This article is based on interviews with the 93 superdelegates, out of 771 total, as well as party strategists and aides to senior Democrats about the thinking of party leaders. A vast majority of those superdelegates — whose ranks include federal elected officials, former presidents and vice presidents and D.N.C. members — predicted that no candidate would clinch the nomination during the primaries, and that there would be a brokered convention fight in July to choose a nominee.The alternative candidates mentioned in the article signal that the addled behavior of Joe Biden is a shared condition among the superdelegates:
In recent weeks, Democrats have placed a steady stream of calls to Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who opted against running for president nearly a year ago, suggesting that he can emerge as a white knight nominee at a brokered convention — in part on the theory that he may carry his home state in a general election.
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A number of superdelegates dream of a savior candidate who is not now in the race, perhaps Mr. Brown, or maybe someone who already dropped out the race, like Senator Kamala Harris of California.
Representative Don Beyer of Virginia cast an even wider net, suggesting senators from Virginia and Delaware, along with Ms. Pelosi, as possible nominees.
“At some point you could imagine saying, ‘Let’s go get Mark Warner, Chris Coons, Nancy Pelosi,’” he said, while preparing to introduce the former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend., Ind., at a campaign event near his home on Sunday. “Somebody that could win and we could all get behind and celebrate.”Democratic Party leadership is in denial. Nevada should have provided all the evidence needed that Sanders will be the nominee. But the prevailing attitude appears to be that Super Tuesday will distribute its pledged delegates in such a way that no clear winner is revealed. The problem here is this is not what the polling says. FiveThirtyEight, in a conservative model, predicts that Sanders will capture nearly twice the pledged delegates, 587 to 305, on Super Tuesday as his nearest competitor, Joe Biden.
Biden's performance on Super Tuesday is based on FiveThirtyEight's prediction that he is the odds-on favorite (three in four chances) to win South Carolina on Saturday. But there are indications that Biden is slipping in South Carolina. Tom Steyer has real support among African-American voters there. What is unclear is if that support is significant enough to tip the race to Bernie.
I guess what I'm driving at is the Democratic establishment plan to block Bernie at a brokered convention is looking more and more like a Rube Goldberg contraption: Biden has to win in a blowout on Saturday; followed by a "hung jury" on Super Tuesday; followed by another split decision on March 10 (Washington, Michigan); and so on. It could happen, but nothing, other than the hopes and prayers of superdelegates disconnected from a voting public they are supposed to represent, point in that direction.
The more likely outcome is that Bernie puts even more distance between himself and the pack on Super Tuesday, a day that could very well turn into a rout if Biden is upset in South Carolina this Saturday.
Then the superdelegates will have to surrender their fantasy of a brokered convention. At which point, I believe, post-March 10, you'll see Democratic power brokers establishing super PACs to attack their party's nominee; in other words, leaders of the Democratic Party working to elect Trump. As Lerer and Epstein mention:
While there is no widespread public effort underway to undercut Mr. Sanders, arresting his rise has emerged as the dominant topic in many Democratic circles. Some are trying to act well before the convention: Since Mr. Sanders won Nevada’s caucuses on Saturday, four donors have approached former Representative Steve Israel of New York to ask if he can suggest someone to run a super PAC aimed at blocking Mr. Sanders. He declined their offer.
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