There are now a few days left till End Of The Line Tuesday, as we could call it. (D.C. has a primary a week later, but is there any real chance that the Democratic race lasts that long? Does anyone really believe that Bernie Sanders has a real shot to win that one?) Bernie’s side is hanging on like a delusional football team that started the fourth quarter down by four touchdowns then kicked a few field goals and got super fucking excited about their (statistically nonexistent) chances and are how hoping that they can score a nonexistent 30-point Hail Mary on the last play of the game. Well, clock’s running out now, and team Clinton has effectively played Prevent Defense for the past month and is about ready to hit the showers and move onto the playoffs. Yeah, yeah, yeah … no one likes the Prevent Defense, but sometimes that’s the right choice.
So, before we put this thing to bed, let’s examine some of the assumptions and thought processes that has kept this slug fest between two slugs inching along for as dreadfully long as it has to see if they’re true or just delusional myths.
1. The more voters, the better Bernie has done …
This argument is either explicitly or implicitly made every time that there’s a dispute about voter registration and closed or open primaries. Basically, Bernie supporters have argued, frequently, that the DNC and Clinton campaign have worked behind the scenes to limit the voters so that she has a better chance of winning. Well, they’d say to ensure that she won, but that kind of talk is the tinfoil hat talking.
If this were true, then Bernie would do better in bigger states. There’s more voters and thus more chance of his supporters getting to the polls, not to mention harder for the DNC to keep people away. So, let’s look at the Top 10 U.S. states by population: California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan. Bernie won one of those states: Michigan. California hasn’t voted yet. And Clinton won the other eight states. Bernie won Michigan by 17,000 votes, or 1.5% percent of the vote in a real squeaker. Clinton won the other 8 states by about 2.2 million votes, collectively, or about 19% of the vote.
The next 10 biggest states: New Jersey, Virginia, Washington, Arizona, Massachusetts, Indiana, Tennessee, Missouri, Maryland, and Wisconsin. New Jersey votes Tuesday. Bernie won two: Indiana and Wisconsin. Hillary won six: Virginia, Arizona, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Missouri, and Maryland. (Washington was a weird case that we’ll get to.)
So Clinton took 14 of the biggest 20 U.S. states, with the potential to make that 16 by winning California and New Jersey. That’s a big gap, and it shows that she did better in the bigger contests. The national general election is the biggest of contests, so it logically goes to assume that she’s better prepared for that too. Advantage: Clinton
2. WTF happened in Washington …
Washington state had a caucus, where Sanders won big, 19,159 to 7,140. For those who don’t know by now, caucuses are small, fiercely fought face-to-face affairs for delegates decided by passionate people who are willing to stay and argue in a room together until a decision is made, like a jury. It’s sort of like a mini convention. Then Washington state held an open primary, which Clinton won big, 416,463 votes to 378,364 votes.
What does this tell us, other than that Washington state is tremendously insecure and has a desperate need to be in the public eye? Well, it gives us two very different types of elections and which candidate does better in each. With a small sample of extremely committed voters, Sanders does better. In a large sample of mostly disinterested voters, Clinton does better.
Since the general election is probably the biggest sample of mostly disinterested voters, the Washington experiment gives the nod to Hillary. Advantage: Clinton
3. Open versus closed primaries …
After the New York primary in particular, Sanders supporters were all sorts of upset that a lot of potential voters (in Brooklyn, natch) were “purged” from the rolls because they weren’t registered as Democrat or hadn’t registered with the party affiliation early enough. (For some reason, under no logic that I could every grasp, they assumed that all of those voters would have felt the Bern.) If only all of the primaries were open, they proclaimed, they would have won.
So, now that we’re at the Two Minute Warning, let’s see how that worked out.
There have been 32 primaries thus far, 14 of them fully open primaries (the other 18 being a combination of closed and semi-closed and even one semi-open primaries). Hillary Clinton won 10 of those fully open primaries.
Well, Bernie fans, so much for that theory. Advantage: Clinton
4. What about the weird mini convention states …
The caucuses? Those stupid things?
Well, there were 17 of those, and given the intimate nature of them I really don’t think it matters whether they were technically open or closed. Of those 17, Clinton won 6 and Sanders the other 11. So, he racked up a lot of his delegates in these small contests fought by a small minority of the population made of virulently passionate people.
The primaries that he did win? New Hampshire, Vermont, Oklahoma, Democrats abroad (because seriously, who else are American ex-pats in fucking France going to vote for anyway?), Michigan (by a mere 1.4% of the vote, remember?), Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Indiana, West Virginia, and Oregon. Well, I take it all back. That’s a veritable Murderer’s Row of … well … fuck all, really. A bunch of ethnically homogenous, low-population states, none of whom are really in play in November anyway. (At least not unless Trump really tanks and states like Indiana and Oklahoma only come into play because the Democrats are running up the score.)
As much as Sanders supporters would love for their passion and dedication to spread like wildfire among the sorry, uneducated, and not-yet-Berned masses, the general election is not a passion play. It’s not a caucus. It’s not a convention. It’s a vast open poll, decided for the most part between a large portion of the population who feels it’s their duty to vote even if they’re not totally in love with either candidate. If Clinton can beat Bernie that this game, an opponent whose fans are truly dedicated and love him like a member of the family, then why would she not also be perfectly well equipped to beat a carnival barker of a reality TV star whose “fans” couldn’t even tell you his stance on any policy issue other than “wall … Mexico pay.” Advantage: Clinton
But the polls …
The national polls have tightened between Clinton and Donald Trump, but when asked voters usually choose Sanders at a higher rate than Clinton. That, his supporters say, is the big reason that the DNC should disallow the victory Clinton has clearly made in the primaries and caucuses and go with Bernie instead.
Part of the lower polls for Hillary is that the Sanders campaign has done some real damage to Clinton’s image, with the talk about getting paid for speeches at banks. (This is a controversy I really don’t understand, based on a nonsensical, puritanical set of assumptions I really don’t get either, but that’s a blog topic for another day.)
Part of this is also that there has been virtually no scrutiny of Sanders himself as a candidate or his policies. Coverage of him has been almost entirely positive. He’s the underdog, and everyone loves the underdog. Whatever you think of his ideas, he is a very ernest and seemingly personally honest person. He believes what he says, and people do love that, with good reason. Add to this that the Clinton campaign has not attacked him at all, mainly because they don’t need to, but also because they desperately need him and his voters to support them this fall. The Clinton campaign made a conscious decision that this was more important than whatever short-term loses they were getting by letting him hang in and continue to attack her. (We’ll see come fall if that was a smart decision or not.)
But, if Sanders did somehow complete that 30-point Hail Mary and become the nominee, the next day he would start experiencing a level of scrutiny … of his personal life, of his political stances, of his voting record, of his finances, of his campaign violations, of his policy proscriptions and how he plans to pass them in Congress and pay for them … that he has never faced in his life and is probably not really ready for.
On that day, Bernie Sanders’ poll ratings will start to go down. How far down, and if they stay above Trump or drop below are anyone’s guess.
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has faced this level of scrutiny for 30 years. Advantage: Clinton
It’s time to take a knee …
Everyone has the right to vote, and preferably should get to vote for the person they want to. If nothing else, I think we all can agree on that. So, Bernie fans in New Jersey, California, and everywhere else should get a chance to vote for the candidate they want.
Since Clinton is leading by several hundred delegates and 3 million votes in the popular count, he would need a landslide on Tuesday the likes of which we’ve never seen before. If he wins in California and New Jersey (which he likely won’t), not to mention in Montana, New Mexico, and the Dakotas, it will probably be by a small amount. Not enough to really close the gap. Just enough to make a little noise and indigestion for the Clinton camp and the DNC. But regardless of how your Bernie-obsessed weirdo Facebook friends spin it, it’ll be over.
So once Tuesday’s over, and Clinton has won, the fight needs to be over. No more dragging it out. No more bullshit fights with the DNC leadership. No more whining over superdelegates. No more searching for that one poll that shows Bernie winning as a third party candidate. No more nonsense about an independent run. The Democratic nomination will be over, and the general election will begin. And in that? Advantage: Clinton