Rachel Maddow Blows Bernie Sanders’ Contested Convention Logic To Smithereens

Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 02:00 pm

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Rachel Maddow took apart Bernie Sanders’ logic for contesting the Democratic convention and revealed his logic behind contesting the Democratic convention is not based in reality.

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Rachel Maddow pointed out that Clinton actually led the popular vote over Obama, and that Obama only had a 4% lead in delegates, but instead of contesting the convention, Hillary Clinton said that Obama won, ended her campaign and nominated Obama on the convention floor.

What followed was Rachel Maddow blowing the Sanders rationale for contesting the Democratic convention to pieces:

Right now, Hillary Clinton has an 11% lead in pledged delegates. So no. An eleven percent lead in pledged delegates that is not a big enough Democratic landslide that she is on track to clinch the nomination with pledged delegates alone, not counting any superdelegates, but she is way out ahead by every measure. She is way way way further ahead of Senator Sanders than Barack Obama was in 2008, and Senator Sanders promised yesterday that he is never the less going to contest that nomination. Basically saying that he won’t concede. He won’t drop out of the race. He won’t endorse her, and at that convention, he will still be fighting to get that nomination. Flip the superdelegates to him at the Democratic convention in July in Philadelphia.

And the Sanders campaign is increasingly insistent on this point now. There had been a little confusion I think among the top tier of the Sanders campaign. We hear different things from different top folks in the Sanders campaign, but now the candidate has made it clear in increasingly insistent terms that what they are going to do is fight to win that nomination at the convention in Philadelphia in July no matter how far ahead Hillary Clinton is, and they’re increasingly insistent about it.

But it is honestly, fantastical, which is not the same thing as fantastic.

And so ten more states will vote on the Democratic side, including Indiana tomorrow, and we’ll see what happens when the numbers come in, but barring a wholesale shift in the race, like an earth-shattering shift in the race, Sec. Clinton’s lead, I think by any fair measure should be seen as insurmountable at this point.

The Sanders campaign is hanging on to the hope that they can score a large margin of victory in California, then take their case to the superdelegates at the convention. The problem is that Sanders is losing in almost every poll of California. It is not a coincidence that this the Sanders campaign became more insistent that they are contesting the convention after his fundraising dropped by more than half in the past month.

The troubling element for the Sanders campaign wasn’t necessarily the decrease in money, but that the drop in contributions suggested a declining level of support among some of the strongest believers in the campaign.

Sen. Sanders can talk about fighting until the end, but he has no logical grounds outside of hypothetical public opinion polls to appeal to the superdelegates to change their minds.

The reality is that Hillary Clinton has moved on to general election mode. Bernie Sanders and his supporters are the only people who are contesting the nomination. It isn’t bias driving this perception. It’s math. Rachel Maddow used reality and math to blow up the Sanders logic for a contested Democratic convention.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association