The analogy to this primary isn't to a sport, it's to chess.

[YouDig]

In major pro sports teams never quit until the last whistle. It's not part of the way the game is played. But in primary politics, as well as in chess, resigning when there's no path to victory is common. Top-level chess games almost never get played out to checkmate. When a player realizes it's truly hopeless, that player resigns the game.

And the other thing that happens in chess is, when you're ahead, you want to trade pieces, because the less pieces left, the more significant even a pawn advantage becomes.

So where are we now? Hillary is up by about three pawns, the queens are gone, the bishops are gone, and two of the rooks are off the table. She's got a solid pawn structure and she just exchanged the last pair of knights in Indiana. A few pawns will be traded in the next few weeks, and then on June 5 the rooks get exchanged. Bernie with a heroic effort might win one of his pawns back, but even then she'll still have an easy KPP vs K endgame.

Of course, there's no rule that the losing player has to resign. It's perfectly legal to play it out to the bitter end. The commentators are going to start talking about how it's hopeless and at some point even an insult to the game itself to force your opponent to go through the steps from a position that a 5 year old couldn't lose. But carrying on out of spite is legal. If you really want to be a sore loser, you can play the game down until it's mate in one, then just sit there and watch the clock run out so that you lose on time instead of giving your opponent the mate or resignation.

But if you do that, don't be surprised if you don't get invited back to many other tournaments.

[Dem2]

1. As a chess player, I appreciate the analogy, you dig?

have a free

[TheSarcastinator]

2. Is It 3-Dimensional Chess???

Hillary-ous.

[yesphan]

3. well isn't that

clever ?

[NWCorona]

4. Bernie has plenty of time left on the clock nt

[GummyBearz]

5. Good analogy

In my last chess game I sacrificed my queen in order to promote a lowly pawn which checkmated my opponent. Sacrificing queen hillary to promote bernie is genius

[bvf]

6. Interesting analogy. Of course, that last rook exchange

might have resulted in doubled pawns on the QR file, with the lone opposing king firmly ensconced in the queening corner.

[LWolf]

7. My students

placed higher in our state tournament this year by not resigning.

Instead, they stayed in and forced a stalemate. The way the tournament is scored, that gave each of the half a point. They all ended up ranked higher than they would have if they'd just resigned.

No, they didn't take first place, although they did well. Of course, those players who took first place didn't lose ANY matches, let alone 18 and counting, so your metaphor falls apart at that point.

[YouDig]

8. I think Bernie would do great in a student council election.

[LWolf]

10. He's doing great in the Democratic Primaries.

Because he doesn't quit, there's still an admittedly small chance of becoming the nominee. Faced with Clinton, I'll take whatever small chance he's got.

If he doesn't win this one, he'll be back fighting the fight in the Senate, and we'll move on; we'll take the fight down ticket, and we'll take the fight outside the party when necessary.

We're not going anywhere, regardless of the nomination.

[rock]

9. I love it when they play it out to the bitter end

They have a totally lost game, so you can lean back and enjoy every crushing move you make. The painful look on their panicked face is, well, funny. How did Fischer put it,"I like the moment I break a man’s ego.” Not a nice guy you say? Well, a loser can quit any time he's had enough!

[JoePhilly]

11. Finally, a good chess analogy on DU.

Most times when some one on DU makes a chess analogy, it quickly becomes clear the person is a patzer.

[bvf]

12. Surprising that nobody's brought up

a triangulation analogy yet.