No, that's not a joke.
Sanders said he wanted to go into the Democratic National Convention this summer with more pledged delegates than Clinton. He acknowledged that it would be an "uphill fight" to do so.According to Real Politics, Clinton has 1769 pledged delegates, and 541 super delegates. This means she needs 72 delegates to win the nomination. Sanders has 1499 pledged delegates, and 43 super delegates. He needs 840 delegates to win the nomination.*
Sanders also said his campaign would talk to the superdelegates in states where he had won "landslide victories" and tell them to, "Do what the people in your state want. They voted for Bernie Sanders, you as the superdelegates should follow their wishes."
The Vermont senator went on to say that he would also talk with the superdelegates who sided with Clinton before the primary votes were cast.
"We're going to make the case for the superdelegates, "Your job is to make sure that Trump is defeated, that Bernie Sanders, in fact, for a variety of reasons, not just polling, is the strongest candidate.'"
Todd told Sanders he was contradicting himself.
"You're saying you want them to respect the vote in their state, then at the same time, you say, 'But oh, by the way, for those of you that are a superdelegate in a state that Clinton won, why don't you think about the general election?' It's a little bit hypocritical to be on both sides of those issues," Todd said.
"No, no, no, that's not what I'm saying," Sanders responded, arguing that the superdelegates have a "grave responsibility" to make sure presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump doesn't become president.
There are only 784 delegates left to win. He would have to win them all, plus swing 56 of Clinton's super delegates to his side. There are no winner-take-all primaries in the Democratic primary. Sanders fight for pledged delegates alone is pyrrhic. His fight for super delegates is down right delusional.
Nevertheless, to his supporters he's a man of principles.
"These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others."
*Fun with numbers: if you leave out the hated super delegates (hated by the Sanders supporters), the total number of delegates in the Democratic party is 4051 (with the supers, it's 4763). 2382 is the bare minimum number of delegates needed to win the nomination, but take out the supers and the minimum would be 2026 delegates.
Clinton has 1769; Sanders has 1499. If super delegates didn't matter at all, Clinton would need 257 delegates, or 33% of the remaining delegates, to win; Sanders would need 527, or 67% of the remaining delegates. I don't know the allocation rules of the remaining primaries, but that would require a victory by Sanders on every remaining primary that he hasn't seen outside of Vermont.
This race is over.
I hate to say it but I can't help wonder if his persistence in this has something to do with the implosion of Burlington College under the leadership of Jane Sanders. I'm at a loss to see anything that can be expected to come out of Sanders tearing down the Democratic candidate which he is supposed to favor. It certainly hasn't been a good spring for the Sanders, having her conduct while president of that college exposed and him destroying his reputation and the left.
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