The idea behind Bernie’s run for the Democratic Party nomination, supposedly, was that Bernie registers as a Democrat, then runs for the nomination, and then let voters decide between the candidates, may the best person win the nomination. The winner of the pledged delegate race also gets the vast majority of Super Delegates to his/her side, that’s the way it has been. Once Obama got to a majority of pledged delegates and he was over the delegate threshold with a combination of pledged delegates and Super Delegates, the 2008 race was over. The idea behind Super Delegates MOVING about is that the WILL OF THE VOTERS trumps all other considerations. Even those supporting the opposing candidate would switch to the pledged delegate winner because the WILL OF THE VOTERS can't and should not be denied. If that person would be Bernie, cool, the voters have decided, given him a majority of pledged delegates, and the many SDs currently with Hillary switch to him, because the WILL OF THE VOTERS can’t and should not be denied.
However, NOW there is a lot of noise about Bernie messing around with the Democratic convention and throwing it into major upheaval, by contesting the official delegate results and trying to strong arm Super Delegates (if Hillary emerges as the pledged delegate winner, and secondarily the popular vote winner) into supporting Bernie instead of Hillary. Team Bernie has been openly contemplating about this to the press, Bernie himself has made statements to that effect. It is clear that such a move would fail miserably, Super Delegates aren’t going to be turning to Bernie after the pledged delegate race has been decided in favor of Hillary, quite to the contrary. Hillary would be voted to be our nominee on the first ballot. But just the attempt and the bitterness that acompanies it, with Team Bernie calling the convention “contested” and talking incessantly about polls, is enough to make a mockery of the process itself and turn our convention into a three ring circus.
Yesterday there was an article in the Huffington Post from Seth Abramson that a contested Democratic Party convention is now a near certainty:
A Contested Democratic Convention Is now a near certainty
A diary just linking to and reposting the entire article on DailyKos got a lot of recs and in the comments a lot of Bernie supporters agreed with the sentiments expressed, that, yes, a contested convention to overturn the will of the voters was going to be just great.
This morning Slate has an article on this very issue as well:
Hillary Clinton's Super Delegate problem
which is ultimately critical of Team Bernie contemplating such a move in the first place.
From the view of a registered Democrat who believes in democratic elections and the power of the “Will of the people”, let me just state categorically:
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If Team Bernie continues on this destructive path of openly and loudly contemplating to contest the results and “take their case to the SDs”, and with that throw the convention into major upheaval, trying to disenfranchise Millions of voters and override the pledged delegate results, then Bernie can just go to all hades and never come back, in my book. In that event he does not deserve any goodwill from any Democrat, now or anytime in the future, because, IMHO, he does not care for anybody but himself, and his participating in OUR party’s nominating process as an Independent and then trying to change the rules that HE AGREED TO IN THE BEGINNING, was just a ruse to “get in". A ploy to get HIS WAY OR THE HIGHWAY while he consciously throws the Democratic Party convention into chaos.
The embarrassing press and the bad feelings that come with a stunt like that could contribute to throwing the election to the GOP in the end after all, even though things are looking extremely good for us as a party right now against the likes of Trump, Cruz or whoever the party puts in to replace the actual pledged delegate winners, not just for the Presidency but down-ticket as well.
At that point we would have strong evidence that Bernie does not care for the American people and what happens to all of us. At that point we can kiss any party unity good bye and Bernie will just take a chunk of his supporters with him. Yes, many of his current supporters will turn away from him, disgusted and feeling betrayed, but others will take the bitterness of such a convention move as a reason to follow Bernie down the same bitter path. A destructive move like that could turn the election over to the GOP, it certainly IS an attempt to do so, even if the election is won in the end after all.
A destructive CIRCUS courtesy of Bernie and Devine/Weaver, trying to overturn the will of the voters? Just talking about this nonsense over and over to the press has made me dislike Bernie even more, and I am sure that is true for many. If it actually comes to that, I will fight Bernie and his “revolution” with every fiber of my being, will hate him for the rest of his days (even if we were to win in the fall, not thanks to Bernie) and I am quite certain many of my fellow Democrats will share my sentiments on this.
Ultimately, a disruptive, vengeful and nasty Bernie, who wants to overturn the WILL OF THE VOTERS who came out by the Millions to vote in the Democratic primaries/caucuses, is a Bernie none of us Democrats and otherwise reasonable people want to contemplate.
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I hope it never comes to that.