The Sanders nuclear option: How would it play out?

[Dr. Arch]

This is annoying.

In what sense?

[Xing]

Weaver really needs to watch what he says more. I know that Sanders won't actually try to do this, but still.

[Landslide Lyndon]

That Weaver guy needs to go back to his comic book store and stay there forever.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Seriously, they need to stop with that bullsh*t.

[Ronnie]

Sanders and Kasich's top strategists both have the surname Weaver.  Funny coinkydink.

But yeah, it's obviously not going to happen.  It's uncertain whether the superdelegates would flock to him en masse even if he did win the pledged delegate count.

[Gass3268]

This is annoying.

In what sense?

This is not the route the Sanders campaign should be taking. It only makes things more complicated. In reality he has so much more control over the long term future of the party than Clinton does if he plays his cards right, but going about it this way will make that almost impossible.

He should drop this foolish strategy, drop the attacks on Clinton, refocus on his issues/message, and make his goal to push the party leftward and radically transform the process in which future nominees will be chosen in the future.

[Ebsy]

It makes sense that the Sanders campaign would repeatedly undermine the legitimacy of the primaries if they were planning on overturning the result using undemocratic caucuses and superdelegates, a system that Tad Devine created.

[IceSpear]

This is annoying.

In what sense?

This is not the route the Sanders campaign should be taking. It only makes things more complicated. In reality he has so much more control over the long term future of the party than Clinton does if he plays his cards right, but going about it this way will make that almost impossible.

He should drop this foolish strategy, drop the attacks on Clinton, refocus on his issues/message, and make his goal to push the party leftward and radically transform the process in which future nominees will be chosen in the future.

That's true. If he plays his cards right, he could have a lot of influence. But if he goes scorched earth, he'll burn all his bridges. Senate Democrats would not tolerate him going on a crusade to overturn the election results throughout the summer. He'd be facing possible repercussions in the Senate similar to Lieberman. Many of the activist progressive groups like MoveOn and DFA would turn against him on principle. His movement would go up in smoke and leave only Reddit fanboys left. It would be an utter disaster for him.

But that's all hypothetical. This is clearly just more bluster and talking out his ass from Weaver. As far as I can tell, nothing Sanders himself has said has signaled he'd want to do this, and one of his other top strategists didn't seem keen on the idea either.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It makes sense that the Sanders campaign would repeatedly undermine the legitimacy of the primaries if they were planning on overturning the result using undemocratic caucuses and superdelegates, a system that Tad Devine created.

Tad Devine created caucuses and superdelegates?

[Ebsy]

It makes sense that the Sanders campaign would repeatedly undermine the legitimacy of the primaries if they were planning on overturning the result using undemocratic caucuses and superdelegates, a system that Tad Devine created.

Tad Devine created caucuses and superdelegates?

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/super-delegates-center-democratic-nomination-fight-again-n516891

Ironically, Tad Devine, Sanders' top adviser, who was instrumental in the creation of the superdelegate process, defended their existance.

"It's pretty hard to win a nomination in a contested race and almost impossible to win without the superdelegeates," Devine said in 2008 in an interview on NPR.

Now, Devine's boss, who is running on an anti-establishment message is losing the superdelegate race.

Tad Devine routinely wrote pieces in 2008 about superdelegates and was basically the expert on them. He obviously didn't create caucuses.

[Gass3268]

It makes sense that the Sanders campaign would repeatedly undermine the legitimacy of the primaries if they were planning on overturning the result using undemocratic caucuses and superdelegates, a system that Tad Devine created.

Tad Devine created caucuses and superdelegates?

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/super-delegates-center-democratic-nomination-fight-again-n516891

Ironically, Tad Devine, Sanders' top adviser, who was instrumental in the creation of the superdelegate process, defended their existance.

"It's pretty hard to win a nomination in a contested race and almost impossible to win without the superdelegeates," Devine said in 2008 in an interview on NPR.

Now, Devine's boss, who is running on an anti-establishment message is losing the superdelegate race.

Tad Devine routinely wrote pieces in 2008 about superdelegates and was basically the expert on them. He obviously didn't create caucuses.

Looking at is wiki, Devine's major clients have been Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, and Sanders, lol! Not the most successful group.

[Dr. Arch]

If Bernie doesn't disavow (or if he decides to embrace) this approach soon, I might find myself reconsidering my opinion of him even though I almost entirely agree with him on the issues.

[Mr. Morden]

Weaver has now partially backed off of his previous comments on this.  He was on WADR last night, and was asked about this topic.  Watch from the ~18:10 mark in the video here:

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/videos/2016-04-20/with-all-due-respect-04-20-16

He said that they’re only going to go “nuclear” and refuse to concede if they’re first able to “substantially close the [pledged] delegate lead” of Clinton by winning a bunch of the remaining contests, thereby ending the primaries with momentum.  He said it would be “fruitless” to try this if the final pledged delegate margin is as big as the current one.

So I guess they’re not going to do this unless (at minimum) Sanders wins California.