I'm not sure I understand...

[one_voice]

At the end of the primary. Hillary will have more votes & more pledged delegates.

Bernie's plan is to go to the SD's and try and convince them to flip and support him tipping the scales (giving him enough delegates--pledged and SD's) to be the nominee.

In doing this it would ignore/over rule/the voters?

Is this the plan? Do I understand what Bernie's plan is?

[Lucinda]

1. Yep. That's the plan.

[BootinUp]

2. You got it.

[geek tragedy]

3. the plan was to give his supporters a justification for staying in the race, to give

themselves something to convince themselves it wasn't over

and maybe to give him a chance to maximize his leverage at the convention with the threat of continuing to be a thorn in her side.

I think President Obama let him know that such a course of action would not be met with a respectful response.

So, back to plan B, accepting defeat with dignity and being a team player.

[one_voice]

6. I think Bernie should

'have a seat at the table' I agree with so much of what he says.

I also think many Dems would be on board with a lot of what he says.

One example. Paul Ryan tried to talk about his lame ass anti poverty act today. Bernie would be perfect to counter this. To show the gigantic difference between us and them.

I don't think it's a good idea to try and get the SD's to ignore the voice of the voters. But I also think Bernie could be an asset Paul Ryan's poverty gimmick is just one example.

[geek tragedy]

7. I think he had it in his head that confrontation was better than collaboration

in terms of getting a seat at the table.

I think he's been informed that such thinking is counterproductive

[greatauntoftriplets]

18. I could have told him that!

[geek tragedy]

20. your endorsement, and my endorsement, of Hillary won't make a complete public fool of him

Obama, on the other hand, ...

[greatauntoftriplets]

21. Yup.

[Lord Magus]

24. And to keep the $27 donations flowing.

That's certainly why Devine and Weaver have advised him to keep "fighting" even if he loses.

[brooklynite]

48. Got another fundraising email today...

...Not sure why; my phone plan has unlimited calling.

[SFnomad]

4. Yes, he's trying to flip SDs that he has been disparaging all primary season long n/t

[boston bean]

5. You got it!

[Mass]

8. I think he is pulling out tomorrow, but you guys sure are not doing much to get his supporters to

help your candidate get elected president.

Sad show the winning team is performing? Not only could they not wait until tonight to claim victory, but your side is behaving as childishly as they did in 2008.

[one_voice]

10. My side? *My* side wants to keep

Trump out of the white house.

I voted for Obama in 2008.

This is childish? http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512149079#post6

[Mass]

12. Yes, because you cannot wait until tomorrow to see what happens.

Considering Sanders has said he was going back to Vermont, you can bet he is dropping out tomorrow, but you have to attack him.

You do not catch flies with vinegar.

I will vote for Clinton, but you do not do anything to make me feel better about it. But your're right, Trump is not a choice.

And, yes, you will see people vent today and tomorrow. Be adult. If your candidate is solid, this will not hurt her.

[one_voice]

23. I did not attack him...

I questioned what he was doing based on his own words. I have never posted a negative word about Bernie. NEVER. I've only posted positive things about both our candidates.

There was no vinegar in my post.. Questioning something isn't an attack. I doubt even Bernie would see it like that.

Hillary wasn't my candidate. Martin O'Malley was. But I'd always planned to vote for eventual nominee. You really should stop making assumptions about me. You also assumed I was a Hillary supporter in '08.

I think *your* anger may be causing you to overreact. I truly hope your day improves. Peace.

[Mass]

40. You make a lot of assumptions about me.

I have long accepted she was the nominee. I am not angry, I am disappointed and doubly. I was hoping I would be excited to see the first woman nominee and president. I am not. I am just resigned to campaign and vote for her because the alternative is not acceptable.


Ironically, I was banned from the Sanders group because I was not ready to attack Hillary Clinton stupidly.

What I do not get is why, while your candidate is winning, you find necessary to post something like that, when it is clear this is not what will happen. This is just classic campaign strategy.

I think you are the one overreacting.

[msongs]

15. if you're never voting hillary nothing said on DU will change that. vote for who you want nt

[Mass]

37. I was always going to vote for the nominee, but you make exactly my point.

[1StrongBlackMan]

34. What would you consider ...

Something that would help get Bernie supporters to help get the presumptive nominee elected.

[seabeyond]

9. Yes. Fuck voters, Sanders simply knows he is more loved. Nt

[sufrommich]

11. If voters would have voted correctly,he wouldn't

be forced to do this.

[handmade34]

26. hmmm

[Lizzie Poppet]

13. While I have similar concerns, is that not the (ostensible) purpose of superdelegates?

Assuming for the sake of discussion the argument that Hillary is significantly compromised (by the investigation, facing possible indictment) and unfavorably-viewed (according to polls), is appealing to the SDs to do the job they were created to do a bad thing?

Genuine questions on my part. Pro-Bernie as I am, I can't decide if that offsets going against the popular primary vote.

[Sheepshank]

16. I'm guessing the GOP wished they still used the Super Delegate they got rid of a cycle ago.

now look at the pickle they are in.

[Sheepshank]

14. yup...that's his plan, US political domination via Super Delegates

His Nomination at the hands of the very group he says is completely undemocratic. Makes the mind boggle doesn't it?

[eastwestdem]

17. He had big campaign rallies. All those kids think he's a king. So, clearly the supers will switch.

What more do they need?

[Armstead]

19. It's called holding on to leverage

Soon as Bernie drops out, the Democratic Party goes back on Auto Pilot. He is cast back into the Outer Darkness of political oblivion as far as the Machine Politicians and Media are concerned.

No issues. Keep a clunky and unwieldy party system in place., Shut out all liberal ideas that threaten Wealth and Power.

The entire platform becomes "We're not the GOP. Vote for Us."

He is trying to change that -- or at least forestall the day when issues once again disappear.

[geek tragedy]

22. Oh the melodrama. Of course Hillary doesn't care about actual policy or issues.

I mean, listen to her speeches, there's never any policy specifics being discussed.



As it turns out, the Clinton campaign you imagine bears little resemblance to the one that exists in reality.

And rather ironic for Sanders supporters to complain that Clinton's campaign is too much platitudes and not enough concrete policy detail.

[Armstead]

39. They've always been great at blinding people with "policies anf programs"

But "policies" and values-based actual policy are not necessarily the same.

You can't on one hand publicly proclaim that you want to "make sure the people who work hard and play by the rules can succeed" while accepting money and doing the bidding of skunky Corporations and Wall Streeters who are trying to undermine that goal -- and quietly passing policies that undermine working people and the poor and hope nobody notices the contradictions.

You can propose all of the fancy "taxpayer-investor partnerships to revitalize out inner cities" you want. But if all those confusing and innocuous programs are doing is making lives miserable for people in inner cities by promoting gentrification....well that's just harmful snake oil.

AND -- This is an important point, although irrelevant now, Sanders was great as CEO of Burlington at actually coming up with and implementing real specific policies and programs that did improve lives of people in tangible ways, through mixes of traditional and progressive innovative approaches. So please don't disparage him on that front.

[geek tragedy]

42. to be blunt, the cliched "does the bidding of Wall Street" stuff is just hot air.

It's a talking point in search of a policy anchor

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/hillary-clinton-was-liberal-hillary-clinton-is-liberal/

Go ahead and look at her policy pages at her website and point out all of the pro-Wall Street stuff there.

Seriously, this is getting tedious, claiming she's a servant of Wall Street doesn't prove anything.

[Armstead]

44. It's tedious that she's a servant of Wall St....The real problem is...

.....That she and people like Loyd Blankfein share the same worldview and values. She hobnobs with them, they've made her a multimillionaire, she shares their worldview.

They think they're doing good -- but charity with one hand is meaningless if you're creating the need for charity with the other.

It's like WalMart touts their nice little initiatives to help people. But they refuse to pay their workers a living wage.

They aren't funneling money and resources into her campaign simply because they are good citizens with no vested interest.


Sorry but I don't it's a good idea to continue to perpetuate that.

[geek tragedy]

46. again, hot air and platitudes instead of concrete policy criticisms.

ironic, really, considering your earlier complaints that Clinton doesn't talk about policy.

invective is not a substitute for talking about policy.

Here's her actual policy page--actual policy proposals on her website, stuff she says should be done:

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/factsheets/2015/10/08/wall-street-work-for-main-street/

I know it's a lot of bo-ring policy detail on stuff like capital requirements, but it's the actual policy discussion you say you want, instead of stuff like "OMG corporatist oligarch sellout"

[Armstead]

52. I've read it before, and I've been hearing the Clintons for about 25 years

It's a hodge podge of some good ideas, some piffle....some stuff that is the same as Bernie says but with a lot of fancy words added to sound impressive

I don't take it all that seriously because much of it is in the realm of campaign promises that many candidates put out....Which ultimately become Dust in the Wind after elections.

Axd one example. One can put out a complicated set of proposals to "make healthcare more affordable and accessible"....and then add so many whereas and clauses to avoid tackling the real core of the issue.

Her plan will provide enhanced relief for people on the exchanges, and provide a tax credit of up to $5,000 per family to offset a portion of excessive out-of-pocket and premium costs above 5% of their income. She will enhance the premium tax credits now available through the exchanges so that those now eligible will pay less of a percentage of their income than under current law and ensure that all families purchasing on the exchange will not spend more than 8.5 percent of their income for premiums.

Or one can set a large and straightforward goal to change the system so that we are not required to become hostages of private insurance by offering a universal expansion of Medicare. I know, she says...

Continue to support a “public option”—and work to build on the Affordable Care Act to make it possible. As she did in her 2008 campaign health plan, and consistently since then, Hillary supports a “public option” to reduce costs and broaden the choices of insurance coverage for every American. To make immediate progress toward that goal, Hillary will work with interested governors, using current flexibility under the Affordable Care Act, to empower states to establish a public option choice.

But that's more vague and pooofy than people accuse Sanders of being.

[geek tragedy]

53. suggestion: stop referring to "the Clintons" when critiquing her policy ideas. She's not Bill.

Yes, she could actively deceive voters by pretending a unicorn will ride into Congress while farting rainbows and get single payer enacted, with all the required tax increases and taking away everyone's employer-based health insurance, because that's totally how things work in Washington.

Instead, she's honest just like non-candidate Bernie Sanders was about single payer:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/sanders-single-payer-never-had-a-chance

Sanders is among the few in the Senate not afraid to say he supports government-run, universal health care. But his calls for such a program have gone unanswered, much to the chagrin of progressives who still feel it is the best way to solve the nation's health care crisis.


Sanders said it was still possible for single-payer to come to the U.S. eventually -- but he said the road will not begin in Washington. If a state like California or Vermont ever instituted a single-payer system on its own, Sanders said, it would eventually lead to national adoption of universal coverage.

Sanders has put forward an amendment to the current health care bill in the Senate that would allow states to use federal funds to create their own single-payer plans, he said.

Single-payer aside, Sanders chalks up the difficulty Democrats have had passing health care to a mistaken belief about party unity when reform efforts kicked off.

"The major error Democrats undertook was to assume we had 60 votes or even 59," he said. "We never had that."

Sanders said he thinks Democrats have 50 votes in the Senate to pass a bill "certainly to include a public option." It was a bit of good news for progressives, who have turned their attention to using reconciliation in the Senate to bolster a reform bill with the addition of a public option.

Single payer failed to get off the ground in Vermont because--wait for it--the tough part was figuring out how to pay for it.

[Armstead]

61. You disappoint me with the phrase "unicorn"

Every good ideas is a "unicorn" at some point, from civol rightsto9 Medicare, and it's never easy or instantaneous. That does not mean it is not worth setting as a goal and selling the idea relentlessly. That's how the GOP carried forth the Reagan Revolution.

That's a whole lot different than "Well we really think this the best approach, but we don''t think voters will accept it so we''ll just stay away from it " .....Or the variation of "but our corporate backers don't like it so to protect my butt, and protect my future golden parachute I'm not gonna support it."

Personally, with health care i think the way to go is to a public option by opening up open up a version Medicare to anyone who prefers that, with payments based on income. Let it compete with private insurance without forcing it on people. Over time people will either shift over to that en masse, or choose not to -- but in either case it liberates people from the grip of private insurers.

As for The Clintons. I know they are individuals, but they sell themselves as a team, and she has said he will be one of her primary economic advisers. Greeeeaaat....And as a matter of principle, I don't think people should be ignoring the spirit of things like the 22nd Amendment. ...It's unseemly Banana Republic behavior. If they wanted to share the office they should have taken one term each.

[geek tragedy]

62. Clinton's in favor of a public option (she was in 2008 as well) so I'm not seeing

what your policy difference with her is on this.

Party platforms are perfectly good for "wouldn't it be great" type of policy advocacy.

But candidates have to run on and defend everything that they propose, in interviews, in excruciating detail from the media. Proposing stuff they know can't possibly happen during their term is political malpractice.

People expect a President, and our government, to do stuff. If you're not seriously proposing to do what you're advocating, why should people take you seriously?

[one_voice]

25. I hope not. I hope Bernie

has a prominent role. As I said in another post, he'd be the perfect person to go toe-to-toe with Paul Ryan on his silly poverty act. Bernie would kill it.

He has brought a lot of new people those people need a voice, he should be that voice. I also think there are more liberal voices that just haven't been able to speak up. If we take back the houses we could do things.

[aikoaiko]

27. The problem is that SD exist in the first place.

Both sides are flipping somewhat on the SD issue.

When 400+ SDs declared for HRC, none of the HRC supporters said the SDs should wait for their state to hold their primary because they were concerned with the votes of the people. They just wanted to send the message that HRC was invincible.

But SDs are not bound by they declarations and can switch for any reason.

Because Bernie is being pressed to explain how he might win in order to justify him staying in the race instead of just letting it play out and he has responded, truthfully, that they only way he can win is to flip SD. So that's what he is doing. As a Bernie supporter I don't think the SDs should hand it to Bernie, but I do think some early declarations should flip to out of respect for the voters in their states. SD votes that disproportionately favor HRC will reinforce the establishment circling wagons around their own.

If any good comes out of the misery of this primary, I hope we clean up our fucked up primary system as a party. I'd like to see us dump SD or at least make enforce gag order on them until the convention.

[one_voice]

33. I agree with this...

I'd like to see us dump SD

I also would like to see some changes to our primaries.

I don't disagree with this:

but I do think some early declarations should flip to out of respect for the voters in their states

[Agnosticsherbet]

28. You nailed it.

[pdsimdars]

29. You got it exactly right . . . you certainly don't understand.

[Raastan]

30. Bernie has never been interested in democracy or the Democratic party

He wants Revolution, Bolshevik style. And we know how well that worked.

[pdsimdars]

31. Also, if this concerns you, you should read the letter Hillary wrote to the SDs back in 2008

[TimPlo]

32. This type of posts from Clinton supporters is funny.

Because it shows lvl of Hypocrite you all have. I don't agree with Sanders in trying to flip the SD just as I did not back in Jan when there was posts after post of Clinton Supporters saying the SD do not vote on will of people. Now that Clinton looks to be able to have the pledged majority Clinton supporters have changed their minds and say SD need to vote along with the voters. Odd isn't it.

[obamanut2012]

35. Most of the minority voters, too

[DCBob]

36. Yeah, voters can't be trusted... Bernie knows better.

[alcibiades_mystery]

41. You have to understand, every state that Bernie lost doesn't count

Because 1) southern/red; 2) rigged/bullhorn; 3) email.

Now do you understand?

If superdelegates tell AP they're voting Clinton, they're evil party elites suppressing votes. If superdelegates all switch at once to Bernie, they're sensible party elders avoiding Party suicide.

Get it now? Do you?

IT'S CRYSTAL CLEAR!!!!!

[one_voice]

49. You have a great day!

Peace!

[pdsimdars]

58. ^^^^^^^^^^^ Amen! ^^^^^^^^^^^

[pat_k]

45. Re: Superdelegates.

Awhile back Sanders said the following in an interview with Rachel Maddow:

"I think it is probably the case that the candidate who has the most pledged delegates is going to be the candidate, but there are other factors. And the other factors will be the strength of each of us in taking on the Republican candidate...."

His point has always been simple: "Wait until voters in every state have their say, and then give the superdelegates a chance to consider, perhaps change their minds, and vote accordingly at the convention.

Chances that enough will change their mind are slim. Sanders isn't an idiot. He says so.

I wish we didn't have superdelegates, and hope we get rid of them, but the fact is we do have them. They were added for ONE PURPOSE -- to overrule the pledged delegate outcome if they believe the candidate who won the most pledged delegates is a loser. That is their job.

However it goes today, he should not "drop out" or "fall in line." The superdelegates should not be denied the opportunity to do their job.

And Sanders delegates deserve the opportunity to go to the convention as delegates for a candidate who is still in it, because the fact is, until the Superdelegates have actually voted, he IS still in it.

[geek tragedy]

47. this is like Karl Rove on Fox News on election night in 2012 insisting

Obama hadn't won Ohio.

[lumberjack_jeff]

50. Why is expected that superdelegates should flip?

The superdelegates were created to act as a mechanism to override the voters should the elites consider it necessary. It was never envisioned that they would function as a head-start for a candidate by bringing their effective voting date to the beginning of the election.

This AP count has no more legitimacy than calling an election for a candidate before the first primary on the basis of phone polls conducted of subsequent states.

Superdelegates don't vote until the primary. Their opinions prior to that point are worth less than shit, because (as we have seen) their early endorsements lead to undemocratic results.

They shouldn't be expected to "flip" because their job is to shut the fuck up until the convention.

[tonyt53]

51. You guys would have know about SD's if you had participated before now.

Nothing new about them, except that Bernie hated them before he wants them to support him. SD's have always been counted during the primary.

[Lord Magus]

54. This isn't a poll. There's no random sampling or margin of error involved.

The superdelegates are 715 specific individuals. There's no uncertainty about how many have announced they'll vote for Hillary.

[lumberjack_jeff]

63. There is uncertainty about events between now and July, and therefore about how they'll vote.

It is [font color="green" size="4" face="courier"]EXACTLY[/font] a poll.

[one_voice]

56. how was it done in '08 & '04?

'04 Dean was ahead before the first primary.

In '08 Hillary was ahead. The SD's switched/flipped DURING the primaries.

Right or wrong this is how it's been done. You don't change the rules in the 9th inning of the 7th game of the series. You change the rules for the next series.

I also agree with the AP should not have called it last night. But after tonight, had they called it, it wouldn't have been different than what's be done in prior primary seasons.

I think the SD's should go. But if we keep them they should have to back the candidate that won their state/district. Unless it's a razor thin win then maybe they can choose.

Peace.

[lumberjack_jeff]

64. I think SD's should go too...

... but the only rational purpose for having superdelegates in the first place is the perceived need to override rank and file opinion - this requires first allowing the rank and file to vote express that opinion at the ballot box.

Having them first in line to vote is absolutely undemocratic.

[BobbyDrake]

55. Sanders needs to "flip" more than 10x the number of SDs who ultimately flipped to Obama in 2008. nt

[Hiraeth]

57. cart <---- horse. This is your problem. quit doing it.

[one_voice]

59. Thanks for the advice.

No problem here.

cart--->Bernie's words. horse----->OP.


Peace!

[Hiraeth]

65. I don't think you quoted Bernie correctly and/or completely. Peace Out.

[NurseJackie]

60. That's it! Charming, isn't it?

And by "charming" what I actually mean is "pathetic".

[hellofromreddit]

66. His plan is to go to the convention and represent the 45% who got him there.

I really don't think he has any expectation to flip the supers or ever did.