After the state's leading Democrats spent much of the day taking up time attacking Donald Trump, this anti-Trump obsession seemed to gradually wear thin among many delegates. It received a decreasing response until the state's Democratic Deputy Minority Leader in the Republican House, Erin Murphy, finally made the point that was becoming obvious: if the Democrats "spend this election" just complaining about Donald Trump, then the Democrats are going to lose in November.
After the popular Minnesota Governor, and Superdelegate, Mark Dayton was booed when he said "I support Secretary Hillary Clinton for president," the overt Clinton endorsements were kept to a minimum. When he later said "I know that many people are supporting Sen. Bernie Sanders," he got a raucous applause, of the kind that followed throughout the convention whenever Sanders was mentioned, or even alluded to. But that demonstration of support -- which itself ate up time - was not converted into anything of much significant value to the Sanders campaign.
Superdelegate Sensibility
Sanders and his surrogates had made it clear that his surviving hopes for the nomination depended primarily, if not entirely, upon Superdelegates abandoning their soft pledges to Clinton and voting for him to make up for his large deficit of pledged delegates due to the blatantly defective primary process in California, New York and elsewhere. Sanders insists that Superdelegates can only vote at the National Convention and that prior pledges should not be operative. But mass media lies intended to suppress his final super-Tuesday primary support -- or cover up the pending election theft -- asserted, as Moira Liasson did on NPR the morning of the last set of primaries, that Clinton had already won the nomination and that Sanders' hope to flip the Superdelegates is "preposterous" because Clinton has a lead of "3 million votes."
This "popular vote" argument is a propagandistic comparison of apples and oranges, comparable to the media malpractice that unpledged Superdelegate inclinations can be "counted " by the mass media before they are voted at the National Convention on July 25. Caucus results, which Sanders has tended to win, often by landslides as in Minnesota, cannot be compared with primaries, which have been closer in most blue and purple states, aside from being too often closed to Independent Sanders supporters -- as in California, New York and elsewhere -- to be predicative of general election support.
Sanders outlined a path to victory in a proposal by which landslide states like Minnesota should require their Superdelegates to vote solely for him. In advance of the Minnesota Convention a grass roots effort, without the support of the Sanders campaign, was made for a "Bernie Petition." The petition would presumably have changed the state party's Rules to " demand that MN DFL 'Super Delegates' to the 2016 Democratic National Convention support and vote for US Senator Bernie Sanders." But at the convention a different version was presented by prior agreement with the party leadership that was more similar to the Alaska and Maine initiatives on Superdelegates. Apparently the organizers were informed that the Rules could not be changed at the State Convention, because the deadline for submitting rules changes expired prior to he Convention. The Party leadership agreed the new resolution about Superdelegates could be presented as a non-binding "sense of the Convention." This watered down approach also took a watered down form that favored Clinton more than Sanders.
The resolution on Superdelegates that was ultimately presented and approved by 53 percent to 46 percent, 552 to 480, contradicted Sanders' strategy, and hurts his cause, although presented as if it were an effort to help his cause by attacking the Superdelegate problem. This Minnesota Resolution first endorsed a future "elimination or reform" of Superdelegates for the 2020 presidential election, which does nothing for Sanders. It then recorded a "request" -- not even a binding party rule or a platform measure -- that proportional representation be used in casting Minnesota's Superdelegate votes in 2016. Pollster Nate Silver says proportional allocation of Superdelegates gets Sanders "Nowhere. In fact, I'd argue it would set him back." So it does.
Absent any guidance from the Sanders campaign, Minnesota Democrats thus voted for this watered down version of a Superdelegate initiative that directly opposes Sanders' strategy of having all Superdelegates from states he won in a landslide like Minnesota be required to support him. If adopted at the national level this proportional allocation resolution would also prevent Sanders from trying to convince other Superdelegates to do their original job by ignoring their own soft pledges to Clinton. Sanders wants to persuade the other Superdelegates to wipe out Clinton's lead in soft pledged Superdelegates in order to support the candidate most likely to defeat Trump. According to every poll from the beginning that person is Sanders, for the good reason that he leads Clinton among Independents who decide presidential elections. A proportional vote requirement would foreclose Sanders' path to victory.
Conflict of Interest Recusal of Superdelegates
There is another problem with Sanders' reliance on persuading Superdelegates to abandon their soft pledges to support Clinton. Sanders' surrogates justify his pending capitulation to demands that he throw his support to Clinton in the general election on the gound that "Bernie's pledged to support the Democratic nominee." Clinton only expressed a preference for Sanders over Republicans without fashioning a reciprocal "pledge." How can Sanders be bound by such an unreciprocated "pledge" even after the rigged election processes he experienced resulted in Democrats selecting the least popular candidate who is most vulnerable to losing? More importantly, how can he at the same time ask Superdelegates not to honor their pledges for those same reasons? These are inconsistent positions. Either politicians' soft "pledges" are easily revocable due to changed circumstances or they are not.
Far preferable than both the Minnesota Resolution calling for proportional allocation of Superdelegates, under which Sanders would clearly lose, and Sanders' inconsistent pledge flipping tactic, is the proposal for imposing an ethical standard on Superdelegates. Superdelegates should be subject to conflict of interest standards that would first require disclosure of any monetary or other benefits received or promised from one of the candidates. It would then require recusal from voting by any Superdelegate who has a conflict of interest due to such promised or delivered benefits. Conflict of interest recusal does not require proof that an express quid pro quo transaction was made by the parties. If it looks to a reasonable person like influence has been bought, then recusal from voting is mandatory.
It is likely that such a rule would disqualify many of Clinton's delegates but few if any of Sanders' delegates. A request that the Minnesota Resolution be amended to include this requirement was declined by that Resolution's promoters. Again, advance strategic involvement by the Sanders campaign in formulating a resolution that actually served rather than clearly disserved the campaign's own strategy to turn around the Superdelegate vote could have succeeded in obtaining a useful rather than a counterproductive Minnesota Resolution on this issue to take to the National Convention.
Unfinished Business
Because the State Convention was summarily gaveled to a halt by a party functionary without apparent authority to do so before the agenda was complete, the Clintonite establishment leaders of the party can now continue in power through 2020. Their Central Committee which governs between conventions will now appoint the electoral college electors, which unlike most years could be of conceivable importance in the unpredictable 2016 election. More important, the Clintonite establishment Central Committee will perpetuate their own power that existed prior to Sanders' landslide victory. Rules allow them to elect the state directors for the party who would otherwise have been elected by the Sanders majority at the state Convention.
By dragging out the proceedings the Clinton forces in control of the Convention avoided a vote that might have helped turn the party over to a slate of Sanders' directors. But again, due to lack of strategic organization, an Agenda was approved that enabled playing out the clock, a quorum was reputedly lost, and the Convention was adjourned without motion prior to reaching this important business.
A group of Sanders delegates wrote the party chairs complaining that the the official Call for the Convention from the Central Committee had stated: "The convention shall not adjourn until all required business has been considered. If a quorum is lost, the convention shall be recessed." The group demanded a reconvening of the recessed Convention in accordance with this provision of the Call in order to complete the business on the Agenda. The group pointed out that the cover of the Call itself asserted: "The provisions of the DFL Call take precedence over other DFL party rules at any level, and govern all precinct caucuses, conventions, electoral commissions and other Party meeting during 2016-2017."
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