OPINION:
Oh, boy. Now Hillary Clinton’s team is saying Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders’ is rigging the system.
“When you talk about rigging the system, that’s what Sen. Sanders’ is trying to do now,” Brian Fallon, Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman, said on CNN Tuesday. “Hillary Clinton has won in the popular vote by a wide margin, she’s got more than 2 million votes over Sen. Sanders in all the contests when you add them all up.
“She’s won more states, she’s won more pledged delegates. So now that’s forcing Sen. Sanders to go out and talk about the idea that he wants to go out and flip superdelegates and get him to overturn the will of the people as expressed through who’s won the most contests,” Mr. Fallon said.
Mr. Sanders’ campaign is clearly frustrating the former secretary of state — who would prefer to have the nomination wrapped up and not get into a prolonged primary battle. After his win in Wyoming over the weekend, Mr. Sanders has won 15 states to Mrs. Clinton’s 18.
But he still desperately trails in votes and superdelegates. His disastrous performance on Super Tuesday, March 15, and among minority voters in general, has put him behind in the popular vote. And because delegates are awarded on a proportional basis in the Democratic contests, his big margin wins like those in Wisconsin, don’t translate into big delegate grabs.
Mr. Sanders has refused to back down and heads into New York primary with the wind at his back. His message of a rigged political system where establishment politicians fail to disrupt the status quo and financially benefit from it, is resonating.
It’s ironic, Mrs. Clinton’s team would use the words “rigged system” against him, being, that she quite literally is the embodiment of the elite political class he’s trying to combat. I don’t suspect that her message will resonate as much.
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