A close look at the Minnesota State Convention provides another example of strategic failure by the Sanders campaign in organizing for reform of the entrenched state and national Democratic Party apparatus. But it is not too late to use Sanders' considerable political leverage to obtain strategic concessions from Clinton, Obama, the Democratic Party, and the Senate Democratic leader.

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A Lesson in Strategic Failure

The rigged primary electoral system is overseen for the Democratic wing of the duopoly party at the national level by the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Bernie Sanders, in his non-concession speech, expressed an intent to use the National Convention, and change of DNC leadership, "to transform the Democratic Party." His call "to open its doors" could be interpreted as obliquely referencing reform of the DNC's role in managing the broken primary system that contributed to the theft of the election from Sanders. (The reference was oblique because Sanders immediately diverted his attention from this vaguely possible reference to rigged elections that concerns his followers to the unrelated and safely conventional subjects of a Howard Dean "50-state strategy" and a call for greater progressive participation in state and local elections).

Election theft is initially executed through the state parties. Ballot Bandits expert Greg Palast has explained how California rigged its primary election by elaborate suppression of the independent vote. He calls the California elections a "crime scene." Palast estimated the number of suppressed votes would be at least comparable to Clinton's resulting margin of victory in California. As it turns out, there were more uncounted ballots than Clinton's California vote total. It is reasonable to believe they belong mostly to Sanders. But the plutocratic media's cancellation of Edison's exit polls hid the best evidence.

The California election was the basis for Clinton's coronation by the media and Obama, after she arranged her preemptive coronation by the AP. But it is in fact far from decided. Both coronations were illegitimate. A separate issue is the continued use in California of hackable Sequoia election machines that may have flipped the vote in addition to suppressing voters. Palast says "vote suppression does not come cheap." Like the other tools of plutocracy -- mass media propaganda, lobbying, and influence peddling -- election theft is a product of money in politics.

Another tool used by state parties to maintain their plutocratic control behind democratic window-dressing is the State Convention. Use of the State Convention for democratic purposes requires organization, strategy, and leadership which can be either bought or frustrated by money in politics. Minnesota's June 4 State Convention illustrated some techniques by which the minority of Clinton supporters in control of an undemocratic Democratic Party apparatus can defeat a majority and add to Clinton's delegate margin.

Sanders won the Minnesota caucuses in March by over 61% of the vote. Sanders' landslide victory should have been sufficient for his delegates to take control of the Minnesota party at its State Convention, adopt a favorable agenda for the Convention, enact state rules subjecting its Superdelegates' to the will of the landslide majority, and elect Sanders supporters as members of the DNC to help reform the conduct of future elections. Although Sanders promises reform of "how the next nominee will be elected," none of this happened in Minnesota.

The Convention should have given Sanders at least 57 of Minnesota's 93 delegates, had they simply been divided proportionately. But he has only 46 pledged delegates selected by the Congressional District Conventions and the State Convention, plus three unpledged Superdelegate incumbent politicians who favor Sanders. The rest are either delegates pledged to Clinton or are Clinton-leaning unpledged Superdelegates.

Minnesota Democrats are proud of their states' national blue state status, having sent Democrats to the electoral college for a longer unbroken series of elections than any other state. Minnesota also takes pride in its progressive influence on the rest of the country, and in its relatively clean, democratic brand of politics. Steve Simon, Minnesota's popular Democrat Secretary of State expressed such views in his speech to the State Convention.

If a strong reform message on behalf of the Sanders campaign were to come to Philadelphia from anywhere in the country, it would likely come from a state like Minnesota. But no such message emerged from the Minnesota Democrat's ("DFL") Convention. It is worth telling in some detail why it did not, as a record and example of what is likely happening in other states as well. It is a story of how a soft form of rigging takes place in the state parties, even in a blue state with wide open caucuses. It demonstrates, in the end, how the disorganization of the Sanders campaign played into that rigging. The campaign failed to invest resources into the grassroots organizing needed to reap political advantages from Sanders' Minnesota landslide victor. Resources were invested in questionable advertising instead.

[Note: the following sections are primarily written for those who have participated in attempts to reform the Democratic Party from within. Others who may have less patience for the "inside-baseball" complexities are encouraged to skim over these sections and go straight to the "Conclusion."]

DNC Superdelegates

The most important business transacted at the state convention "to transform the Democratic Party" was the election of Democratic National Committee members. DNC members not only will control the national party going forward, and its next National Convention, but also will be Superdelegates at the next Convention. See Charter, Article 3, Sec. 3.

Each state delegate had four votes to cast for Minnesota's four positions on the DNC. Had the Sanders campaign focussed its delegates' support on just two women and two men candidates by running a qualified and diverse slate clearly vetted and endorsed by the Sanders' campaign, preferably supported by a direct written request from Sanders, and communicated in advance of the Convention to Sanders delegates, there is no reason why the large Sanders majority of delegates should not have been translated into winning all four DNC seats. But the State Convention elected only one announced Sanders supporter of the four members that Minnesota is sending to the DNC. The other three newly elected DNC members were endorsed by the state Party controlled by the Clinton establishment.

Democrats are proactive about diversity and urge their state delegates to vote for diversity. Of the four clearly pro-Sanders candidates for the DNC there was one white and one highly qualified Hispanic among the women candidates, and two white men. One of the men was not particularly impressive, while the other man who supported Sanders narrowly lost to two men who were endorsed by the state party. The Hispanic woman who supported Sanders won. The highest vote of the four went to an up-and-coming young African-American officer in the state party. Without endorsing either Clinton or Sanders he spoke in support of making democratic reforms in the party, which was a message appealing to the Sanders delegates who obviously did vote for him in preference to one of the candidates who had expressly endorsed Sanders.

As it happened, it was not even made clear that the Convention was voting for future Superdelegates by electing the DNC members. No clearly identified spokesperson for the Sanders campaign encouraged unity at the Convention behind the two Sanders candidates of each gender.

If this loss were extrapolated across the rest of the country it could represent maybe a 300 spread between Clinton and Sanders leaning Superdelegates in 2020.

Pledged Delegate Selection

Instead of focussing on these Superdelegates where important gains for reforming the Party could have been made, the Sanders campaign made what appeared to be a poorly conceived and ultimately counterproductive effort to influence the selection of pledged delegates by the sub-caucus of Sanders delegates. This turned out to be the last order of business at the Convention before time ran out.

Since the delegates selected by the Sanders sub-caucus, whoever they may be, were already pledged to vote for Sanders, a time-saving lottery could have been used for this purpose. Selection by lottery would not have made any difference to Sanders' delegate strength. However, at a messy National Convention that Sanders has promised, there may well be important floor fights that will require tight solidarity among Sanders' pledged delegates. It would then be useful to have delegates who are informed and fully prepared to take on those floor fights in accordance with strategies coordinated by the campaign. Certainly the Sanders campaign had the resources for more effective vetting than was possible in the 30 seconds allowed for the presentations by 200 would-be national delegates at the state Convention.

For this reason a slate of pledged delegates competently organized and reliably vetted by the campaign in advance of the Convention could have had some value at the National Convention, depending upon Sanders' intention to engage in a floor fight over Party rules. Had there been some evidence of competent vetting by the campaign for this purpose, according to transparent and convincing criteria, such a slate might well have been accepted by the state convention delegates, even though over a third of the Sanders delegates had hopes of playing the reality-show odds of becoming delegates to the big show in Philadelphia themselves. Advance organizing among these nearly 200 delegates who had formally expressed ambitions to be elected as National Convention delegates during the month prior to the state convention, to sort out the most loyal and effective slate, should not have been a difficult task for an organized campaign.

However a group of candidates for the national delegate positions who did stand as a slate showed no evidence of such vetting by the campaign. They claimed to be supported by Sanders and his campaign manager, Jeff Weaver. But the mailing they had sent out a few days in advance of the Convention gave no evidence of such support. They presented no letter from the campaign. The group claiming this support was neither representative of the state (most coming from Minneapolis), nor did they demonstrate that they were particularly suited to the task of attending the National Convention in order to support Sanders in a floor fight.

Coming as the last order of business, this proffered slate had not evidenced any leadership role in the convention up to that point, though such a leadership role had been noticeably missing from the previous DNC member selection, and from other Convention business. The Sanders campaign had a far more legitimate interest in designating and electing the DNC members than it had with respect to the precise identity of the pledged delegates. Neither the slate, nor the campaign it purported to represent, had weighed in on such important matters as the approval of the Agenda, adoption of the Rules, the single "sense of the Convention" resolution on Superdelegates discussed below, or maintaining a quorum necessary for electing key party officials deliberately scheduled at the end of the agenda.

Since there had been no prior outreach to others of the nearly 200 delegates who also wanted to be considered for the 20 pledged delegate and alternate positions, the slate gave the appearance of a cabal with no credible claim of a valid endorsement by the campaign. It took a motion from the floor to even get the slate to introduce themselves, let alone give an explanation why they should jump the queue to become national convention delegates in preference to others who were personally eager to compete for that reality-show opportunity themselves. At no time did the slate even argue that the campaign needed them as loyal and proven soldiers in an anticipated floor fight in order to justify the campaign's interference in the selection process.

Without convincing justification, the attempt at preempting a democratic process of individual election smacked of cronyism to many Sanders delegates who had not been consulted. The slate justified themselves solely by identity politics, but the delegates ultimately selected represented pretty much the same diversity. As a consequence of the campaign's poor advance organization and its poor presentation at the convention, the "Bernie-sndorsed" slate was overwhelmingly rejected by the same Sanders delegates who had been passionately shouting for Bernie throughout the day. Thus the good idea of taking an organized approach to the convention by the Bernie majority was rejected by Sanders delegates where it appeared to serve no purpose and was presented in a disorganized and poorly justified manner.

It should be mentioned that in the Clinton breakout sub-caucus a parallel effort to coordinate the national delegate selection was even more inept. The effort of a person who asserted authority from the Clinton campaign to appoint the Clinton delegates himself, rather than elect them democratically, was challenged as inauthentic and was rejected out of hand.

Running Out the Clock

A good slate of pledged national delegates competently presented to the Bernie sub-caucus would have saved a great deal of time at the Convention, as time was running out in the evening. Without such prior organization it was necessary to listen to the short speeches of the numerous candidates before voting. The "Bernie" slate effort, instead of saving time, ended up consuming even more time, while it was presented, debated and rejected. At the same time many delegates were anxious to get to dinner as the evening grew late.

The value of this lost time became clear when the state party took over the podium from the Sanders sub-caucus before the votes for the Sanders delegates were even counted and the results announced. The party establishment seemed to cleverly deploy identity politics by having a black woman announce that there was no quorum, without apparently taking or reporting an announced quorum count. She was a minor party official who had earlier broken out with the separate Clinton sub-caucus, and was seen serving there as a vote-counter. She peremptorily, without any apparent authority, gaveled the Convention adjourned at 8:25 PM, before important matters had been decided. In a manner reminiscent of Nevada, the State Convention was thus adjourned by asserted authority without a motion or second, as normally required by the rules.

The convention had been drawn out primarily with speeches by politicians, along with a couple time-consuming but pointless procedural contests. The main poison pill was contained in an Agenda item described in its entirety as "Guest Speakers -- TBD (throughout day)." The Agenda was approved without objection.

Many of the guest speakers who ate up time were Clinton supporters. One Sanders delegate did object from the floor, without success, to the delays for party leadership speeches, which largely consisted of attacks on Donald Trump and calls for party unity. Repeated calls were made by the likes of Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken for unity to defeat Trump. This refrain was so repetitive that the Minneapolis daily paper would headline, " DFL leaders target Trump at state convention." Trump served to divert attention from the main business of the establishment, which was to keep the party out of the hands of the Sanders majority.

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."

Both the Call Rule 46 and the DFL Constitution expressly enforce the Call to all matters that it covers. But the group were told just the contrary in response to their objection. A legalistic response from the parliamentarian requested by the state party Chairman Ken Martin was so transparently flimsy that it essentially meant "so sue us." The group were informed that the Call was inoperative. The Call was just a deception, in effect, subject to another layer of complexity that could only be divined by the parliamentarian after the fact. Now only the Central Committee has the power to reconvene the Convention, the group was told.

The group spoke for other Sanders delegates in advising the party leadership that " Not following the DFL party rules blocks the very unity you desire." The group is now considering using the leverage gained by potential for disunity to continue the struggle to reform the state party,

Conclusion: Sanders "very good at arithmetic;" strategy not so much

Readers may find somewhat complex the above description of how one state Democratic Party establishment held on to control of the party notwithstanding that the Clinton establishment had suffered a landslide defeat in the caucuses. The complexity of the process itself is part of the problem, serving as a bulwark behind which establishment insiders defend themselves against the occasional flurry of novice insurgents seeking democratic reform.

One lesson this complexity teaches is that there is no need for parties to run a primary -- i.e., the first-stage run-off -- election. A fair election process is needed to replace the current complex and easily manipulated process. A process run by parties, whether by means of caucuses or closed primaries, sustains the corrupt duopoly.

A second lesson that can be drawn from the complexity of the process is that it requires strategic leadership for insurgents to take control when they are in the majority. The Sanders campaign utterly failed to provide that leadership, and therefore sacrificed delegate strength at the 2020 National Convention. The lack of organization and leadership by the Sanders campaign of its insurgent majority also conceded future control of the Democratic party, which in Minnesota will remain in the hands of the Clinton establishment for this and the next election.

The strategic incompetence of the Sanders campaign has influenced the outcome of the 2016 election in many ways, of which the state convention gambit described here provides only one example. A short list would include its failure to take easily available steps to appeal to black women, failure to effectively expose Clinton's fundamental corruption, failure to focus on changing the rigged DNC primary election rules, failure to promote as a campaign priority a progressive recess appointment to fill the fortuitous and historic Scalia vacancy, wasting money "received from students struggling to repay their college loans, from seniors and disabled vets on Social Security, from workers earning starvation wages and even from people who were unemployed" on advertising instead of on the grass roots organizing needed to sustain a movement.

The illustration provided by this article about state conventions confirms the insider critique that "Campaign strategy was flawed, often prioritizing advertising over organizing." The young people who supported the campaign are entitled to be "pissed off that (Sanders' campaign) was foiled from the beginning" due to such strategic failure. Hopefully they will learn the key lesson of Sanders' failure which -- aside from witnessing a rigged undemocratic system -- is the primacy of competent strategy.

As Sanders contemplates a final acrobatic pivot from leading a nominal revolution against the corrupt global plutocracy that the Clinton organization represents to supporting Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump (who is largely opposed by that same plutocracy), he has announced his litmus test: "whether or not we are going to have a strong and progressive platform." Wasting the political capital gained by progressives in 2016 on the party platform would be perhaps the most incompetent strategy of all.

The Democratic Party platform could hardly have less strategic importance. A Sanders supporter on the Platform Committee, James Zogby, admits: "People don't read the platform after it's debated." It's debated before and at the Convention by ultimate insiders primarily as a test of strength, and has a shelf life even shorter than a Clinton policy position.

Even the faux-progressive New Republic's piece promoting the importance of the platform for "how lasting change gets forged" admitted the platform is usually perceived as "an afterthought," "a mere transposition of the victorious campaign's existing promises, set in bland enough language to not pin them down on any particular issue." It is designed, if used at all, to obscure, or lie to voters about, what Democratic candidates intend to do if elected. The platform is at most an indicator of how far and how cleverly the establishment will go in lying about their policy intentions in order to get an establishment candidate elected. But the platform has no bearing on what elected members of the party will actually do in a political system where voters have lost power to the plutocrats who pay to play.

In the past, prior to the systemic corruption of politics that followed the Supreme Court's Buckley v Valeo (1976) decision, a change of platform on the central issue of the era could have symbolic significance. For example, a revolutionary plank like the 1948 change of its platform by the Jim Crow Democratic Party to support civil rights could sink a significant stake in the ground indicating the future orientation of the party which was realized nearly two decades later when Lyndon Johnson adopted JFK's stalled legislative program in order to gain legitimacy after the assassination.

The central issue of the current post-Buckley era is the undermining of representative democracy by its loss of essential political integrity. The Democratic Party has none. It is sold out to plutocrats. Sanders supporters have witnessed that the Democratic Party is at least as corrupt as the Republican Party, is equally in thrall to Wall Street plutocrats and served by their propagandistic media. It operates an election apparatus more effective than the Republican Party's in frustrating a progressive majority from determining the outcome of primary elections and making a democratic choice of the party's nominee.

Where there is no integrity, promises made in the parties' platforms have no point except for use as a propaganda tool. Only the naive would think the Democratic Party could be trusted to carry out any of the progressive policies that Sanders might get inserted in its platform as a justification for executing his contorted pivot from revolution to collaboration. Since the country finds Clinton to be dishonest and untrustworthy, why should Sanders' supporters think otherwise about her verbal acceptance of any given progressive platform position? There is no evidence that Clinton even has any understanding of Sanders' key issue of restoring integrity to the political process.

Sanders can demonstrate that he does know how to accomplish this task by making the following four demands.

1. Integrity has been restored to politics in the past not by platform changes but by rules changes, such as the 1972 McGovern-Fraser rules changes which expanded the primary system and improved the caucus system. Integrity of the electoral process could be sought in the same way now, and Sanders does suggest he might pursue such change. Rules changes prior to the election, even prior to the Convention, are what must be demanded of the Democratic Party as a price for Sanders' supporters to support Clinton. But that is not all that should be given in exchange for this potentially decisive support.

2. Federal legislation could replace this broken primary system with a transparent run-off election process open to every citizen, with every vote reliably counted. The party duopoly would resist such legislation because it would undercut the parties' corrupt gatekeeping function, even though less than a third of Americans think the primary process is currently working. As another condition of throwing his support to her, Sanders could ask Clinton to submit to Congress such legislation within her first 100 days of her administration, along with comprehensive anti-corruption legislation to get money out of politics.

3. At his meeting with Sanders in the White House, Obama expressed his own interest in obtaining Sanders' support for helping Clinton to defeat his nemesis Donald Trump. Obama also has something important he can give in order to achieve his goal which is separate from what the Party and Clinton can give. Obama has nominated a plutocrat to the seat left vacant by Scalia. Obama's nominee voted for Speechnow.org, the case that legalized SuperPACs. This was a major plutocratic ruling for which Citizens United is often wrongly blamed. It opened the current floodgates for unlimited independent political investments. Garland's nomination provides Senate Republicans and their plutocratic bosses an option to perpetuate plutocratic rule at any time they determine they cannot get an even more committed right-wing plutocrat from the next president.

Sanders' whole campaign was about taking power back from the "billionaire class." As he said in his pre-capitulation speech his campaign was, first, "about ending a campaign finance system which is corrupt and allows billionaires to buy elections." Achieving this goal, short of capturing the nomination, will require overturning the Buckley v Valeo line of cases that alchemically converted plutocratic "campaign finance" money placed in the pockets of influence peddling politicians into protected "free speech. The Supreme Court's "money is speech" rulings have legalized systemic corruption of all levels of government. A single appointment now pending for the Supreme Court vacancy could accomplish the goal of overturning the whole line of "money is speech" decisions, not just the highly overrated Citizens United. There are four dissenters on the Court who may be ready to overturn Buckley if Obama could be persuaded to appoint a fifth strong progressive justice during Congress' Convention recess for the express purpose of leading these dissenting justices to that goal.

A recess appointment of a progressive justice vetted by Sanders could be made by Obama at the stroke of a pen prior to or even at the Convention. This appointment would be infinitely more important than any platform concession Sanders might receive, including the removal of Obama's party chair, which Obama refused to do. If Obama wants Clinton to succeed him, and prevent a victory by his nemesis Donald Trump -- which could be dangerous for them both -- this recess appointment is the price for Sanders encouraging his supporters to vote for Clinton. Obama's refusal should be reason for Sanders to advise his supporters to oppose Clinton in whatever way they choose. It would be a sign of the objective by Obama and Clinton to maintain a Court that will perpetuate plutocracy, which, unless they are ready to demonstrate otherwise, should be obvious in any event.

4. Minority Leader Harry Reid also met with Sanders after which he reported that Sanders is going to help Clinton defeat Trump. Did Sanders get anything in return from Harry Reid for this apparent concession? What Harry Reid could deliver is a commitment to work to change the Senate conflict of interest rule as the first order of business in the 115 ^th Congress. This could be done by adding to Rule 37 (4) of the Senate's Standing Rules the following language which, if enforced, could stop money in politics independent of any change in the Supreme Court: "Any gift made in the form of a campaign contribution or independent expenditure to or for a Member shall be deemed to implicate the pecuniary interest of that Member, if a reasonable person would find that such gift creates a conflict of interest."

This recusal requirement could accomplish the principal goal of Sanders' campaign to stop the influence peddling that has made Congress an agent of the "Billionaire Class." Sanders needs to make this new conflict of interest recusal rule his single litmus test of whether he will use his freshly acquired progressive political power to support or oppose his fellow Senators who are up for re-election in 2018. As the most powerful Senator, with the most powerful national support network, Sanders, with the pledged support of Reid, would have a credible chance of getting the rule adopted in January 2019, if not 2017, along with appropriate enforcement powers to go with it. This alone could open the door to adoption of Sanders' popular policy agenda.

If the presumptuous nominee is as pragmatic as she claims to be, she should be willing to support these four separate demands of herself, her Party apparatus, her patron Obama, and her supporter Harry Reid, as a means to gain the "Party unity" necessary to win election. If Sanders cannot secure these four concessions, he may as well run a third party effort to relieve a large share of the voting public from the agony of being forced by a broken primary system to choose between a corrupt, warmongering servant of plutocracy and a disagreeable, narcissistic and potentially bellicose plutocrat, both of whom -- unlike Sanders -- are justifiably distrusted and disliked by many more people than not.

Sanders' greatest deficit as a candidate was not his goals or ability to articulate them effectively, but his inability to convince some voters that he actually knows how to achieve his goals. By making these very particular demands of all parties concerned at this point he would demonstrate that he does know very specifically the strategies required to take democracy back from plutocrats, as will be necessary to move on to enacting his ambitious policy agenda. More importantly, he would also demonstrate that he is capable of using the power entrusted to him to negotiate effectively and boldly on behalf of those strategies.

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Rob Hager is currently writing a three-part book assessing proposals for ending the political influence of special interest money. The current eLibrary draft of the first part, Hillary Clinton's Dark Money Disclosure "Pillar," is available online.

(Article changed on June 18, 2016 at 18:16)

Authors Bio:
Rob Hager is a public-interest litigator who filed a Supreme Court amicus brief n the 2012 Montana sequel to the Citizens United case, American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock, and has worked as an international consultant on legal development and anti-corruption issues.