Democrats Change Party Rules To Please The Berniecrats

(This caricature of the Democratic donkey is by DonkeyHotey.)

Many of Bernie Sanders supporters claimed that their candidate lost in 2016 because the Democratic Party rules were not fair. It wasn't true, but I guess it made them feel better. The truth was that most Democrats simply preferred Hillary Clinton as their nominee rather than a candidate ashamed to wear the Democratic Party label.

The biggest gripe the Berniecrats had was the SuperDelegates. They were upset that most SuperDelegates supported and voted for Clinton. They claimed that allowing SuperDelegates to support the candidate of their choice was unfair, and they wanted the party to do away with the SuperDelegates.

Last Saturday, the Democratic Party gave in to those Bernie supporters and changed the party's primary rules. They hoped the rule changes would satisfy those voters and keep them in the party. The two biggest changes are:

1. The party keeps SuperDelegates, but they will not have a vote in the first round of convention voting. SuperDelegates will vote only if no candidate gets a majority of pledged delegate votes in the first round (an event that is very unlikely).

2. The party is urging states to abandon the caucus system and go to a primary system -- or to count the absentee ballots at the caucus of those unable to attend. And it looks like several states will follow the party's wishes and moved to a primary vote system.

The crazy part of all this is that if these rules had been in effect in 2016, Bernie Sanders would still have lost and Hillary Clinton would still have been the nominee. With SuperDelegates, Clinton had 2,842 delegate votes, while Sanders had 1,865 delegate votes. But if you take away all the SuperDelegate votes, Clinton would still have won the nomination -- with 2,205 pledged delegate votes to 1,846 pledged delegate votes for Sanders.

The Berniecrats are celebrating the party changes, and I guess that's OK if it keeps them as Democratic voters. But actually the rules may hurt Sanders more than it helps (if he were to run again). That's because he did much better in caucus states than in primary states -- and several states are in the process of changing from a caucus state to a primary state.