Because the circumstances were different. The campaign and voters knew ahead of time the Washington state primary results would not count; they did not dedicate resources to advertising and turning out the vote. In the neighboring state of Oregon, where the results of the primary were used to allocate delegates, Sanders won by 12 percentage points.

I would argue if all states open their primaries for the two major parties to all voters, the race will be more competitive and less predictable.

I have not heard him say that. And it is true that Clinton has won the majority of total votes where vote count was reported.

The primary system is not democratic from the voter's perspective. Superdelegates had rushed to throw support behind one particular candidate before the first ballot was even cast. Clinton's superdelegate count was 380 (97%) to Sanders' 11 (3%) in January, one month before primary voting began. Her superdelegate lead was 369, or 7.7% of the total delegate count. Her lead grew to 431, or 9% of the total delegate count, in mid-February when only Iowa and New Hampshire had voted. Any statistician would tell you a 9% advantage in delegate count was insurmountable in normal circumstances. Superdelegates, not the voter, essentially decided the result of the election.

But the media chose to ignore the math then and pretend that every vote matters. *sigh*

The Superdelegates were never supposed to be reported as counted until the convention. That's the media's fault.

When every single major media outlet lumps superdelegates into their tallies, it is a systemic fault. Sad to say, in the age of social media, the news networks still control the narratives of elections. If they show someone always winning by a big and uncomfortable margin since the start of the primary season, it is not going to bring a lot of attention and excitement among voters and other media to cover the election. It is a snowball effect. Voters have no incentive to vote and the media turn more of their focus to Trump because the race is lopsided from the start. That explains the low turnout of the primary season.

If they truly play by the rules and let superdelegates only be counted at the convention, the narratives will be re-written.

Votes do not matter any more when superdelegates and the narratives decide the election.

If Sanders would have won every state, I'm fairly certain he would be the nominee. Regardless of Superdelegates.

Media actually has incentive of making the primary as competitive as they can, and that's part of reason why Hillary got a lot of negative press at the beginning. In the end, as Nate Silver put it, both of the following statements could be true at the same time: 1) Sanders has performed admirably well, and 2) the Democratic primary hasn't been all that close, with Clinton winning 57%-43% and lead by 3m in popular votes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/upshot/measuring-donald-trumps-mammoth-advantage-in-free-media.html?_r=0

An New York Times analysis suggests otherwise. Even they did not count the airtime given to superdelegates acting as Clinton surrogates, Clinton led Sanders in free airtime by $425m. Not to mention televised debates were few and far between.

Nate Silver mixed his own political analysis with data analysis; that's why he got Trump wrong.

Even he would have won every state, he would not have won the nomination with the lopsided superdelegate spread. He would have needed to win big (>56%) in every state to overcome the difference in the superdelegate count. That is virtually impossible.

Superdelegates are not committed to their original pledge, and they will almost certain not go against the populate votes. We saw that in 2008, where Clinton also had a lead in early superdelegates, but Obama picked up almost all undecided ones as well as flipped some from Clinton once he started winning and it became clear Clinton couldn't surpass him in delegates later in the campaign. The 2008 race was much closer, and superdelegates could definitely have altered the result since Obama's lead in pledged delegates was just around 100 and his popular votes lead was less than 0.5%, but they didn't, so I don't see why they have chosen to do otherwise if Sanders had managed to win more this time.

The difference was less stark in 2008. At the start of the primary season in 2008, less than half of the superdelegates were "committed". Of those "committed", they chose Clinton over Obama 2-to-1. This year, 65% of the superdelegates have "pledged" their support in February. They chose Clinton over Sanders 24-to-1. I have to wonder whether these party insiders truly want people to have a say over the choice of the nominee.

considering people are choosing Trump, whose to say the people should have a voice

Then skip primary voting and stop pretending it is democratic.

Trump shows why media narrative is important. Trump owns the narrative by having the media chase after him. He got substantially more time speaking at the debates than his rivals. Trump is what you get when people are upset with the government lacking accountability, when you have politicians having fun in their own partisan circle and losing touch with the electorate, when you have media that value talking points over fact-finding and mix entertainment with reality.

We live in a Federal Republic not a true democracy. The political parties are private organizations and they undemocratically gave us such nominees as Lincoln, Roosevelt and Truman in the past. I have not read any Sanders critiques of those choices. In fact, he has praised those Presidents many times on the campaign trail. Sanders is a poor candidate, which I have stated from the beginning.

He should have had 30-35% as a floor baseline from the beginning due to his record and the makeup of the Democratic caucus and primary electorate. When you add in the boost he gets from caucus votes (higher percentage of liberals and unbalanced delegate allocation), anybody but Hillary faction, mysogny, and unequal media coverage, his results are on the low end. With all the factors in his favor, not even mentioning how lucky he got being the only viable alternative in the field, he should have gotten somewhere in the range of 42.5-57.5% of the votes. The fact that he has not been able to get much higher than that threshold, while raising more money and outspending Clinton (she has saved money for the GE) proves my point.

Returning to the media, the media hates all things Clinton, and Hillary is held to a different and higher standard than her opponent. It was obvious in the 2008 primary when she was excoriated for answers that Obama gave as well that generated no faux outrage on his responses. Bernie has gotten little scrutiny for his past mistakes while anything and everything Clinton has touched is treated as invitation to blame or scandal. Apparently, Hillary is to blame for everything bad that has happened since Jimmy Carter left office 35 years ago due to her 4 years as SOS and 8 years as the junior senator from New York. Looking at the way Trump and Sanders have been treated Al Gore and Howard Dean must be wishing they had been born a decade or two later.

As xiayun noted, there is a perverse incentive in the media for a close election no matter how unqualified one opponent maybe. This is a dangerous situation for an informed electorate, because the media is tipping the scales in favor of their business model. Propaganda is accepted, if it is good for ratings or the bottom line. The Republican Party's current nominee needs to be looked at critically through an unbiased perspective. If he loses in a landslide as he should in a fair election, then the Republicans can look at the state of their party in an honest way and choose to reform or break-up. However, if Trump loses or heaven forbid wins in a close election due to media cronyism it props up a corrupt system which harms America as whole and especially the political system.

Primary elections are run by the states and paid for by taxpayers. If political parties want to rid of public scrutiny of the electoral process, they better hold the primary closed and private.

You talked about the times of Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Truman. Back then, the modes of communication and transportation did not allow for fast and equal access to information, media, or even the polls. Shall we go back to horse riding and sending telegraph messages back in the good old days?

Critiquing the electoral system has nothing to do with praising a presidency, true? That the system is not democratic does not mean the candidates are corrupt, right?

And it does not matter who raises the argument; it only matters whether the argument is valid and sound.

That is not true. You are probably misled by media talking points spinning for the Clinton campaign. According to the reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, Bernie Sanders has raised and spent less money than Hillary Clinton through April 2016.

Sanders:
$212.8m raised (less than $0.1m from Super PACs)
$207.1m spent

Clinton:
$296.4m raised ($84.6m from Super PACs)
$219.7m spent

Source: NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/election-2016-campaign-money-race.html?_r=0)

Sanders raised more from small donors, but Clinton out-raised him from million-dollar donors. And it is unusual the insurgent candidate is the one spending less in a mostly two-way race.

(1) Strawman, as no one is stating a need to be free of public scrutiny. The problem is that some states hold caucuses that the parties pay for but only 2-5% of eligible voters participate on average. I think some primaries are paid for by the parties as well, but I can't locate a chart that specifies which states are publicly and privately financed. Primaries are much more democratic as the avg. participation rate is 15-20%. I have no problem with publicly financing the primaries, although most uniformed voters do. If there was some mechanism that didn't involve a form of a poll tax, I would be open to them being privately financed.

(2) It has nothing to do with older forms of communication. It was an evolution of opening up the process to all voters, not just white male landowners as it originated. The US is one of the few countries where the voters directly indirectly vote for their party leaders or presidential nominees. Jeremy Corbin and David Cameron were selected by party leaders (super delegate equivalents).

(3) It is a problem if the politicians you praise are the result of an older less democratic system. Sanders praises Democratic Presidents like FDR, Truman, Kennedy, and LBJ, while harshly critical of more recent ones Carter, Clinton, and Obama. The former group were products of a more "rigged/corrupt" system, while the latter were the result of getting at least a plurality of delegates in a much more open democratic process. It does undercut his arguement, in my estimation.

Although the problem with his analysis is that the older Presidents were "better", because they were able to achieve so much legislatively. However, his analysis never takes into effect the larger Democratic majorities in Congress (for most of their terms) the "good" Presidents enjoyed. So no, the argument is not "valid and sound."

Sanders:
$212.8m raised
$207.1m spent
$5.8m cash on hand

Clinton:
$211.8m raised
$181.6m spent
$30.2m cash on hand

So what I wrote is accurate. If you want to use Super PACs, it is misleading. It is you being misled by media spin, because they are not taking into effect the impact of other groups spending to take out Clinton aiding Sanders.



http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/02/17/republican-groups-blister-hillary-clinton-early-voting-states/80497906/

This was only through New Hampshire, 3 days before Nevada or 4% of the primary schedule. The complete opposition Super PACs spending most likely wiped out any Clinton Super PAC advantage. In addition, there is no reporting how much of the Super PAC money was actually spent, so much could still be on hand. The media is playing you, by using the most unfavorable metrics and disappearing others to make Clinton look as unfavorable as possible when an accurate report would show her thrifty with money and able to prioritize effectively.

After weekend victories in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and with more superdelegates commiting - AP is reporting that Clinton has the required number of delegates, including superdelegates (of course), to capture the Democratic Party nomination.

The campaign wanted AP to hold off on reporting this until polls closed in New Jersey tomorrow, however, since it could affect the outcome in California.

Drop out, Bernie. Drop out, Bernie. Drop out, Bernie. Bye, Bernie. Drop out, Bernie.

I love the fact the salty, fist-in-the-air Man of the People now entertains fantasies of using an instrument of the "rigged system" he abhors (super-delegates) to subvert the will of Democratic voters.

Rumor has it Obama will endorse Hillary tomorrow. My guess is Obama will try to pressure Sanders to drop out.

It looks like media narrative does play an influential factor in the election (judging from David's post above).

Superdelegates do exist, but they do not vote until after all primary voting is done and at the July convention. They are unbounded by the primary results and can change their mind until the convention.

Even the DNC says superdelegates should not be included in the total delegate count because "they are not actually voting".



The DNC is implying the media are misleading about the delegate count throughout the primary season. Interesting that the DNC did nothing, not even a public statement, to clarify that.

If you want the election to look fair, you need to at least pretend to play by the rules and let the process play out fairly.

Bernard Sanders is such a selfish loser. Preach "togetherness" and "fairness" and then pull this nonsense?

You over performed, but still lost, bro. GTFO.

Just like DP07... viewtopic.php?f=12&t=79910

lol