Three Big Reasons Bernie Failed

Daniel R. DePetris

Politics, United States

Sanders' strategic problems led to his defeat.

Unfortunately for Bernie Sanders, presidential politics is all about the math. Hillary Clinton increased her delegate lead over Sanders on a night that Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver were banking would be a solid performance for their boss. Instead, Sanders was butchered: he lost by 12 points in California and 26 points in New Jersey. Hillary has the majority of pledged delegates and the massive majority of superdelegates. Bernie has, well…not enough.

Here are the top three reasons why Sanders couldn’t drag his political revolution across the finish line:

1. The Detested Superdelegates

Superdelegates are the definition of elitist. They are the elected politicians, ex-politicians, state chairman, and people that operate the Democratic Party who are afforded the luxury of voting for whomever they want regardless of how their state votes. They can also change their minds and switch their allegiance to another candidate as many times as they’d like before the Democratic convention gavels in.

Sanders and millions of his supporters portray the superdelegates as the holy-grail of what it means to be part of the establishment. And he isn’t alone: you have some superdelegates that think there shouldn’t be any superdelegates at all. Yet no amount of complaining helps you win superdelegates, and Sanders learned that the hard way.

He started his campaign with a massive hole in superdelegates. Hundreds upon hundreds signed up for Clinton’s campaign before he even joined the race last spring. It may be unfair, but it’s the way the system works. The final superdelegate count as of June 8 is HRC: 574, Bernie: 48. You simply can’t win the Democratic nomination when the scales are tipped against you in that way ‹ doubly so if you cannot even convince a single Clinton superdelegate to jump ship and join the Sanders revolution instead.