don’t actually cast that vote til the convention. In fact hundreds of them still haven’t committed to either candidate despite the narrative being pushed by the mainstream media. So they all (those who have endorsed and those who have yet to endorse) have the entire primary process to evolve. They in theory are there to do what’s best for the party and the party was clear who it liked a year ago. But the race and the landscape is changing rapidly. The guy who wasn’t even in the race yet or was polling at 3% when most made their endorsements now has turned this into a completely different race than most were expecting. He is not an after thought, he is winning the people and poised to win most of the states critical to the democrats.

Before Debbie Wasserman Schultz redefined the role of super delegates as to stop grassroots movements, they were promoted as a way to protect the best interests of the party. We were further told that they would not ignore the will of the voters. What the party insiders believed to be in the best interest of the party a year ago, is looking less and less likely to still be what’s in the best interest of the party. Bernie doesn’t need all the super delegates, he just needs enough to reach the magic number. And let’s face it, the hundreds of super delegates who have yet to choose sides have already made a statement by holding off on endorsing Hillary even when the pressure was intense to do so.

Even the polling has changed

Hillary was leading in the national polls by 70 points when she got most of her endorsements. And as she swept through the southern states she still held high double digit national polling leads. But the little known Senator from Vermont is now better known and people like what they see and hear. He has won 8 of the last 9 contests all by varying degrees of a landslide. He is surging in every remaining state and has taken a 2% lead on Hillary nationally. What makes these numbers more dire for Clinton is that he has a small lead and the states that she used to build her big lead are still in that number. Every race, even the ones he has lost showed virtually all young and independent voters were with him (generally both groups by a staggering number hovering around 80%).

Early in the campaign we only got polling about Hillary or even Biden in head to head match ups against the republicans and Hillary never really looked that good in those. In time she started looking better taking a lead on most of them although often within the margin of error and in some instances we see her losing. But then pollsters started including Bernie in those match up polls and Bernie was beating everyone even with landslide numbers against Trump and dominant wins against Cruz. Experts have projected that if he beats Trump by the margins in those polls the Democrats will not only win back the Senate, but may also win back the house. So want to know how you get big bold change with a congress that is hellbent on obstruction? Simple you flip the congress and shame those who don’t get purged into listening to the voters or get purged in the next election cycle.

Forget the math, who wants to win?

The dynamics are changing If Bernie continues to run the table in the 2nd half as many expect he will. He is surging big time in every remaining state so that scenario is looking likely. more and more likely. And this is before he got a tacit endorsement on his moral economy from the Pope. The race has shown us that he moves votes from her to him and energizes the base in every state once he gets there to campaign. People respond to him in a way nobody was expecting. The more they see and hear him, the more they like. So moving forward nearly everything about his race has changed since many of the super delegates endorsed Hillary and those trend lines are still going in his direction. By the convention if he keeps winning, Bernie will have most of the blue and purple states, he will have the larger base of voters and donors, he will have the momentum, enthusiasm and the longest coat tails down ballot.

Bernie is the safer choice for this election and for the future of the party. Super delegates are there to protect the party. Only the most stubborn figure to decide to stick with Hillary and blow up their party just to prove they can fend off a grassroots movement for the soul of the party. If Bernie keeps winning regardless of the percentages, he is in the drivers seat not her and their delegate math arguments are going to keep getting harder and harder to make.