- Last night, you may have seen the surprising news—first reported by the AP and then transmitted like a virus to every other major news outlet—that Hillary Clinton “clinched” the Democratic presidential nomination. To do so, she had to surpass the 2,383-delegate mark, just over the halfway point for the 4,765 total delegates available. Once she reached that milestone, it became mathematically impossible for anyone to beat her.
For those readers blessed with political savvy, something about the timing of this story might strike you as strange. How, you might ask yourself, could Hillary Clinton win on Monday night? There was no primary or caucus on Monday night, and as such there were no delegates available on Monday night. So what happened? Did Alabama cheat and hold a secret second primary?
Nope. What happened is that one AP reporter, Stephen Ohlemacher, called up some superdelegates—those party bigwigs whose influence in the primary is both undemocratic and overtly stifling— and extracted their commitment to support Clinton at the convention. With these new superdelegate supporters, he padded his numbers and essentially manufactured a Monday night win hours ahead of his competitors. This all went down on the eve of the last major set of primaries, when states like California and New Jersey were set to vote and play a major role in determining the mood of July’s national convention. The AP announcement was perfectly timed, if the goal was to have a chilling effect on those voters.
She hit 60% in California so that all but guarantees her the nod unless she gets indicted. At this point the R's want to run against her, so they are going to fight to not let that happen. Anyone out there on the Left, Time to start looking into the Congressional and State elections and start working there.