So, That Happened: Clinton Named the Nom
After the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico primaries over the weekend, analysts started applying the islands’ delegate allocation rules to Hillary’s strong showing and said hey! who needs California? Bring me my datebook!
They then started calling superdelegates, several of whom for whatever reasons have decided to come down off the fence. They lined up in sufficient numbers that – lo and behold – shortly before 9 PM on June 6, 2016, Hillary Rodham Clinton was named the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States.
As the news organizations dialed for delegates, they also measured the appetite these folks had for switching to Bernie. This is an ongoing process, not something that was cobbled together yesterday, and the propensity to flip is an important metric to the back room pros. The last time they got bitten by a call – Florida, 2000 – left them twice shy to make calls that could later be reversed.
Presumptively, they feel pretty solid about this call.
This turns my semi-regular “what’s-at-stake” pre-primary column into something completely different. Nothing that happens tonight is going to prompt superdelegates to go against the pledged delegate counts, the popular vote and the first woman nominee from a major party in order to promote Bernie Sanders to the nomination. We’ve spoken in the past about pledged delegates – there is nothing that is going to happen tonight to them other than that Hillary will expand her lead and finally lock down the majority of those folks, as well.
The naming of a presumptive nominee in this manner is rather anti-climactic, and happened contrary to the hopes of both campaigns. Hillary plans to make her dispositive closing statement with wins in both NJ and CA. Bernie is planning to try to win CA and continue with this feeble charade that somehow, some way, somewhere, people will come to their senses and nominate him instead.
The weak-tea, easily debunked narrative of electability based on polls is a little bit of artful misdirection. What some on Team Bernie are really playing for is the issue he cavalierly tossed away in an early debate: e-mails. As much as Bernie may say that Americans don’t give a damn about her e-mails (and, they don’t!), supporters are making the case to continue to obstruct the Democrats’ pivot to Trump on the off chance that some DOJ deus ex machina is going to descend from on high and snatch him up to the pinnacle of political power.
When it’s argued that superdelegates can change their mind in July, that’s the only thing that could make them do so. Any other explanation is either woefully hopeful, tragically misconceived, or craftily disingenuous.
On Hillary’s part, the campaign was hoping to celebrate a traditional election night victory giving her the nomination. When she took the stage after the news had broken, she acknowledged it indirectly by saying they were “on the brink,” although the brink was already in the rear view. They have a big winning rally planned in Brooklyn HQ tonight, and the bean counters stole a little of her thunder. New Jersey would have accomplished the same thing, and the celebration still would have started before California’s results were in. But this is awkward for all.
It’s hard to say what effect this would have on tonight. I was expecting Hillary to receive a bump from her speech last week that polls have not yet had a chance to measure. It’s hard to say how such a mealy-mouthed “game over” will affect turnout: Bernie supporters could be energized to more action, or demoralized to stay home. Hillary voters could be celebrating already, or determined to put a big bow on the nom for her. I suspect her superior ground game will help – but you can’t drag millions of voters to the polls one by one.
While a California loss would put a mild hitch in her giddy-up, PR-wise, it’s not going to resonate downstream. “She lost California… to Bernie!” is going to be a useless general election taunt from Trump who, incidentally, is also praying that the same deus will hop into his indictment machina and save him, too.
In the meantime, for today, let’s quietly enjoy the historic moment amidst the shards of the highest, hardest glass ceiling in the world. For tonight, let’s Democratic Party!
The next President of the United States… credit:NY Mag
I’m sure Hillary and Bernie both would rather the media had kept their mouths shut about this until after the polls close tonight, but…….
I’m living for the day when it would never occur to anyone to comment on someone’s gender, race, or sexuality, when all of these things become, politically, the giant non-issues they truly are.
Hillary’s nomination brings that day a little closer, and that’s a good thing.
1That’s Madam President Clinton. Now let’s get behind it.
2Been waiting a lifetime (80+ years) to see a woman President of these United States.
I’m going to enjoy the hell out of this.
“I’m With Her”.
3At this point a Sanders win in California would do the following:
1. Slightly embarrass Clinton (but not really affect the general election)
2. Do nothing for Sanders (he’s too far behind and he’s not really a Dem anyway)
3. Give The Donald a happy (I recommend you don’t dwell on that).
When the most your campaign can achieve is to give Trump a happy, it’s time to switch gears, acknowledge reality, and work your butt off trying take back the Senate for Dems. I think Sanders will do that. I hope his supporters will.
4Now we have to work even harder; you know the Trumpster isn’t going to slack off on his misogynistic and hateful statements
Go Hillary!!
5Something stinks about the timing of the news that Hillary is the preemptive candidate.
6Presumptive not preemptive, oops!
7I think this could ultimately sink the Democratic Party and give rise to a new Party more represenative of liberal thinking Americans. Very short sighted main street media!
8Presumptive nominee; there’s a reason some of us have a certain amount of disdain for the media. Presumptive …
We’ve already been campaigning heavily for the down ticket Senate race in NV. Will be waiting until after the vote count in Cali tonight, before launching any bottle rockets. Albeit, rolling a few m-80s at Donnie Drumpf is always on the table.
9About damn time.
It saddened me that my mother died before the PA primary and couldn’t vote for a woman for president… but I realized that, as far as I know, she already did in 2008. (Even if she later wore the “Old White Women for Obama” button I got for her. When I realized that Obama is younger than I am, I got me one too.)
10I’m starting to work on hand exercises at the gym. Dont want my hands to start hurting from sticking signs in yards! Cmon DemCon!
11I grew up with “That damned Roosevelt” and am still muttering “Bernie, Bernie, Bernie ” under my breath. At least we tried.
12This win has to be doubly important to Secretary Clinton as she has been to this point before, only to be required to relinquish her spot to Barack Obama in order to unite the Democratic Party. Not this time. No furkin way!
13And who gets the unenviable job of cleaning up the shards of the broken glass ceiling when Hill wins? El Donaldo in an orange jumpsuit as part of his “community service” slapped on his wrist by a judge for one of the misdemeanors he has committed just before he is indicted for a really big one! And doesn’t have the dough to bail himself out!
14The timing of this news was inauspicious for Clinton. She wanted to announce the following day after she had accrued a lot more delegates. The media stole her thunder in their attempt to be the first to report.
15http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/no-one-wanted-hillary-clinton-win-way
I purely hate the long primary season, the extremely long campaign season, and Every. Single. Talking. Head. on television who wants to “scoop” the American people on the one hand and manipulate reports to get them to vote that network’s way on the other. LET THE PEOPLE VOTE, let the votes be counted, let the election be honestly run, and THEN report the results.
16The media stole my thunder, too, LynnN. They ruined the prediction I made on 4/10 by about 26 hours:
https://juanitajean.com/bernie-loses-wyoming-kinda/#comment-508146
17Except that they suppressed and disenfranchised 92% of the voters in Puerto Rico.
18Yes.
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