Unconventional #19: Bernie Sanders’ radical plan for Philadelphia (and more!)

Unconventional is Yahoo News’ complete guide to what could be the craziest presidential conventions in decades. Here’s what you need to know today.

1. Did Sanders just get one step closer to winning the platform fight in Philadelphia?

Key Race Alert! Bernie Sanders is not going to win the Democratic presidential nomination this summer in Philadelphia.

The Self-Described Democratic Socialist™ currently trails Hillary Clinton by 272 pledged delegates. Over the last four months, Sanders has earned 3,033,824 fewer votes from actual human beings than his rival from New York. A candidate needs 2,383 total delegates to clinch the nomination — and right now, Clinton has 2,309, which puts her on track to hit the magic number as soon as the polls close in New Jersey on June 7. In light of this math, Democratic superdelegates — i.e., the party regulars who currently prefer Clinton to Sanders by a margin of 540 to 42 — will not see any reason to switch sides and coronate Sanders at the convention, no matter how many times Sanders insists that they might.

And yet, while the senator from Vermont won’t be facing off against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump this November, he and his supporters did receive some good news about the convention earlier this week. On Monday, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced that she had allowed Sanders to pick five members of the party’s 15-person platform drafting committee — only one fewer than Clinton. Usually, the DNC chair chooses the committee herself (in consultation with the White House or the winning candidate); this year she struck a deal with both campaigns to “make this the most representative and inclusive process in history” by awarding 75 percent of the seats in proportion with the current popular-vote tally.

Sanders’ supporters applauded the unusual arrangement, claiming that the senator’s “influence over one-third of the party’s platform drafting committee could potentially help to transform U.S. progressive politics for years to come.”

Sanders also sounded pleased. “With five good members on the platform drafting committee,” the candidate told reporters Monday after a rally in California, “we will be in a very strong position to fight for an economy that works for all of our people, not just the 1 percent, to fight to break up the large banks on Wall Street, who in my view now have much too much economic and political power. We will be in a position to fight for a carbon tax, so that this nation can begin to lead the world in aggressively addressing climate change. We will be in a position to fight to have the United States join the rest of the industrialized world in guaranteed health care as a right.”

Sanders even predicted that the convention could be “messy” as a result, telling the Associated Press that “If you want everything to be quiet and orderly and allow … things to proceed without vigorous debate, that is not what democracy is about.”

Is Sanders right? Will Philly really be messy because of the platform — a nonbinding document that previous presidential nominees have routinely ignored? Can Sanders actually make a difference here?

The answer may, in fact, be yes — just not in the way you think. To see why, you have to understand how the platform process works.

First things first: the committee on which Sanders just won a bunch of seats isn’t the platform committee; it’s the platform drafting committee. They’re different. The platform committee is made up of 186 members: 157 from the states, four from the territories and 25 from the same pool as the superdelegates. It meets shortly before the convention to discuss, amend and vote on each plank of a draft platform — which only becomes the party’s actual platform if a majority of the committee and a majority of the delegates at the convention vote for it. The platform drafting committee assembles earlier to prepare the draft platform.

In 2012, this meeting was peaceful — a three-day gathering of likeminded Barack Obama loyalists in an anonymous Minneapolis conference room. The 2016 edition will not be nearly as chummy. Why? Because Sanders has already announced which planks and positions he plans to push for, and Clinton & Co. disagree with all of them: a $15-per-hour federal minimum wage, a European-style tax on carbon emissions to curb climate change, a hard asset cap on the big banks (which would force them to shrink themselves), a single-payer healthcare system, tuition-free public colleges and universities, and a friendlier posture toward the Palestinians.

This is where Sanders’ appointees come in. Unlike Clinton’s establishment picks, Sanders’ selections — radical black intellectual Cornel West, hardcore climate activist Bill McKibben, Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Keith Ellison, Muslim rights spokesperson James Zogby, and Native American tribal rights leader Deborah Parker — are “primarily progressive firebrands known, like Sanders, for rejecting half-measures and seeking to exert pressure from outside the mainstream.” West, for instance, has described Barack Obama as America’s “first ‘n*****ized’ president” and Clinton as a “milquetoast neoliberal”; at least three of Sanders’ five emissaries have been arrested in the past few years for acts of civil disobedience.

These are not go-along-to-get-along types; they are agitators and activists unafraid of whacking the hornet’s nest (and adept at attracting media attention whenever they do). They won’t be able to singlehandedly steamroll the rest of the committee and “transform U.S. progressive politics for years to come.” But it’s equally hard to imagine them coming to some sort of “Kumbaya” consensus with the Clintonites or downplaying that lack of consensus in the press. If compromise is what Sanders wanted, he would’ve named some very different names.

Instead, Sanders probably wants the platform drafting committee to become a flashpoint. He probably wants it to seem unsatisfactory — yet another rigged establishment boondoggle that Cornel West & Co. can use to rally the troops and keep them “fighting” the system all the way to Philadelphia. And Sanders probably wants to stand before a microphone in the run-up to the convention and deliver the following ultimatum: The platform isn’t settled. The planks haven’t been nailed down. The party hasn’t come together. If my people don’t get their way when the platform committee meets — if the final platform presented to the delegates in Philadelphia doesn’t reflect my policies — then we will bring each and every one of them to the convention floor for a vote.

This would not be an idle threat. According to the DNC rulebook, any amendment that fails on a majority vote during the platform committee meeting can still be brought to convention floor as a “minority report” if 25 percent of the committee supports it. And because Sanders will have approximately 46 percent of this year’s total pledged delegates, he will control more than 40 percent of the platform committee. In other words, Sanders will have the power to force floor votes on the minimum wage, Medicare for All, and Israel vs. Palestine, among other uncomfortable issues, thereby transforming what could have been an infomercial about brotherly love into a non-stop “Democrats in Disarray” fustercluck.

Or at least that would be the threat.

At this point, Clinton would have to make a decision. She will have the numbers — clear majorities on the platform committee and among the delegates at large — to kill Sanders’ amendments. But she won’t have the numbers to silence the debate. Will preserving her vision of the platform be worth the risk of losing control of her own convention and departing Philadelphia with Democrats still divided?

What should be clear by now to anyone who’s been paying attention is that Sanders isn’t trying to win the nomination; he’s trying to win as much leverage as he can before Philly.

He basically said as much after tanking in the so-called Acela Primary last month. “The people in every state in this country should have the right to determine who they want as president and what the agenda of the Democratic Party should be,” Sanders declared. “That is why this campaign is going to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia with as many delegates as possible to fight for a progressive party platform.” [Emphasis added]

At least in this regard, Sanders isn’t the impractical dreamer his opponents make him out to be. He’s actually a steely negotiator.

So far, his plan seems to be working. Instead of dropping out when his path to the nomination became mathematically prohibitive, Sanders kept driving a wedge between his supporters and Clinton’s, depressing her general election numbers and weakening her bargaining position. The more Clinton needs “party unity,” his thinking likely goes, the more she’ll be willing to offer for it. This is probably why Sanders is speculating about a “messy” convention and refusing to apologize for his delegates’ rowdy behavior in Nevada — because it encourages Clinton and the DNC to give him what he wants (like, say, five seats on the platform drafting committee).

In the last closely contested Democratic nomination battle, Clinton actually won more popular votes than her rival. But she bailed a few days after the final primaries because there was nothing to keep fighting about. She and Obama agreed on pretty much everything.

Sanders is different. He doesn’t always agree with Clinton. He thinks his ideas are the future of the progressive movement. And he wants — and believes he deserves — to leave a lasting mark on the party. If Sanders and his supporters can define what it means to be a Democrat in 2016 — however nonbinding that definition may be — it would validate their views and shift the center of Democratic gravity even further in their direction.

The question now is whether Sanders can scare Clinton into letting him do it.

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2. Trump hits the magic 1,237-delegate mark. What does it mean for the GOP?

On Thursday, Yahoo Guest Editor Stephanie Sy spoke with Washington Examiner columnist and Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson about the news that Donald Trump has won enough delegates to clinch the Republican nomination — and what it means for the future of the GOP.

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3. The Clinton Veepwatch, Vol. 4: Julián Castro

In which Unconventional examines the likely Democratic nominee’s possible — and not-so-possible — vice-presidential picks. Previous installments: Elizabeth Warren, Tim Kaine, Mark Cuban.

Name: Julián Castro

Age: 41

Resume: U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, former mayor of San Antonio, Tex.

Source of speculation: Everyone, everywhere, all the time. Seriously: There’s probably no American politician whose name has appeared alongside the words “vice president,” “VP,” “veep” or “running mate” more often than Castro. It’s right there in the third sentence of his Wikipedia entry: “Castro has been mentioned as a possible nominee for vice president in 2016 under Hillary Clinton, for whom he has actively campaigned.”

As early as June 2015, Politico was reporting that “the Democratic National Convention isn’t for 13 months, and Hillary Clinton isn’t the party’s nominee, but some Hispanic Democratic leaders are already pushing hard for Julián Castro to be her running mate — or at least a top contender for the job.”

Castro endorsed Clinton soon after, during a big Latino-centric rally in his hometown of San Antonio. Selena played on the soundtrack; “Yo estoy contigo,” Clinton declared. But all the talk was about how the two Dems looked like a ticket.

“If the buzz about Julián Castro’s vice presidential prospects wasn’t deafening before last week, it is now,” wrote the Texas Tribune.

Asked at the time whether she would consider Castro for VP, Clinton publicly fanned the flames. “I am going to look really hard at him for anything,” Clinton said, “because that’s how good he is.”

In January, the national Hispanic Chamber of Commerce issued a formal endorsement of Castro for vice president — even though it hadn’t yet endorsed a candidate for president.

And when Castro flew to Iowa to stump for Clinton in the final days before the caucuses, the move was widely interpreted as an audition for the running-mate role. “A Clinton-Castro ticket gets put to an early test,” read the L.A. Times headline.

“I heard Clinton might pick you for vice president,” a Latino worker told Castro during a stop in Ottumwa.

Castro flashed a toothy smile. “Quién sabe,” he answered, shaking his head. Who knows?

Backstory: As I wrote a few years ago, the buzz around Castro began in 2012. In case you don’t remember, Castro is the guy — slight build, slick black hair, big bashful grin — Barack Obama handpicked to deliver the keynote address at that year’s Democratic National Convention, in Charlotte, N.C. — the same venue that had propelled Obama into the political stratosphere eight years earlier. Castro was all over the news that summer. Stanford undergrad. Harvard Law. Elected to the San Antonio City Council at 26. Mayor at 34. “The Post-Hispanic Politician.” “The Latino Obama.” He came, he spoke — “of a generation born as the Cold War receded, shaped by the tragedy of 9/11, connected by the digital revolution” — and he conquered, becoming, for a few news cycles, at least, the Democratic Party’s great brown hope.

It didn’t take long for the national buzz to fade. It never does. But Castro kept working hard: first in San Antonio, where he focused on his sweeping, progressive plan designed to “transform San Antonio into a world-class city by the year 2020” — less driving, more public transportation; less pollution, more green jobs; less sprawl, more growth downtown; and a stronger public education system, above all else — and later in Washington, D.C., as Obama’s HUD secretary.

Castro has always been openly, guilelessly ambitious — as mayor he talked about running for governor of Texas and/or president someday — so when Clinton announced her 2016 campaign, he had a decision to make. Would he continue to toil in relative obscurity as a low-level Cabinet secretary? Or would he enter the fray and compete for the VP gig?

Castro chose the latter. As Politico reported in January, “At home, Julián Castro’s been spending more time reading and watching television in Spanish, trying to get his speaking skills up to speed. On the job as Housing and Urban Development secretary, he’s been carefully working the levers in Washington, with coaching from Bill Clinton and a twin brother who’s a popular and up-and-coming congressman himself. … He’s plotted his rise carefully, studying and strategizing with a clear goal in sight.”

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Castro’s allies have been lobbying on his behalf for nearly a year now. Henry Cisneros — a Castro mentor who was also San Antonio mayor, HUD secretary, and, in 1984, a vice-presidential contender — told Politico that he tries to sell Clinton on his fellow Texan every chance he gets.

“When you consider all of the balancing factors — female/male, baby boomer/gen X, traditional American/minority American, Northeastern-Midwestern orientation/Southwestern orientation, long heritage in office/representative of a new generation,” Cisneros said, “a lot of things suggest a very nice pairing.”

Odds: For a long time, Cisneros was right: Clinton-Castro seemed like a perfect pairing.

But the odds of Castro joining Clinton’s ticket have plummeted in recent months.

For one thing, the Clinton camp — and Bill Clinton in particular — long assumed that Hillary would be facing off against Florida Sen. Marco Rubio in November. Choosing Castro would be a crafty way to keep Latino voters from defecting to the other charismatic young Latino candidate on the ballot. But now, with Rubio on the sidelines and a man who calls Mexican immigrants “rapists” as the GOP nominee, Clinton should have no problem persuading Latinos to turn out for her. In a battle against Trump, Clinton’s bigger concern will be white working-class men from Rust Belt states such as Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Castro would do little to help her there.

Secondly, Clinton didn’t see Bernie Sanders coming. With the Vermont senator continuing to pull the Democratic Party to the left — potentially through the convention — it’s looking increasingly likely that Clinton will have to bypass a postpartisan pol such as Castro in favor of a running mate who can soothe disgruntled Sanders fans and shore up her liberal support.

For months now, in fact, Castro has been criticized by liberals for facilitating the sale of thousands of foreclosed houses to Wall Street firms at steep discounts through HUD’s Distressed Assets Stabilization Program (DASP). Castro recently announced changes to the program — changes that seem designed (as Politico put it) to “defuse an issue that activists have been using to question his progressive credentials” just as “the running mate search has begun to get serious at Clinton campaign headquarters.” But it may be too little too late.

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4. The GOP’s “intellectual prodigy” on Ryan vs. Trump — and the continuing “demand” for a Trump alternative

Earlier this week, Yahoo News Senior Political Correspondent Jon Ward interviewed Yuval Levin, founding editor of National Affairs magazine, about his new book, “The Fractured Republic: Renewing America’s Social Contract in the Age of Individualism.” Watch the whole thing above. It’s a fascinating conversation about the future of conservative politics and why America is paralyzed by nostalgia.

But for convention watchers like us, the key part of the interview was when Levin, who is widely considered one of the GOP’s most influential thinkers and writers, discussed House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the most prominent Republican leader to decline — at least so far — to endorse presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. Levin, it’s worth noting, is an informal Ryan adviser.

“It doesn’t seem like [Ryan] is inclined to embrace [Trump] completely and endorse him,” Levin revealed. “But, obviously, he is going to be under intense pressure. He is speaker of the House; he is going to be the chairman of the Republican convention most likely. He is in a tough spot if he doesn’t want to support the party’s nominee.”

Try imagining that: a convention chaired by someone who hasn’t even endorsed his party’s nominee. Says a lot about how wild this summer could wind up being — as does Levin’s claim that a third-party challenge to Trump and Clinton is still “possible.”

Here’s the full exchange:

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5. The best of the rest

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History lesson

To see what Bernie Sanders is hoping to accomplish with his Philadelphia platform fight — and what Hillary Clinton fears will happen if Sanders takes that fight to the floor — look no further than two previous Democratic conventions, 40 years apart.

In 1948, Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey, who was running for the Senate at the time, defied incumbent President Harry Truman and brought a minority report endorsing civil rights to the convention floor for a vote. In the end, by a very narrow margin, the convention adopted Humphrey’s minority plank. But about three dozen Deep South delegates — including the entire Mississippi delegation and half of the Alabama delegation — left the convention and nominated their own Dixiecrat candidate for president, Gov. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, as a result. The pundits predicted that Truman would lose the south in November, and in part, he did (to Thurmond). But Truman also won record support from black voters in Chicago and Cleveland — enough to (barely) propel him past Republican Thomas Dewey in both Illinois (by 0.85 percent) and Ohio (by 0.24 percent) and keep him in the White House. The Democratic Party was never the same after that.

In 1988, on the other hand, the Rev. Jesse Jackson won 10 states and 1,075 delegates, coming in second to Michael Dukakis, who, like Clinton this year, needed superdelegates to put him over the top. Like Sanders, Jackson played the leverage game. He withheld his endorsement. He demanded vice-presidential consideration. And with 26 percent of the delegates behind him, he produced minority reports on 13 separate issues, forcing votes on a proposal to raise taxes on corporations and high-income Americans and a plank foreswearing the “first use” of nuclear weapons as well as an uncomfortable floor fight over “self-determination” for Palestinians.

As Bill Scher has written, “The process exposed party divisions and became fodder for conservatives. Dukakis was soon to be hammered as a ‘liberal’ by Republicans and beaten in a landslide. He was arguably hurt from the left as well. Dukakis’ aides later groused that Jackson’s provocations contributed to a 4.3 percent drop in black turnout from the previous presidential election.”

If Clinton caves to Sanders’ platform demands, this will be why. Nobody wants to be the next Michael Dukakis.

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Countdown

For the latest data, make sure to check the Yahoo News delegate scorecard and primary calendar.