What would Josiah Bartlett do?

As I was reading this WSJ-article on how Clinton might not be the nominee, I wondered: how did the Democratic primaries turn into an episode of The West Wing?

Who here remembers Matt Santos? John Hoynes? If you don’t, please rewatch The West Wing episode ‘2162 votes’ (Season 6, Episode 22). (If that doesn’t ring any bell, take a long vacation, unplug your phone and bingewatch the most amazing tv-show ever created. It’s on Netflix.) The episode shows a fictional Democratic National Convention that turns into chaos and ultimately elects not the forerunner and presumptive nominee, but a young aspiring outsider. And if we believe Douglas E. Schoen, former political advisor and pollster for Bill Clinton and writer of this excellent article, a situation like that might arise at the actual Convention this summer.

Shoen argues that if Sanders wins California next week -which according to some polls is no longer a far-fetched hope for those feeling the Bern but an actual possibility- superdelegates that have endorsed Clinton up till now will start to question if they should switch camps. Additionally, ‘[t]here is every reason to believe that at the convention Mr. Sanders will offer a rules change requiring superdelegates to vote for the candidate who won their state’s primary or caucus. A vote on that proposed change would almost certainly occur — and it would function as a referendum on the Clinton candidacy. If Mr. Sanders wins California, Montana and North Dakota on Tuesday and stays competitive in New Jersey, he could well be within 200 pledged delegates of Mrs. Clinton, making a vote in favor of the rules change on superdelegates more likely.’

Adding that Clinton is not polling well against Trump while Sanders is and that Clinton is set to expect legal problems concerning the email scandal, Shoen foresees a convention in which a new candidate emerges. And that candidate would be Joe Biden (with Elizabeth Warren as a potential running mate).

I don’t think even Aaron Sorkin could have come up with that one.