Bernie Sanders is Being Treated Very Badly by the Democrats- The System is Rigged Against Him

Bernie Sanders is being treated very badly by the Democrats - the system is rigged against him. Many of his disenfranchised fans are for me!

When it comes to bombastic arrogance, spreading of conspiracy theories, being a privileged perpetrator playing the victim, and a thin-skinned inability to accept any criticism or any loss, nobody can top Donald Trump.

Besides, maybe Bernie Sanders.

 Now, it is patently obvious what Trump is trying to do here. I don’t think many people are stupid enough to fall for it. That said, it is important to note that the lies Trump is using to try and divide the Democrats are the same lies and conspiracy theories being spread by the Sanders campaign. Not just the supporters, not just the campaign, but the candidate himself.

The bottom line is that Bernie Sanders lost the nomination fair and square. When it is all said and done he will likely have lost by more than three million votes and several hundred delegates.

The nomination was not stolen from him. The election was not rigged against him. He lost in a fair fight. Yes, the rules are byzantine, yes many states have terrible election laws that need to be changed, yes Republican voter suppression schemes impacted Democratic primary voters.

All true.

But the rules were the same for both candidates. They both had to navigate the complicated delegate allocation procedures. Supporters of both candidates had to deal with needlessly complicated caucus structures. Supporters of both candidates had to face voter ID laws, cut polling places, long lines, and every other scheme Republicans have dreamed up to suppress votes. The same rules applied to both of them.

What’s more, they knew those rules going into the process. As a Wisconsinite, I like to compare things to football. In football, a game is not unfair because one team is vastly better than the other one. Drafting and developing a strong quarterback, talented receivers, making smart trades, having an impenetrable defense- these are all things that a team can do in order to win. It isn’t unfair to other teams that the Packers have Aaron Rodgers, it is a result of smart choices and good training.

At the end of the game, it doesn’t make sense to claim that the game was rigged against you because you kicked more field goals but they were only worth three points. It doesn’t make sense to complain that the other team got out to an early lead and you weren’t able to catch up. Bottom line is that it is disingenous and, frankly, whiny to complain about the system being rigged against you just because you lost.

And politics is similar, though the strengths are different. Was it unfair that superdelegates stated their support for Clinton before any voting started? Nope- that’s well within the rules of how they are supposed to operate. It was a smart decision of Clinton to court them early, and to have been building relationships in the party for decades. Connections, relationships, influence- these are all vitally important in politics- for campaigns and governing. One candidate actively courted the support of these folks who are, by the rules set up (by Tad Devine, but that’s for another diary), allowed to support who they wish and free to declare that support publicly. The other campaign denounced these folks as part of the evil “establishment” only to come begging for support later on when it was clear the pledged delegates would not end up in their favor. We see how that worked out. One campaign’s strategy worked. The other campaign’s strategy (strategies) failed spectacularly. She built a good team. He did not.

Was the primary calendar unfair to Sanders. Nope. Not only was it mostly set before he entered the race (and, given state election laws, largely set up by Republicans hoping to control THEIR nominating process), there was no way of predicting how the race would play out demographically before voting began. Yup, Super Tuesday was packed with a lot of states with large numbers of black voters. One campaign actively and aggressively courted those voters and built relationships in that community. The other campaign abandoned those states and those voters in favor of a different strategy after a loss in South Carolina. We see how that worked out. Sanders’s (first) loss in Nevada gave us an idea where the race was at demographically. South Carolina reinforced that in a fairly dramatic fashion. Instead of trying to alter the demographic realities underlying the voting, Sanders opted for a different strategy and started talking about “more favorable terrain.” He was going to focus on states that were whiter. Had he not made that mistake, things might have ended up very differently in later contests. It was, however, his mistake to make. He could have looked at the campaign calendar, assessed the demographics of the states, and decided to run a different kind of program. He did not. Clinton did. That’s why she built such a commanding lead by Super Tuesday and never looked back. She played the clock and kept possession, preventing him from making the kinds of scores he needed to catch up.

Are the delegate allocation rules complicated? Sure. Do they sometimes produce results that are a bit out of whack with the actual election results? Absolutely. Were they inherently unfair to Sanders? Not by a long shot. A successful delegate strategy is the reason we have President Barack Obama right now. Sanders has had a scattershot approach to delegates, running a campaign that often doesn’t seem to understand some of the basic rules. Wyoming has an even number of delegates and just one “at large” Congressional district. You have to win an absolute landslide there to get above an even split- all for two delegates on the margin. Engaging in Wyoming beyond keeping your opponent below 57% is a terrible waste of resources- time and money. The delegate allocation rules have, though, been better for Sanders than a straight popular vote. He has a slightly higher percentage of delegates than he does of votes. He is losing so badly because he decided to write off huge, delegate-rich states in the South in favor of symbolic wins elsewhere. He celebrated his tiny win in Michigan (+4 delegates) and ignored his devastating loss in Mississippi the same night (-26 delegates). He would have been better off losing Michigan by a bit and holding the margin closer in Mississippi, but he chose the headlines over smart delegate strategy. She went for the big scores, and the risk paid off. He kept punting or kicking field goals long after she was ahead by several touchdowns and the clock was running out.

Were Sanders voters disenfranchised in some states? Almost certainly. Thing is, so were Hillary’s. Arizona polling places were cut for everyone. New York voters were purged- but mostly in one of Hillary’s strongest areas of the state. Hillary supporters without IDs were blocked from voting just as Sanders’s were. Hillary voters who missed registration dates couldn’t vote just as Sanders’s voters couldn’t. Open and closed primaries and caucuses, registration deadlines, party affiliation deadlines, etc. are not set by the DNC, but primarily by state laws. Understanding those laws and organizing your people to work around the barriers is basic electioneering. There should be a longer term goal of reforming these election laws, but that’s going to take hard work and organizing on a state-by-state basis. In the meantime, it is vital to have a good understanding of the election laws and figure out how to deal. You make sure your supporters have a valid ID and know they need to bring it. You make sure your voters have a plan to vote and know their rights about staying in line after the polls close. You send volunteers and organizers to pass out water bottles (and cheap snacks, depending on state law) to voters waiting in line (all of them, can’t pick and choose). Alternatively, you run a strong early-vote/absentee program where possible. One candidate worked with supporters to overcome these various obstacles and take advantage of every opportunity they could to make sure their supporters could vote. The other complained about them days before (or after) the primary election, the laws and rules of which were known well, well in advance. A football team looks at their schedule and trains for it. You don’t go out and complain that you had to play on turf, or under a dome, or that it was just too cold in Wisconsin in November. You play your home-field advantage for all it is worth and figure out how to win in the varying conditions when you’re away.

The bottom line is that there is no way to seriously argue that the nomination was stolen from Sanders, that the process was somehow fundamentally unfair to him, that Clinton winning the nomination does not reflect the will of the voters. If you say those things, you are either lying or deeply ignorant. The process, while often stupid and almost always overly-complicated, has been transparent, the rules were known (or at least knowable) in advance by every candidate, and they had every opportunity to devise a winning strategy given the strengths and weaknesses of their team. Clinton leaned into her advantages, worked to mitigate her weaknesses, and organized to move around every obstacle. 

To really stretch this football metaphor beyond recognition, I DO kind of think of Hillary Clinton and Aaron Rogers in similar ways. They both are following up incredibly popular, almost legendary figures to lead a venerable team. People might not have been that excited to see the newcomer take over as a fan favorite’s time ran out. Then they saw what the newcomer could do. Hillary has shown that she knows her receivers and who best to carry the ball, that she can be accurate and precise under pressure, that she can run and put herself at risk to move the ball forward when there is no one open for the pass. She knows that sometimes you don’t run the flashy play, you don’t throw the Hail Mary, sometimes you just hand the ball off so someone can move it forward a couple of yards. She won because she played by the rules with a much better team.

When Trump and Sanders are saying the same things about our nominating process, it might be time to reevaluate.