Bernie's down to his last Hail Mary. And it won't work.
The realization that Bernie can't catch up in pledged delegates is sinking in with his campaign and his fans. You've Jeff Weaver talking about a contested convention and wooing superdelegates to overturn the pledges. Even HA Goodman is writing about how Bernie's going to win with supers. (Interestingly, none of the Bernie fans that were so adamantly opposed to superdelegates earlier in the race seem to have any problem with Bernie's plan to subvert the will of the electorate).
But it's not going to work. Here's why.
There is exactly one argument that Bernie can use to woo superdelegates: that he's doing better in GE polls against Trump. The problem is, supers aren't stupid, they are seasoned politicians. They know that GE polls this early don't carry much information, and this is particularly true for Bernie, who's never been attacked by the GOP.
If Bernie were to become the candidate, here is a partial list of things that very few Americans know now, but 100% of Americans would know before November:
Bernie's healthcare plan will take away every single American's private coverage (about 65% Americans are happy with their current coverage) and replace it with a government plan.
Also, his healthcare plan was rejected by his home state because the taxes required were too big.
Bernie's honeymoon was in the USSR.
Earlier in his political career, Bernie was an outright socialist, advocating things like public ownership of the means of production.
Bernie is on video saying good things about the likes of Fidel Castro.
He's written some pretty creepy essays.
And this is a very partial list. Everything on this list is 100% true, but the GOP doesn't mind stretching or outright breaking the truth. Moreover, there hasn't been any real oppo research done on Bernie, so who knows what other crazy stuff the GOP will find in his past.
Now, here's the thing. Bernie fans are going to respond by saying that nobody is going to care about that stuff, and that people love Bernie because of his socialism and not in spite of it, and blah blah blah. Those arguments mean nothing. Like I said, superdelegates aren't dumb, they know the electorate. They know that running on a massive middle class tax hike is a loser. They know that the GOP will tear apart single payer.
Which means that, no matter how much Bernie fans deface the facebook pages of superdelegates, and now matter how many threatening phone calls Bernie fans make to superdelegates in the middle of the night, the supers aren't going to overturn the will of the electorate in order to nominate a guy that the GOP will crush.
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Michael Dukakis had a seventeen point lead after the Convention and lost by eight points. That's a twenty five point swing:
That is because a lot of things Dukakis couldn't be hit with in a Democratic primary he could be hit with in a general election.
