2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumMSNBC: Sanders surprises with his super delegate switch strategy
So Bernie and his campaign are indicating that they might adopt the win-with-super-delegate strategy that they were so concerned Hillary might use.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/sanders-surprises-controversial-superdelegate-strategy
Strictly speaking, Democratic primary and caucus voters are principally responsible for choosing their presidential nominee, but the power is not entirely in their hands. While those voters elect pledged delegates for the partys national convention, the Democratic process also includes superdelegates party officials who are able to cast their own votes, separate from primary and caucus results.
The system is not without critics. Though its never happened, the existing Democratic process leaves open the possibility that actual, rank-and-file voters the folks who participate in state-by-state elections will rally behind one presidential candidate, only to have party officials override their decision, handing the nomination to someone else. For many, such a scenario seems un-democratic (and un-Democratic).
It therefore came as something of a surprise this week when Bernie Sanders presidential campaign first raised the prospect of doing exactly that. Sanders aides told reporters that he may not be able to catch Hillary Clinton through the primary/caucus delegate process, but the campaign might come close, at which point Team Bernie might ask superdelegates to give Sanders the nomination anyway, even if hes trailing Clinton after voters have had their say.
On the show last night, Rachel asked the senator himself about the possibility. Initially, Sanders responded by talking about his optimism regarding upcoming contests and some national polling, but he didnt answer the question directly.
SNIP
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)rock
(13,218 posts)I had already questioned them because he ran under the Democratic aegis.
BernieforPres2016
(3,017 posts)I saw the interview. Bernie only talked about trying to get superdelegates who have committed to Hillary in states where he won, or where he didn't get a proper proportional representation of superdelegates to reflect the percentage of regular delegates he had won, to switch over to him to reflect the voters.
Maddow kept trying to push Bernie into saying he would try to flip superdelegates that Hillary had actually earned with the voters over to him and he basically said I've had enough of this and started talking about issues.