What the AP did was like calling the presidential election on November 1 based on a Gallup poll

[democrattotheend]

It would have been one thing if Hillary attained a majority of pledged delegates, even before all the votes were cast in every state. That is what happened in 2004. That's normal.

Even if a bunch of supers publicly came out in support of her yesterday, it might have made more sense, although Bernie is correct that they have not voted yet.

However, what the AP did was call around to superdelegates and then call the race a day before the last big primaries based on the private representations of superdelegates who would not even go public about how they plan to vote a month and a half from now.

How is that different from the AP calling the general election the day beforehand based on which candidate was leading in the final Gallup poll?

FWIW, I don't think they did either candidate a favor. They shortchanged voters of both candidates in the last 6 states plus DC, they preemptively minimized whatever success Bernie might have tonight, success which might have, as many of you have called for, enabled him to go out on a high note. And they shortchanged Hillary by stealing her thunder and making what is undeniably a historic moment anti-climactic.

I don't see why we are fighting about this. What the AP did was bad for the whole party, and it's part of a larger pattern this season of brushing the Democratic candidates and their achievements aside to make room for the All Trump, All The Time show. We should all be mad about it.

[SFnomad]

1. No it wasn't ... but go ahead and stomp your feet and pout ... get it out of your system n/t

[democrattotheend]

14. If I were a Hillary supporter I'd be "stomping and pouting" too

The AP shortchanged her too by stealing her thunder, and overshadowing what is undeniably an historic moment by jumping the gun and becoming part of the story instead of reporting it.

[SFnomad]

18. It's disappointing, to say the least ... but in 50 years, nobody will remember that AP needed to be

first with that "scoop" ... so fuck 'em. What will be remembered is that Secretary Hillary Clinton was the first woman nominated for President by a major political party in the United States.

[Loudestlib]

40. On her husbands coattails is how they'll frame it.

[SFnomad]

41. There is a Debbie Downer in every crowd

Yeah, because her being Senator and Secretary of State wasn't good enough to get her the nomination, she needed her husband's coattails too

#smh

[JI7]

2. no, it's more comparable to calling it when a candidate gets the electoral number even though people

may still be voting and votes still need to be counted.

[democrattotheend]

6. No it's not

Because in your scenario, the candidate has actually gotten the requisite number of electoral votes based on the results of an election. The AP's call to superdelegates is comparable to a pre-election poll where voters tell the pollster how they plan to vote.

[JI7]

12. the Clinton numbers included states and pledged delegates she had already won also

it wasn't only based on those .

[Joe the Revelator]

3. It was more like calling it September 7th based on RealClear's average.

[Brickbat]

4. Get ahold of yourself.

[tarheelsunc]

5. Noticed you skipped right over 2008 and chose 2004.

It's easy to use facts to support your opinion if you simply ignore the facts that disprove your opinion.

[democrattotheend]

10. In 2008, nobody called the primary until the polls had closed in the last state to vote

Which is exactly the point I am making

[TimPlo]

15. 2008

2008 Clinton after all voting was done wrote letters to SD trying to turn they to her by listing a bunch of reasons. After 4 days after the voting she could not get any to flip so she had meeting with Obama and a deal was made, she dropped out. So why is a Jewish man held to different standards then the Christian women did in 2008?

[Lord Magus]

7. Bullshit, it's like calling it when a candidate gets to 270 while polls on in Alaska are still open.

Interviewing specific people is not a poll.

[Garrett78]

16. Agreed. A superdelegate endorsement is essentially a vote.

And pretty much the only way it would change is if another candidate ended up with more pledged delegates.

Pledged delegates aren't bound either, yet nobody talks about them switching.

[democrattotheend]

22. So if the superdelegates had put John Edwards over the top with endorsements in 2008

they would have stuck with him after the scandal broke, because they had "essentially already voted" for him?

[Garrett78]

34. As I wrote...

...the only time a substantial number of superdelegates have switched is when a candidate other than the one they had expressed support for ends up with the most pledged delegates. Clearly, Clinton was going to end up with more pledged delegates (that's been clear since mid-March).

A poll has a small sample size that's supposed to represent a cross section of the population, and there is a margin of error. Superdelegates, on the other hand, are each asked directly who they will be voting for. All 700+ of them.

[democrattotheend]

35. Sorry, my hypo was assuming that Edwards had also won the pledged delegates

I should have made that clearer.

Regardless of which candidate you support, the AP declaring the race on a day when no primaries were held is just weird. If I were a Hillary supporter I'd be just as pissed about it.

[Garrett78]

43. The media did what the media does.

It's all about being first. Given how close (to 2383) Clinton was following her weekend victories, and given all of the Obama endorsement rumors, some reporters probably reached out to some superdelegate holdouts. The list of SDs is public information, so it wouldn't have been difficult. I would think the Clinton campaign would have preferred to have that news break during prime time on election night and not late the night before.

Anyway, yes, superdelegates could have potentially switched away from Edwards in your scenario. Pledged delegates can also switch.

[democrattotheend]

45. I agree with you re. what Clinton would have preferred

I don't blame her or her campaign for this. I blame the Trump-obsessed media.

[LibDemAlways]

8. It's crooked as hell and there's no way it didn't

happen without the knowledge and consent of the DNC.

[JimDandy]

9. To be expected as with everthing engineered and approved by Clinton...

Status quo from a status quo candidate.

[Nye Bevan]

11. Is there anything wrong with predicting the election result based on a Gallup poll?

Lots of people make predictions. You have the right to believe or ignore them.

[TimPlo]

17. For news media yes there is.

I assume you had no problem with it in 2000 with FL being called for Bush too. But according to many reports that early calling by the MSM had a effect on a election that was so close it allowed Bush to steal it. Now maybe you did not mind Bush or his push for Iraq War but I for one think Bush as POTUS was a bad 8 years for America.

[democrattotheend]

23. Predictions are different from projections

What the AP and NBC did yesterday was a projection

[laserhaas]

13. Its rigged..much

We can try to fight more or quit

As for me...the battles continue

Hillary will never give me justice...but Bernie might

[Dem2]

19. No actually it's like a normal election where they call it sometimes before California has finished

So your analogy is pretty terrible actually

[PepperHarlan]

20. Yeah1! What's next? Weather forecasts?

How dare the M$M tell me what kind of weather I'm going to experience!1

[TwilightZone]

21. Your underlying premise is faulty. Interviewing all of the voters involved in a race is not the same

as conducting a poll.

A poll includes a small subset of the total number of voters and is extrapolated based on that sample.

The AP interviewed *all* SDs. There's nothing to extrapolate. The AP knows how every person involved intended to vote, because they personally interviewed every person. Repeatedly.

[democrattotheend]

24. Key word being "intended to vote"

Just like with a Gallup poll.

Have you ever seen "Welcome to Mooseport"? In that movie, they conducted a "poll" that included everyone in the town. Yet nobody treated it as if the election had already happened.

[TwilightZone]

27. The AP also noted that all commitments from Clinton SDs were firm.

None of them indicated any willingness to switch. None.

That's why they called it.

You're still wrong about it being like Gallup. Superdelegates become pledged delegates when they firmly pick a side. Polled voters don't vote until election day. It's not comparable.

[democrattotheend]

29. So they would have stayed "firm" with John Edwards in 2008 after the scandal broke?

I think not.

[TwilightZone]

32. Ah, the indictment fairy. I guess I should have known.

Sorry, I don't buy into that nonsense. If we held up elections on the premise of guilty until proven innocent, any right-wing nutjob (like Judicial Watch, for example) could file a frivolous lawsuit and interfere with the democratic process pretty much anytime they wanted.

Perhaps someone representing Burlington College will file a lawsuit against Jane and Bernie Sanders for unduly influencing a financial institution to make a bad loan, which would likely be a Senate ethics violation. Whether it's true or not (at present, there's little more than rumors and a few vague claims of a source within the bank), should we hold up his next senatorial race until the legal system trudges through that? Nah.

Here in the real world, we follow the same procedures that we've been following for decades. The winner is the person who has the majority of pledged delegates. That person is Hillary Clinton. That's why she's the presumptive nominee. Because math.

[bigwillq]

25. The AP call didn't change anything.

Hillary had a big pledged delegate lead and a huge lead in SDs as of right now.
Sure, SDs could switch, but they should only switch if another candidate takes the pledged delegate lead, imo.

Bernie had to win all of today's races by huge margins. I did not see that happening with or without an AP call.

[seabeyond]

26. Righf because four months of voting had nothing to do with it. Briiliant analaysis.

[Thinkingabout]

28. As opinions goes and we see plenty here, to predict an outcome and if that outcome turns out to

be true then the opinion changed into reality.

[gollygee]

30. No

Gallup calls a sample and makes some guesses about what that means about the group the sample is pulled from. The AP called every single superdelegate.

[Tarc]

31. You really don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about

The AP may have jumped the gun a tad, but the superdelegates are essentially locked in for the pledged delegate leader.

Build a bridge and get over it, seriously.

[democrattotheend]

37. Which is exactly why they ought to have waited until the pledged delegates had all been allotted

Or at least until she won so many that it became mathematically IMPOSSIBLE (not just unlikely) for Bernie to take the lead.

If I were a Hillary supporter I would be just as pissed about this. Tonight is a historic night, the first time a woman has won a major party nomination, but fewer people will tune in for her speech tonight because fewer people are watching the results since they were told it was over yesterday. If the AP had done this in 2008 I would have been mad as hell about it.

[MohRokTah]

33. BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

[puffy socks]

36. "What the AP did was like calling the presidential election on November 1 based on a Gallup poll"

You don't trust polls but are using them as the justification for Bernie to stay in until the convention?

Do I have this right?

[democrattotheend]

38. I actually don't think Bernie should stay in until the convention

I have said many times that he should step aside if he is clearly behind after everyone has voted.

I do think Hillary should have been declared the winner at the time she achieved enough pledged delegates that Bernie could not mathematically catch up (as in impossible, not unlikely), which likely would have been tonight, because as many of you have said, the superdelegates tend to follow the pledged delegates. At the very least, if they were going to declare it based on superdelegates, it should have been based on announcements from superdelegates willing to go on record. Declaring a winner on a night when there were no primaries is just weird and makes it feel like votes don't matter.

As I said in my OP, which many Hillary supporters obviously didn't read, I think what the AP did sucks for both candidates and for the party. Hillary will likely achieve a historic milestone tonight, and yet fewer people will tune in for her speech because they are not watching the election results because they were told it's over. Obviously, her core supporters are all tuned in, but many others, some of whom may still be deciding whom to vote for in November, will not. As an Obama supporter, I would have been mad as hell if this had happened in 2008.

It's obvious to me that Hillary's people didn't plan this, because if she had wanted to declare victory and give her speech last night she could have had the supers publicly announce. I think the AP and NBC did it to get the "scoop" first and so they could go back to their regularly scheduled All Trump, all the Time show.

[puffy socks]

42. um... you're totally missing the point.

You all keep using polls both to say "Bernie is the only candidate who can beat Trump" or "Bernie should stay in the race will win the rest of the states after Super Tuesday" or "exit polls show the majority of the people want Bernie so the elections are rigged", and then turning right around and telling us how worthless polls are whenever its convenient for the argument at the time.
Today its the "AP did was like calling the presidential election on November 1 based on a Gallup poll" a little while ago Michigan proves polls are worthless!

[democrattotheend]

44. I have never said Bernie is the only candidate who can beat Trump, or that the elections are rigged

I have said many times that if she is clearly leading in votes and pledged delegates at the end of the process he should suspend his campaign. I have said that the superdelegates should not override the will of the voters unless there is a very good reason to do so (like if John Edwards had won the primaries in 2008 before the scandal broke). I have also been saying for years, based on my former boss who knows most of the Democratic pollsters in DC, that the early exit polls released at 5 pm cannot be used to show that an election was rigged, as they are designed to be readjusted as the votes come in.

I think that the powers that be designed many features of this primary season to favor Hillary, and that after 1972, the superdelegates and other processes were put in place precisely to prevent candidates like Bernie from getting the nomination. But I do not think that the primaries were "rigged" against Bernie or "stolen" from him.

So please do not dismiss my arguments as the "latest attack of the day." As I said in my post, I think this hurts Hillary and her supporters as well.

[puffy socks]

46. do you not understand plurals?

The Berners in general.. I totally made that crystal clear in my updated post. Yet you keep trying to make this soley about this one poll and you're comments during the primary season and ignore my point as if the continued selective use of polls by Berners isn't occurring at all.
so what youre really wanting is an apology from m e
fine so sorry. Now quit pretending Berners haven't been using this ridiculous tactic since Bernard entered the race



"at the end of the process he should suspend his campaign." and that would be April 26th correct?

the AP giving the obvious mathematical conclusion Is nothing like using a poll to decide the presidential election as the VOTES have been counted and delegates counted for each candidate.

[democrattotheend]

47. My point is, you are dismissing my argument based on a generalization

Based on what other Bernie supporters have said.

[tritsofme]

39. Not even close. This is like news orgs having "whip counts" on major legislation like the ACA or

the Iran deal last year, where they call congressmen and ask how they will vote. Many of these same congressmen are also SDs...

This is really not much different at all than the AP reporting that some legislation has the publicly declared support of a majority of congressmen and 60 senators, prior to the vote.