Sanders is talking about the number of pledged delegates to have a majority. That's only true if you count the number including super delegates. Yet, Sanders won't count the super delegates in the number that Hillary has at this point. So in the way that's helpful for Sanders to use super delegates, he'll do it. But when it's not helpful for Sanders to count pledge delegates in a number, he won't count them. He's playing it both ways. I'm a Sanders supporter and will vote for him on Tuesday, but he's playing fast and loose with his justification for making it a contested convention.
It's your vote but if you don't want to see Sanders try to contest the convention arguing for Super Delegates you probably shouldn't vote for him. A Sanders victory in CA will embolden him to try to contest the convention even if he loses NJ and it becomes numerically impossible for him to catch Clinton in pledged delegates. Given how close the CA race is this is a time where your vote will probably matter.
On a historical note Clinton in 2008 was in the reverse position and she won CA. That Tuesday though also made it impossible for her to catch up in pledged delegates and instead of pushing for a contested convention bowed out.
Bernie is different from Hillary. He is primarily interested in something besides personal enrichment, or a practically lifelong ambition to become president. He is primarily interested in promoting issues. From his point of view Bernie is winning. 1) Obama instead of trying to have a not so grand bargain to reduce the colas for retirees is now proposing increases in social security payments. I think Hillary is sort of going along with this. 2) Hillary is as usual sort of going along with Bernie's rejection of the Obama-GOP-Hedge Fund plan to repay Puerto Rico's debt to the bond holders by cutting medical care, education and the minimum wage in Puerto Rico. 3) Hillary is sort of proposing and increase in minimum wage to $15/hr, though all talk of that has stopped once she reneged on more debates. 4) Hilary has come out in favor or a buy in for Medicare for those 50 to 55, though again I am not sure if she has mentioned it since the last debate. 5) Hillary came out against the TPP due to the electin. I know some would say: "So what? Only being the winner counts".
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I would like Sanders to be the nominee, and he is the candidate that most closely aligns with my position on the issues. So I'll vote for him. He just needs to choose one side of the super delegates not both sides. Even if Sanders contests the election, it won't mean much. Does he really think that the super delegates will switch from Hillary to vote for a guy who lost in the pledged delegate count and in the popular vote? His contesting the convention shouldn't take more than 30 minutes.
The Sanders con continues. Demands that number of polling stations in PR be reduced drastically so that his campaign can monitor all of them, then turns around and screams fraud when long lines result. Meanwhile, the guy who keeps screaming about the corruption of money in politics (but has spent the most during this cycle to no avail) gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar spending $13K+ on luxury hotel accommodation in Rome and illegally charging it to his campaign. I keep telling you guys this fellow is a grifter and anyone with some sense should have smelled his BS a mile away. Anyways, whatever. Game over on Tuesday evening.
Link to this expenditure total or the Rome thing? Anyway, don't think he's a grifter. More into himself than his devotees will generally admit, maybe. Agree it's functionally over on Tuesday. Predict a six point loss for him in CA. Lots of very quiet Clinton voters who've already mailed in their ballots or are ready to go to the polls.
I'm pretty sure he will lose a contest convention but it's not about if he can win but how much resources he is taking away from the fight against Trump. Further for his own future and the movement he is leading is how much of that will remain relevant if he goes down bitterly trying to divide the DNC, attacking the presumptive nominee when he's been mathematically eliminated rather than allowing them to concentrate on the general.
He's already said that he'll support Hillary if he loses. It would be wrong of him to bitterly divide anything, and I have no reason to believe that he will do that. He will probably lash out against the system, and the Democratic chair person. But I don't think that will be overly bitter. If he does actually bitterly divide, then he will lose a good deal of my support.
His attacks on Hillary are already no longer about issues - they are about her character and whether she's qualified to be President. At that point, it IS bitter, because it's become personal for him and he's simply trying to destroy and diminish her. That's his right as a candidate fighting for a nomination, but let's not pretend he has the interests of the party at heart at this point. What he's doing is not helping his chances to win the nomination, but creating a bigger divide for his followers, making it much harder to bridge the gap later.
Bernie has probably never had the interests of the Democrat party at heart. part of the reason some of the youngins are voting for him I suspect
Can you post some character attacks that are unrelated to issues? I think qualifications to being President are a valid point to bring up about anybody, FWIW. Though Bernie brought it up in a really weird way.
Sure - yesterday, he went off on the CGI and the fact that it gets contributions from foreign governments. It's the standard GOP character assassination attack - nevermind that the CGI is a *global* foundation that would of course get funds from all over the world, or that it's a separate entity from the campaign or that there is no allegation of any wrongdoing. It has nothing to do with promoting a higher minimum wage or fighting corporate interests or any of his other issues. It's simply an attack designed to challenge her ethics. Again, perfectly legitimate tactic in the sense of trying to win a campaign, but given that it's actually impossible for him to win, it won't help him do that and only makes her weaker down the line. So while he may say he'll support Hillary if she wins, he's making it much harder to reverse course both for himself and his supporters as he makes more and more statements challenging whether she is even fit to be President. It's one thing to disagree on issues, but its much harder to backtrack when you challenge her legitimacy. The more he goes down this path, the more he'll sound like a hypocrite if he does back her down the line. It's the problem many GOPers like Paul Ryan are facing now when trying to backtrack on Trump. It comes across as completely dishonest.
He says he is for the little people, but his actions says he is not interested in improving their lives. He would rather have no improvement over small incremental improvements, which is just stupid. He was against Hillary care because it did not go far enough, lol.
I think her qualifications to be President are valid issues. Like I said, I have some issues with the way he's going about things now.
Here's what he actually said. It sounds like a legitimate concern voiced and tempered very carefully. I can't really glean a "character" attack there ("She's a bigot! She's a liar!"). Anyone else feel that way?
He's raised $250,000 for the primary opponent of the chairperson of the Democratic Party. Not only is he attacking Ms. Clinton's character, he's essentially attacking the Democratic Party leadership, the very people he would need if he were to win the nomination. Either he's not as smart as I believed him to be, or he is proving that he knows he isn't going to win the nomination, something Senator Sanders is not telling his supporters. Either way, it is disturbing.
