Numbers too big to ignore.

[Lodestar]

The crowd cheers as Bernie Sanders speaks at a campaign rally in Fort Collins, Colorado February 28, 2016. Sanders has repeatedly said he is staying in the Democratic presidential race until the convention, pointing to big crowds at his rallies and high turnout among young and first-time voters as proof of his viability. After raising $140 million, he has the money to fight on as long as he wants. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

http://s4.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20160328&t=2&i=1128378913&w=976&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&sq=&r=2016-03-28T163011Z_2108_GF10000327584_RTRMADP_0_USA-ELECTION-SANDERS

[azurnoir]

1. K&R great post

and it seems the M$M is starting to pay attention

[pnwmom]

2. The article's from a month ago. And Hillary's still farther ahead in the delegate

count than Obama ever was in the whole 2008 election.

[morningfog]

4. I don't get the constant incantation of Obama's lead.

Every election is different. Just because Hillary failed in her first run doesn't mean Bernie's position is impossible.

[quickesst]

7. Rather amusing...

......when you consider that 2008 has been a constant reference point for Bernie's supporters.

[pnwmom]

8. The basic idea is that with proportional delegate allegation,

Bernie's realistic path to winning has become almost invisible. Winning for him will require very large wins in some large diverse states that he has never yet achieved. All the wins he just got in the caucus states only reduced her 320 delegate lead to about 250.

Proportional allocation is why Hillary couldn't catch up and why Bernie won't be able to.

[morningfog]

9. He needs 56.5% of all remaining.

When he wins several smaller states at 60, 70, and 80%, the margin needed for larger states is smaller.

Hillary had her own problems as a candidate in 2008 in addition to proportional allocation.

[Gwhittey]

6. Forget math History is your problem

This time in 2008 There was 2,998 delegates given out. Right now there are only 2218. The primary schedule is VERY VERY different.

April 2008 - end you had
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2008
Pennsylvania
Guam
Indiana
North Carolina
West Virginia
Kentucky
Oregon
Puerto Rico
South Dakota
------------------------------------------
This time we have

North Dakota Caucus
Wisconsin
Wyoming Caucus
New York
Connecticut
Delaware
Maryland
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Indiana
Guam
West Virginia
Kentucky
Oregon
Virgin Islands
Puerto Rico
California
Montana
New Jersey
New Mexico
North Dakota
South Dakota
DC

[pnwmom]

10. So? With that list of states, how is he going to overcome her post WA/HA/AL

lead of about 250 delegates, considering that none of the states you listed is winner-take-all? They'll all be given out proportionately?

Plus, only two of the events on your upcoming list are caucuses, the only places where Bernie has received blow-out wins with high proportions of delegates.

Yes there is a chance that Bernie could throw a Hail Mary pass. But both history and math show this is very unlikely.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bernie-sanders-continues-to-dominate-caucuses-but-hes-about-to-run-out-of-them/

Now, I know what some of you are thinking: How do we know that Sanders’s big wins this week aren’t a sign that something more fundamental about the Democratic race has changed? We don’t, necessarily. But look at the calendar: Sanders also outperformed his delegate targets in Colorado, Kansas and Maine earlier this month, and he still went on to suffer big losses on March 15. And that was after his shocking Michigan victory. Moreover, Sanders greatly underperformed his delegate targets last Tuesday in Arizona, which held a primary and has a more diverse electorate.

Most likely, Sanders will need to find another way to make up ground on Clinton in the delegate race. Wyoming (April 9) and North Dakota (June 7) are the only remaining stateside caucuses. The rest of the stateside races are primaries. Sanders has exceeded his delegate targets in just three stateside primaries. He’s matched them in three and underperformed in 15. Given that Sanders is still so far behind in the delegate count, he needs to outperform his delegate targets by a lot.

How likely is that? Well, he’s behind by about 6 percentage points in Wisconsin, according to FiveThirtyEight’s weighted polling average. That’s not a huge deficit, and it wouldn’t shock me if Sanders won Wisconsin given that the black population there is below 10 percent. (To match his delegate target in Wisconsin, he needs a net gain of 10 delegates there.) Sanders, though, will likely have more difficulty in later primaries in April, such as Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania, where African Americans make up more than 10 percent of the state’s population.

Sanders had a strong week, and this has been a crazy year in politics. But there’s nothing in the recent results to suggest that the overall trajectory of the Democratic race has changed. Clinton was and is a prohibitive favorite to win the nomination.

[Gwhittey]

12. What does this have to do with my post?

You said one thing which I pointed out was not a valid comparison. Now you counter what I said by trying to make a straw-man argument.

[pnwmom]

13. I pointed out that NEITHER history nor math is on your side,

because the list of state events you provided still doesn't show a good path for Bernie to achieve the huge wins going forward that he needs to overcome her 250 delegate lead.

It is a long list but most of the states are in two categories: they're large and diverse and Bernie is unlikely to win (unless it's a squeaker like Michigan). Or they are largely white and have few delegates, like Wyoming and the Dakotas -- and he could do very well.

[pdsimdars]

3. Amen. . . and look at the faces of those people

They are full of inspiration and happiness. . . . because they are hearing the dreams in their hearts being expressed through Bernie.
Unlike those pictures of the Clinton "gatherings" where they all look like they're watching a bad golf match.

[Doctor_J]

5. Strange that the Clinton supporters don't want these people in the party

They could go a long way toward helping take back the congress.

[JoePhilly]

11. What nonsense.

No Hillary supporter has ever suggested that we don't want "these people" in the party.