Even the one blue state in Clinton's column, Massachusetts, has an unexplained 8% exit-poll anomaly that argues for a blanket DNC rule change that would discount the weight of any ballots from states that are not made on paper, and subject to hand re-count. One analysis of Massachusetts' returns alleges that the returns "indicate fraud." This claim requires explanation before the Rules Committee where the credentials of Clinton's Massachusetts' delegates should be challenged. Without Massachusetts, Clinton has yet to win a single blue state and has no better than tied in purple states outside the South.
Sanders' six representative blue- and purple-state wins and three virtual ties are suggestive of his competitive strength going forward in each of five well-defined blue and purple state regions: the East Coast (represented by Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts), Rustbelt Midwest (represented by Michigan), Upper Midwest (represented by Minnesota and Iowa), Southern Rockies (represented by Colorado), and Pacific Coast (represented by Nevada). These regions will elect a Democratic president.
Michigan clearly counts because it has consistently contributed Democratic electoral votes for a generation. Red states have not, and there is no better indicator than that of the mathematical probability that they will not contribute any electors in 2016 either. In a democratic election where those who do not contribute to victory are not treated as equal to those that do, red-state Mississippi would provide an interesting straw vote while blue-state Michigan would contribute voting delegates to determine the Democratic nominee who can attract Michigan electors. No candidate acceptable to Michigan Democrats is going to win electoral votes in Mississippi.
Since it can be safely predicted that Mississippi's electors will be voting against, not for, the Democratic nominee in the electoral college, it must therefore be explained why Mississippi electors should get a say comparable to Michigan's in nominating the person Mississippi's electors will predictably vote against. Diluting the voting strength of those states like Michigan that will be contributing electoral votes for the nominee in the electoral college is simply discrimination on the basis of residence. If DNC rules were changed to remedy this discrimination, media would not be touting a split decision but rather appreciating that Michigan has just opened a clear path to nomination for Sanders.
No delegate count is final until the delegates are credentialed under rules that are approved by the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee. In the states that will count in the electoral college for Democrats, Sanders is winning. The rules need to be changed so they do not discriminate against those states. If changed, Sanders wins.
In response to this discriminatory delegate-selection system, Sanders' campaign manager has dismissed Clinton as a "regional candidate." Michigan confirms that to be a fair description of a Democrat who has yet to win any blue state, the one exception being where there is an allegation pending that "the election was likely stolen." But that does not go far enough.
Slow Strategy
Unfortunately the Sanders campaign has yet to open this separate front against undemocratic DNC rules that allow Clinton's red-state victories to be included in her voting delegate count. Just as the Sanders campaign has been slow in figuring out how to communicate effectively to black voters, it is also getting a slow start in advocating publicly for the necessary DNC rule changes that would make the run-off process democratic. Rigged rules could prevent the most popular candidate in the race of either party to make it on the Democratic Party general-election ballot. Without these changes, which includes disqualifying delegates from red-state rotten boroughs from voting for a presidential nominee, the Democratic Party cannot sustain the pretense of conducting a democratic national run-off election process.
An aggressive public, and even legal, challenge to DNC rules would also eliminate the propaganda advantage of Clinton claiming she is winning when in fact, under a process governed by democratic rules, she is clearly losing.
A rule change by the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the DNC that red-state primaries should be treated as straw votes that do not count in the nomination voting process would immediately put Sanders significantly in the lead, aside from those Superdelegate votes, which is another opportunity for fraud that needs to be similarly publicized and corrected by a different rule change. These delegates could participate in other internal-party business, like approving the party platform. But managing the run-off process in elections is public business and cannot be discriminatory.
Efforts for reform of the corrupt DNC apparatus, best symbolized by its conflicted Chairwoman, would also help to better focus the discussion among the laggard left whether the Democratic Party (and therefore also Sanders by implication, for participating) should be scrapped as the front-group for plutocrats that it is.
It is difficult to argue the strategic advantage of what Lenin might have called the "infantile disorder" of pursuing third-party politics in a rigidly two-party system, until the precise changes necessary to turn the Democratic Party into an authentic vehicle for democratic politics are identified. Only then can the degree of difficulty of changing the DNC rules be assessed as compared to the obvious obstacles of a third-party run, even with the best conceivable ticket (Nader/LaDuke) running on the best possible platform (Green Party 1996 and 2000).
While no third party unaffiliated with plutocrats has come remotely close to winning since 1860, much less under the modern primary system, a similar insurgent primary campaign in 1968 and after did lead to systemic DNC rule changes in 1972. Those changes made Carter's election possible. Coming just when Buckley v Valeo (1976) converted the Democratic Party and the country to a plutocracy by legalizing corruption, the 1976 election seems more significant in retrospect, as the last democratic election, than it did at the time. Leftists interested in "developing a popular movement that will not fade away after the election" could do worse than aim at the DNC and changing its rules to support democratic run-off elections.
The 1972 rule changes largely remain, with the added plutocratic safety-switch of easily bribed and otherwise conflicted Superdelegates. The 1972 reforms that remain have enabled Sanders to Tai-chi the plutocratic DNC apparatus for purposes of overcoming plutocracy. The rotten-borough issue was not addressed in the 1972 reforms because the South only transformed into "rotten-borough" red states after 1976. If Sanders succeeds then further rule changes to outlaw the plutocratic DNC bag of tricks should be enacted to pave the way for his successors. Even if he does not succeed, changing these rules should be the price of any further support for the Democratic Party by its progressive wing.
Since the courts have correctly held that the partially privatized run-off process of "a party primary election is an integral part of the state election machinery" and therefore subject to constitutional equal-protection requirements, rigging the rules to interfere with equal voting rights need not be meekly accepted as a given. The nomination process is a governmental function from which discrimination is prohibited. Especially now that Antonin Scalia can no longer, from wherever he currently resides, cast a fifth vote for the Supreme Court's previously predictable plutocratic rulings, the campaign for challenging these rules must begin.
Black Michigan voters
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