Bernie Won’t Go Quietly into That Good Night

The math says Bernie Sanders can’t win a majority of pledged Democratic delegates after the major showdown in California Tuesday, but he can still cause plenty of heartache for front-runner Hillary Clinton. So when Hillary Clinton declares that the race or the nomination is over — win or lose in California — don’t be too quick to believe it.

Including the massive prize of California, a half-dozen states will vote Tuesday, with 806 Democratic delegates at stake. After that, every contest will be completed save for the District of Columbia, with 45 delegates. Clinton currently has 1,812 pledged delegates, 571 shy of the 2,383 needed to formally clinch the nomination.

To do it with pledged delegates, alone, she would need to win two-thirds of the remaining delegates. That is a tall order, since Democratic rules award delegates proportionally to candidates receiving at least 15 percent of the vote. What’s more, the demographics of North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana make Sanders the favorite in all three states, while polls have shown him within striking distance in California.

Clinton’s ace in the hole is the group of party insiders and elected officials known as “superdelegates.” The Associated Press reported Monday that Clinton had won the support of enough of them to put her over the top — without a single vote cast by a primary or caucus voter Tuesday. Clinton will use her combined tally to declare the nominating contest over, but that won’t be technically true — and Sanders knows it.

Relying on superdelegates furthers Sanders’ argument that the system is “rigged” by Establishment insiders, but it also leaves the door open for Sanders to continue contesting the nomination right into the Democratic Convention in July.

“Now, I have heard reports that Secretary Clinton has said it’s all going to be over on Tuesday night,” he said at a campaign appearance in California. “I have reports that the media, after the New Jersey results come in, are going to declare that it is all over. That simply is not accurate.”

Superdelegates may have expressed their preferences for a candidate, but their votes are not formally pledged or counted until the first ballot at the convention. Sanders has already begun to lay the groundwork to fight the unlikely, uphill battle for their support through July.

“I think he will continue to raise that issue,” said Chris Arterton, founding dean of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University. “I think we will see now both a platform fight and a rules fight at the convention.”

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It is another sign of how unpredictable this election season has been. Six weeks ago, the prospect of a contested convention dominated talk in political circles. But the convention in question was the Republican one. Instead, once Republican voters determined that Donald Trump was the likely winner, the remaining candidates bailed out of the race and most have since closed ranks behind him. The New York billionaire benefited from a bandwagon effect, claiming states with the majority of votes in several primaries and comfortably taking Indiana, a state he may well have lost earlier in the primary season.

On the Democratic side, though, Clinton has enjoyed virtually no bandwagon boost. She wins diverse states with high numbers of minority voters and loses states with mostly white voters. Sanders shows no signs of buckling. Indeed, he has kicked up his rhetoric as the finish line has appeared on the horizon.

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After seeming reluctant to hit Clinton hard earlier in the campaign — he famously said at a debate that he was tired of hearing about her “damned emails” — the Vermont senator went on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday to attack the former secretary of state for the Clinton Foundation’s donations from countries run by dictators with poor records on human rights.

Assuming Sanders does not manage to change the minds of superdelegates, there are plenty of ways he can exert influence by withholding an endorsement and staying in the hunt for the nomination. Arterton said Sanders likely wants to make the Democratic platform as progressive as possible and position himself as an “anchor” to prevent Clinton from drifting back to the center during the general election. Arterton said Sanders also may try to change the party’s rules to diminish the role of superdelegates.

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“This is really a fight for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party,” he said, adding that some proposed planks in the platform — perhaps reducing unconditional support for Israel, for instance — would put Clinton in an “awkward” position.

In 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama found himself in a position similar to the one that confronts Clinton today. Although he had a delegate lead after the primary season, he could not win without superdelegate support. Clinton, however, bowed to party unity and endorsed Obama before the convention. As a long-time independent, though, Sanders may feel less of a sense of party loyalty — he’s more of an ideological warrior. But Joshua Putnam, a University of Georgia political scientist, said Sanders does risk a backlash if he carries on too far.

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“We’re witnessing the kind of the high-water mark of that leverage,” said Putnam, who maintains a blog devoted to the nomination process.

Putnam said Sanders’ complaints about superdelegates represents a “moving of the goalposts.” He pointed out that Clinton has won more votes, more pledged delegates, and more nominating contests than Sanders has. And if the superdelegates had no votes, the threshold for winning the nomination would be lower, Putnam said.

“I don’t really think it’s clear what they want … The message kind of keeps changing,” he said. “That’s an indication of a campaign on its last legs.”

But a campaign, that perhaps, could still cause mischief or worse for Clinton.