No, It's Not Rigged Against Sanders

Once again Bernie Sanders is bitching about primary rules.

In 2016 (and 2012 and 2008) in order for a Democratic candidate to be nominated on the first ballot, they needed to secure a majority of the total number of delegates, which included “Super-delegates”. Super-delegates are party leaders and elected officials who are not pledged to support any particular candidate, unlike “regular” delegates, who are allocated to a particular candidate based on the result of their states primary or caucus. 

Going into the 2016 Democratic national convention Clinton had a majority of the regular delegates, but was still short of a majority of total delegates. There were enough Super-delegates who had not revealed their preference before the convention that the result was theoretically in doubt. In the end, enough Super-delegates voted for Clinton on the first ballot that she was the nominee. The same thing happened in 2008 when Obama squeaked past Clinton for the nomination. During the campaign Sanders vacillated between denigrating the Super-delegate process as undemocratic and suggesting that enough supers would swing toward him to give him the nomination. There was a lot of rumbling that the Super-delegates had “stolen” the nomination from Sanders, when in reality, the regular delegates, the “democratic” part of the process had gone decisively to Clinton. If Sanders had gone to the convention with more regular delegates than Clinton, an argument could convincingly be made that that the nomination had been un-democratically been stolen if the Super-delegates had then nominated Clinton. There is still a belief among Sanders supporters that “the establishment” had “rigged” the primary process against him.

Fast forward to 2020. Changes had been made, in large part due to lobbying by Sanders, ensuring that Super-delegates have no role in the first ballot. If a candidate had a majority of the regular delegates, then the supers would not vote. Only if no candidate had a majority of regular delegate votes on the first ballot would there be a second (or third, or forth) ballot, with, not only Super-delegates voting, but with the regular delegates no longer pledged to the candidate for whom they voted on the first ballot. Ahead of Super Tuesday Sanders was suggesting that whoever had a plurality (i.e. the most, but not a majority of, the delegate votes) on the first ballot should be the nominee, which is contrary to the rules that he helped to write. Probably this was due to there still being several candidates like Warren and Bloomberg in the race. The popular view was that Sanders would go into the convention in the lead, but that the large number of contenders would prevent any one candidate from achieving a majority. With the Biden comeback and virtually everyone else dropping out and endorsing him, it’s a two-person race and the earlier scenario likely will not hold.

What most people fail to understand is that the Democratic Party, including The Democratic National Committee (DNC), as well as the Republican Party and Republican National Committee, are not part of the government. They are private organizations that exist to promote their own priorities and to put forth candidates for political office. The fact that ordinary citizens get any input into how candidates are selected is not guaranteed and is a relatively recent development. Part of the confusion stems from the practice in most places that party primaries are overseen in part by local election commissions or state government. Some states and municipalities, however, have removed the influence of parties in their elections, including the primaries. Candidates for Nebraska's legislature appear on the primary and general election ballot without any party affiliation identified, although statewide offices as well as Congressional races are partisan. California's primary system lumps all parties together in the primary and the top two vote-getters compete in the general election, even if they are in the same party. This applies to all offices except the presidential primary. In all states, the local parties make and enforce the rules for their presidential primaries. 

When I hear people talk about how the Democratic Party "establishment" is determined to keep Sanders from getting the nomination, my immediate reaction is "So?" - making determinations on who should represent the party is part of their job. There is nothing in their job descriptions that require them to be neutral in whom they support. But a lot of the conspiracy mongering by Sanders supporters has focused in the last week on how, on the one hand, all the so-called moderates had dropped out and mostly endorsed Biden, supposedly proving how they were all banding together against him; and on the other hand how Warren had stayed in contention until Super Tuesday, allegedly in cahoots with the moderates to prevent a Sanders nomination. 

In overly simplistic terms, the Democratic candidate flied was divided broadly into two camps: the "establishment" moderates and the progressives. There were a lot of moderates: Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Bloomberg, among those candidates who managed to snag at least one delegate, not to mention Harris, Booker, Castro and others who dropped out before any actual voting took place. On the progressive side, it was just Sanders and Warren. Of course the moderate candidates, when they realized that they didn't have a chance, dropped out and endorsed the candidate that, in their view, most closely aligned with their own views. And that wasn't Sanders or Warren. Sanders supporters saw this as a big conspiracy when it was simply politics as usual. The other conspiracy theory centered around Warren's candidacy. According to one faction of Sanders supporters, Warren was running only prevent Sanders from gaining the nomination. The fact that she may have thought she was qualified herself apparently was not considered. Why didn't she drop out before Super Tuesday?, they ask. Before Super Tuesday the delegate count Sanders vs. Warren was only 50-8, which sounds like a lot, but each of them still needed over 1900 delegates to secure the nomination -1941 vs. -1982 doesn't seem like as big a difference when you frame it that way. (If Warren has dropped out and all of her delegates had gone to Sanders, Biden would still be leading)

So now it's a two-person race. All the distracting non-viable candidates are out of the way. It's a clear choice. Biden and Sanders are nothing alike. All that either of them have to do to secure the nomination on the first ballot is to convince more people than the other guy that they are the one who can beat Trump and lead the country successfully. Nothing "the establishment" can do can change that. Biden now had 664 delegates to Sanders' 573. Biden therefore needs another 1327 delegates and Sanders needs 1418. There are still 2583 delegates to be had. It is still theoretically possible for neither candidate to have a majority going into the convention. 

How can Sanders avoid any "rigging"? Secure more delegates by convincing more people to vote for him than for Biden. It's a simple as that.