How the Democrats choose a nominee. . . . .

[pdsimdars]

From what I am seeing, it doesn't seem to me that people actually know the details of how it works. Thom Hartmann talked about this on his show yesterday. It is from an article by Seth Abramson at Huffington Post. Here's how it goes.

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If a Democratic primary candidate can win 59 percent of the Party’s “pledged” (primary- and caucus-won) delegates or more, the primary is decided by pledged delegates; if a Democratic primary candidate fails to meet that threshold, they are considered by DNC electoral processes to be a weak front-runner and the nomination is finally decided, instead, by “superdelegates” — who can express support for a candidate at any time, but cannot commit themselves to anyone (i.e., cast a binding vote for any candidate) until the Democratic National Convention in July; superdelegates are unlike pledged delegates in this regard because, while pledged delegates also do not vote until the Party’s convention, they cannot change their votes from what their state’s voting results pledged them to be — though it has been argued by some that in fact they can change their votes at the Convention, with this argument most recently having been advanced by Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008.

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From this, it is EASY to see that NO ONE will be the nominee on June 16. There will be NO NOMINEE until the convention.

If you are basing decisions on there being an actual nominee BEFORE the convention then you are basing your decisions not on actual fact but on your own prejudices and lack of knowledge. It's your life, live it uninformed if you want to.

[firebrand80]

1. Super delegates can tell you how they're going to vote

Which can create a rebuttable presumption that the party has chosen a nominee.

If there is any information that casts that presumption into doubt, you are free to present it. Simply saying "it's not official yet" is akin to putting your fingers in your ears and saying "la, la la, I can't hear you."

[beachbumbob]

2. Every democratic primary since inception of super delagates were made

Proves the opinion WRONG...Super delegates can commit and they are counted to the totals when they commit...as soon as one candidate reaches the magic number...in our case 2383... That nominee is designated the presumptive nominee...sanders can respect our process or go back to Vermont...the nominee becomes official upon first ballot vote...Hillary has huge lead in vote and delegate count,...huge lead and nothing will change...

[Gothmog]

3. Your analysis is wrong-the presumptive nominee will be based on super delegate votes

You are ignoring history and want special rules just for Sanders. In every primary contest since the creation of super delegates, the winner was declared the presumptive nominee based on the inclusion of super delegates. That fact that this is not favorable to Sandes does not matter http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/5/29/1532358/-What-Does-It-Mean-to-Clinch-the-Nomination-When-Superdelegates-Are-Involved

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After reading a number of impassioned defenses of why the Democratic presidential nomination should not be called next week on June 7th, I got curious. What’s the history here, since the superdelegates were added to the process? When a Democratic candidate hits the magic number of pledged delegates plus superdelegates, are they the nominee?

The answer: history says the first person to get to the magic number is the presumptive nominee, and says it unambiguously, even if the losers often disagree.

Here’s how it has gone since the superdelegates were added to the process.....

Summary

Anyway, I started this research 12 hours ago to answer a question for myself, so that as everyone on TV is spinning things this way and that on June 7th I have some context. What, if anything, have I learned?

First, most non-incumbent candidates have needed superdelegates to win, and the history of superdelegates has been that once a Democrat hits the magic number and becomes the nominee, superdelegates are more likely to flow to the nominee than from them.

Also, in the history of the superdelegates, they have always ended up supporting the decision of the pledged delegates, and their most important contribution has been to amplify leads of the pledged delegate winner so that they can be assured success on a first ballot, and avoid the sort of messy convention that harms a general campaign.

The major thing I’ve learned is that the press declares, and has always declared, the winner after they hit the magic number, and has done so in far more nebulous circumstances than this. Even in 1984, in which Hart won by a number of other metrics, in which the delegate count was the arbiter, and Mondale announced himself as the nominee, even with 38 percent of the popular vote to Hart’s 36 percent—even then, Hart may have claimed he still had a cunning plan, but no one begrudged Mondale the fact he was, for all intents and purposes, the nominee.

When you think about it, that simply has to happen. Things need to get done, and they need the nominee to do them. Except for Reagan in 1976, who chose a running mate after Gerald Ford was made the nominee, there aren’t a whole lot of non-nominee candidates going to the convention with their own vice president picked out. You get to do that because the numbers say you’re the nominee.

Meeting this number also allows the nominee to do the work of campaigning before the convention, establishing a message, building capacity on the ground, etc.

The press, for its part, has always understood this, from 1984 onward, and has named the nominee (or the “presumptive nominee”) the minute the candidate crosses the line with their combination of pledged and supers, and usually said something to the effect that they had “clinched” the nomination. They did that when Mondale had won far fewer states than Hart. They did that when Dukakis did not have 50 percent of the pledged delegates. They did that when Obama had not won the popular vote (yes, I know, Michigan—I hope we’re still not fighting this?).

This is a well researched article and confirms that the nomination process will be over on Tuesday June 7, 2016 when the results of the New Jersey primary are announced.