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Glenn Fink
I am a musician/songwriter in Virginia originally from Boston!

A response to Michael Cohen’s Open Letter to Bernie Sanders.

This is in response to Michael Cohen’s Boston Globe opinion piece published today. From the piece:

“But here’s the thing — and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but maybe a little tough love is in order — you’re not going to win the Democratic nomination. This isn’t one of these “yeah, it’s a long shot, but maybe if I get lucky and everything goes my way” things. You’re not going to overcome Hillary Clinton’s lead in pledged delegates and you’re certainly not going to convince super delegates to vote for you over her.”

Mr. Cohen, let’s take into consideration these factors.

  1. A number of superdelegates hold public office, and many of those are up for re-election this fall. Clinton only added 31 delegates to her lead after New York, and has a real lead of 235 pledged delegates. There are still 1400 pledged delegates to win. So I would respectfully disagree with your assertion that Sanders can’t win in pledged delegates. It would also give Clinton a falsely inflated support reading if she were the only candidate, which may give the idea she has a mandate — something I am sure the DLC would love, but isn’t good for the rest of us.
  2. If Sanders ends with more delegates than Clinton, even if not enough to clinch, those superdelegates not concerned about their own election fallout may have to decide if it’s worth staying on Wasserman-Shultz’s good side to nominate Clinton, or if they should give more weight to the short-term ability of the Democratic Party to avoid losing significant support. And, such a move would make it even harder for Clinton to win in the general election, where she’s already looking at less than a landslide victory with some candidates, and is currently predicted to lose to Kasich by a wide margin if he gets the nomination.

It may come down to what is most politically expedient when the moment comes, and so there is indeed still not just a long shot, but a real possibility, that Sanders could wind up the nominee. I know it’s tempting to discount, but the same people making these predictions also did not count on Sanders, nor Trump, having this much public support at this late stage. They were wrong once, and they can be wrong again.

Don’t count those superdelegates before they vote.