Unconventional #27: How realistic is Sanders’ convention wish list? Plus: the rules nerd behind the new push to ‘free the delegates’ in Cleveland (and more!)

Andrew Romano
·National Correspondent

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. Bernie’s wish list: which of his demands will be met at the convention — and which won’t

Little-known fact: Bernie Sanders is still (technically) running for president.

It’s true. Even though you no longer see him railing against billionaires on TV, and even though he delivered what sounded a lot like a concession speech two days after losing the June 7 make-or-break California primary by nearly 13 percentage points, the senator from Vermont still hasn’t officially dropped out of the Democratic primary contest.

He isn’t attacking Hillary Clinton anymore. He isn’t fantasizing about flipping superdelegates. He’s abandoned all pretense of nabbing the nomination in Philadelphia.

And yet Sanders is still charging U.S. taxpayers more than $38,000 a day to continue his campaign.

Why? Because Bernie has a wish list.

In a series of statements over the past few weeks, Sanders has made it abundantly clear what he wants from Clinton and the Democratic establishment before he will concede, endorse, and “unite the party.”

With 33 days to go until Philly, Unconventional decided to rank each item on Sanders’ wish list — from most realistic to least — based on the current political climate and the progress (or lack of progress) by him and his team so far.

We’ll regularly revisit these rankings as the convention approaches.

Replace DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz

In Sanders’ words: “We need a person at the leadership of the DNC who is vigorously supporting and out working to bring people into the political process. Yeah, I know, political parties need money. But it is more important that we have energy, that we have young people, that we have working-class people who are going to participate in the political process and fight for their kids and for their parents.”

Odds: Sanders may already be well on his way to getting his wish. Last Thursday, the Clinton campaign effectively took control of the DNC, sidelining Wasserman Schultz and installing Brandon Davis, national political director for the Service Employees International Union, to oversee the party’s day-to-day operations in her stead.

There is nothing unusual about this. The same thing happened in 2008 when Barack Obama clinched the Democratic nomination and quickly replaced then-DNC Chair Howard Dean with his trusted aide Paul Tewes.

Assuming Clinton wins in November, the question is what happens after Election Day, when Davis’ stint is scheduled to end. Will Clinton announce a new DNC chair in a bid for unity, perhaps at the convention? Or will she hope the intraparty opposition dies down and offer Wasserman Schultz — long seen as a Hillary loyalist, especially among disgruntled Sanders supporters — the opportunity to keep her job?

We’re guessing that Debbie will go — perhaps sooner rather than later. In May, CNN reported that “three Democrats with ties to the party’s power centers — President Barack Obama, Clinton and Sanders — made clear that few are rooting for Wasserman Schultz’s survival at the DNC.”

“If this is the one thing that provides unity, they would take that trade,” said one senior Democratic strategist who had spoken to the White House. “Nobody is rushing to keep her.”

Or as another Democratic adviser close to Clinton said of Wasserman Schultz, “There is an exhaustion that comes with dealing with her.”

Reduce the role of superdelegates

In Sanders’ words: “We also need obviously to get rid of superdelegates. The idea that we had 400 superdelegates pledged to a candidate some eight months or more before the first ballot was cast is, to my mind, absurd. And we need to also make sure that superdelegates do not live in a world of their own but reflect the views of the people of their own state.”

Odds: Improving. No matter what Sanders says, the Democratic Party is unlikely to “get rid” of superdelegates altogether. Achieving that goal would require the superdelegates to vote themselves out of existence, and that’s not something they’re interested in doing.

Superdelegates are, for the most part, sitting governors, senators, and House members. They want to attend the convention and participate in the debates over the rules, the platform, and other issues. They want to have a say in the direction of their party. And they don’t want to have to run against their own constituents, which is the only way they could become regular old pledged delegates.

(This was precisely the rationale cited earlier this week by the Congressional Black Caucus in a letter to both the Sanders and Clinton campaigns explaining why they “recently voted unanimously to oppose any suggestion or idea to eliminate the category of Unpledged Delegate to the Democratic National Convention.”)

Signs are emerging, however, than many superdelegates might be willing to reduce or even relinquish their biggest superpower — namely, the power to overturn a primary result they find distasteful. Over the last week, Politico interviewed 20 of Sanders’ Senate colleagues and found that “more than half … support at least lowering the number of superdelegates, and all but two said the party should take up the matter at next month’s convention in Philadelphia, despite the potential for a high-profile intraparty feud at a critical moment in the campaign.”

Even Clinton’s prospective running mates are open to reform.

“I’m a superdelegate, and I don’t believe in superdelegates,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

“Having party leaders participate is fine, but I think having some connection to the outcome of your state’s process is smart,” said Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine.

“I’m fine with whatever they negotiate,” added Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown. “I just don’t care about superdelegates. I don’t care about the whole thing.”

Given that both California and Nebraska Democrats voted against the existing superdelegate system at their state conventions this weekend, it’s looking increasingly likely that some sort of reform may emerge from Philadelphia. Perhaps it will be a reduction in number. Or perhaps it will be a new rule that binds the superdelegates to “reflect the views of the people of their own state,” as Sanders himself has demanded. We shall see.

Make the Democratic Party platform more liberal

In Sanders’ words: “We need, at the Democratic National Convention, to approve a progressive platform: the most progressive platform ever passed by the Democratic Party; a platform which makes it crystal clear that the Democratic Party is, in fact, on the side of working people.”

Odds: The 2016 Democratic platform may end up being more liberal than its 2012 or 2008 predecessors. But that’s because the party in general — and Clinton specifically — has already shifted to the left over the course of the campaign, in large part because of Sanders. Any progressive changes to the existing platform will probably be ones that Clinton has already signaled her comfort with — an emphasis on fair trade rather than free trade, opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline and an increase in the national minimum wage — rather than last-minute concessions extracted by Sanders in exchange for his endorsement.

Sanders simply doesn’t have much leverage left. He does, however, have a little. Last month, Sanders was awarded more seats on the Platform Drafting Committee than any runner-up in Democratic history; several of his appointees — philosophy professor Cornel West; Arab American Institute president James Zogby; Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison — are notably less pro-Israel than the current party platform, or Clinton for that matter. If Sanders & Co. were to threaten an ugly floor flight over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — and at the initial platform hearings, West and Zogby have already clashed with Clinton supporters over terms like “occupation” — it’s possible that Team Clinton might try to convince them to back down by ceding ground elsewhere.

This would be a risky move on Sanders’ part; Clinton has already rejected many of his demands, including free public-college tuition and single-payer health care, and much of the rest of the party would not look kindly on a floor fight. But who knows how far the senator is willing to go to satisfy his supporters — and to secure his progressive legacy?

Reform the Democratic voting process

In Sanders’ words: “We need real electoral reform within the Democratic Party. And that means — among many, many other things — open primaries. The idea that in the State of New York, the great State of New York, 3 million people could not participate in helping to select who the Democratic or Republican candidate for president would be because they had registered as an independent not as a Democrat or a Republican is incomprehensible.”

Odds: Not going to happen. Most Democratic Party regulars — aka delegates — want to strengthen the Democratic Party. They want to attract converts. But while allowing non-Democrats to vote in a Democratic primary might get voters invested in the candidate they support, it won’t get them invested in the party. It doesn’t help the party identify regular voters; it doesn’t build loyalty to the ticket.

Right now, some states have open primaries; others are closed. It’s up to each state party — the organization paying for the primary, incidentally — to decide which system it prefers. It’s almost impossible to imagine these delegations voting in Philadelphia to abandon their autonomy in favor of a 50-state open-primary requirement.

As for Sanders’ other major electoral reform proposal — same-day voter registration — most Democrats support it. In fact, Clinton has gone one step further and said that all Americans should be automatically registered to vote when they turn 18 (unless they opt out). But state governments set voter registration laws — not the Democratic Party. Sanders is barking up the wrong tree here.

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2. ‘Something could happen in Cleveland’: the rules nerd behind the new push to Dump Trump at the RNC

When Unconventional first met Curly Haugland, we described him as a man “on a mission.”

“He wants every one of the 2,472 delegates heading to this summer’s Republican convention to know that the press, the party leaders and even the chairman of the GOP are wrong,” we wrote at the time.

According to the longtime RNC Rules Committee member and pool-supply magnate from Bismarck, N.D., Republican delegates are not obligated by the outcome of their state’s primary or caucuses to vote for a certain candidate on the first ballot in Cleveland — despite what almost everyone else seems to believe.

They don’t have to vote for Donald Trump. They don’t have to vote for Ted Cruz. Instead, Haugland insists that the delegates can vote for anyone they please, transforming the convention into a chaotic free-for-all in the process.

Back then, Haugland was about to release an ebook called Unbound: a legalistic 75-page briefing that scours the record and scrutinizes the rules to determine where exactly the GOP had stood in the past on the idea of “binding” delegates — and where it stands now.

Yet there were never any actual delegates, you know, plotting to express their unboundedness by bailing on Trump at the convention. Haugland was speaking in hypotheticals.

Until now.

On Friday, the Washington Post reported that dozens of Republican convention delegates had hatched “a new plan” to block a stumbling Trump in Cleveland by adding a “conscience clause” to the convention’s rules (so that there is no confusion about what delegates can do). Such a clause would say that every delegate is free to vote his or her conscience on the first ballot — even if state laws or party rules say otherwise.

At the time, the Dump Trump cabal was fairly small. Roughly 30 delegates from 15 states participated in a conference call Thursday night, with Republicans from Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana and Washington signing on as regional coordinators. A Christian schoolteacher and rules committee member from Colorado named Kendal Unruh — a former Ted Cruz supporter — was leading the charge.

Since then, however, Unruh’s unlikely campaign appears to have picked up steam. A second conference call on Sunday night attracted a claimed 1,000 participants. Unruh & Co. said that “several hundred delegates and alternates” had now rallied to the cause. The group announced plans to raise money for staff and a possible legal defense fund. And they even gave themselves a name: Free the Delegates.

Earlier this week, the group received the tacit endorsement of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has privately told #NeverTrump activists that he would be willing to serve as an alternative at the convention if Trump continues to implode, according to a Yahoo News source.

“I think historically, not just this year, delegates are and should be able to vote the way they see fit,” Walker said at an event in Wisconsin. “We’ll see how things go between now and the convention as to what the next steps are.”

We reconnected with Haugland Tuesday to discuss the fledging “movement” his work has spawned — to get his take on whether it has any chance of succeeding in Cleveland. Excerpts:

Unconventional: Are you a happy man right now?

Curly Haugland: I’m happy to see that the delegates have started to react to the book and are taking steps to exercise their newly found freedom. [Laughs]

Have the leaders of Free the Delegates reached out to you?

Oh, yeah. Kendal talked to me two or three weeks ago, when she first got a copy of the book. She apparently got the book and became curious. What they’re doing has organically arisen out of the book.

In Unbound, you make the case that no rules have to change — that the delegates are already free to vote for whomever they want…

Oh, yeah, we’re not advocating for any change. Our goal is just… Consider this analogy: The delegates are a pen full of sheep. We’re just announcing that the gate is open. They’ve never been penned up.

But even Free the Delegates is advocating for the addition of an explicit conscience clause. Why?

What they’re doing is reacting to the pushback. Kendal asked me about that a long time ago. The pushback from the RNC is that “the people have spoken.”

Amending the conscience will clear the conscience of delegates who feel — incorrectly, I believe, but who feel that way all the same — that they are obligated by party rules or state laws to vote a certain way in Cleveland.

A conscience clause would give them permission to break that obligation.

Exactly. It’s for those people who feel a moral obligation — that’s who Kendal is appealing to. I’m sure she’s getting pushback from people saying, “Wait a minute. I gave them my word.”

Ultimately, my view is that binding is evil. So no matter how we attack binding, in any shape or form, is a good thing.

What was your reaction to Trump’s remarks on the subject?

How it’s illegal and all that stuff?

Yes. And how Jeb Bush is conspiring behind his back.

I haven’t focused on the contenders at all. The most offensive thing I saw was from Sean Spicer [the RNC spokesman], who compared this effort to “Area 51.” As if it were some sort of conspiracy theory. Or even a far-fetched idea. Now, that’s disturbing to me, because he knows better.

Is Free the Delegates picking up momentum — or is it just a media bubble we’re seeing right now? Spicer also said “the extent of this effort is a bunch of random people tweeting about it, full stop.”

A delegate this morning told me he tried to get on Sunday’s call, but he couldn’t because the call was limited to 1,000 people.

I’ve seen that number, too, but I haven’t been able to verify it.

I know there were 1,000 people on the call. Now, they may not have all been delegates. But there were 1,000 people interested in this subject. Some of them were probably journalists. [Laughs]

So the delegates are starting to get interested in freeing themselves. Trump is struggling. What happens next to make this a reality?

As more and more delegates read the book and realize what they can do, a few things are going to occur to them. One of those things is that whomever the party nominates, it’s going to be as a result of their votes at the convention, pure and simple. Nothing else.

In other words, the delegates can’t lay it off on the primary voters and say, “The primary voters did this! It wasn’t us!” Every delegate owns his or her vote.

Once they realize that, they’re going to start reconsidering. I had one delegate email me this morning and ask how to get involved. So I directed him to Kendal’s group, and then I said, “In your jurisdiction, is there much other interest?” I’m curious myself. And the response was, “Oh, yeah. There are at least eight or 10 delegates interested.” And this was a delegation that’s only going to number in the 20s.

Now that somebody is out there spearheading this movement, I think it’s going to go viral. Or so I’m hoping, at least. [Laughs] The only thing missing, perhaps, is some candidates getting infected with the virus.

Does that need to happen soon?

They don’t have to come forward until the convention. If I were one of those types, I would keep my powder dry. But I would be prepared in case the wheels come off the other wagon. If they do, something could happen in Cleveland.

You’re a member of the Rules Committee. Can you really imagine a majority of your fellow members voting for a conscience clause?
I think more than that, actually. I rather suspect this has a good chance now. Way better than a few weeks ago.

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3. Video: Why direct primaries are bad for America

In the 2016 election, Donald Trump has bashed “rigged” elections. Bernie Sanders has denounced superdelegates. Populist sentiment is running strong in both political parties.

But what if our political system is already too open and democratic? What if the reforms of the last 50 years have actually just made it harder for politicians to solve problems?

This is the argument that Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, delivers in his new cover story for the Atlantic magazine — that we have “reformed” our political system “to death.”

“For decades, well-meaning political reformers have attacked intermediaries as corrupt, undemocratic, unnecessary, or (usually) all of the above,” Rauch explains. “Americans have been busy demonizing and disempowering political professionals and parties, which is like spending decades abusing and attacking your own immune system. Eventually, you will get sick.”

Rauch recently sat down with Yahoo News Senior Political Correspondent Jon Ward to elaborate on his essay. Here at Unconventional, we were especially fascinated by what Rauch had to say about the way we now pick our presidential nominees — and why it’s bad for the country:

Jon Ward: What are the key changes that have been made over the last few decades, and why did they have a negative impact, in your view?

Jonathan Rauch: Government and politics are hugely complicated, and they take thousands of politicians and activists to organize and millions of voters to organize, and that doesn’t happen automatically. You need systems like political machines and bargains and deals and incentives to make all that stuff work every day. Otherwise it’s just complete chaos.

We had a lot of those systems. They took many decades to build up, but a lot of us — including me at earlier points — didn’t like them. They seemed like they were unfair and undemocratic and untransparent. But they were things like smoke-filled rooms, private negotiations where people could go and try to work stuff out. We opened those up. It became much more difficult to work things out. Pork-barrel spending.

The biggest one of all was switching to direct primaries. They have their pros and their cons, but one of the things politicians used to be able to do to incentivize people to follow was, ‘You know, if you’ll help me on this tough vote, and I really need you to pass this debt-limit bill, you know I’m going to help you win this nomination, and I’m in a position to do that, because the party has some say over that.’ When I lost the ability to protect you in a tough vote, you were off for the hills. You become an unaccountable, in many cases, renegade politician. And when you add all this stuff up, it’s very hard for leaders to lead. I like to say we have a problem: It’s not a leadership crisis in government; it’s a followership crisis.

When you talk about direct primaries, you’re talking about the reforms that happened starting around 1972, after the 1968 convention in Chicago?

Well, they really go back more than a century. But it really starts taking effect in the ’70s.

Right, because you had Teddy Roosevelt, and they started primaries in the early 20th century, and then after the ’68 convention, they started going to the more open primaries and caucuses.

Right, and [the primary vote] became binding, so a lot of the insiders essentially lost their voice.

Fifty-three percent of Americans say the Democrats’ use of superdelegates is a bad idea, 17 percent say it’s a good idea. Among Democrats, 46 percent say superdelegates are a bad idea, and only 25 percent of Democrats say it’s a good idea. And here’s some quotes from people who were interviewed by the [Associated Press]. “The common man needs to be included more,” said one woman. Another guy said, “It’s supposed to be one man, one vote. That’s the way it should be.”

What’s underneath these quotes and these numbers? What is it that you think is driving these perceptions of how politics should work, and why do you feel that they’re wrong?

A few things. One is populism, which has a long tradition in America. It goes back to Andrew Jackson.

Another is distrust of the establishment, a sense that these people have not done a very good job. And all of that is understandable. I would argue that a lot of what’s gone wrong in the last 30 or 40 years, when people have been much less happy about politics over time, is actually the disempowering of these intermediaries, who are able to, say, look at the voters, not just the small minority of voters who vote in primaries, who are not even representative of their own party but who control the process for the rest of us. They also look at the general electorate, the people who are going to come out on Election Day, and they try to think, what about those people? What do they want? What about people who may not go to the polls most years at all?

So they’re thinking about this. They’re thinking about the long-term interests of the party and the process. They’re thinking about governing. They know they have to pass bills on the next day. So it’s very important that these institutional people also have a voice.

No one is saying they should have the only voice. But the system works best when it’s a mixed system — when you’ve got some input from voters, and you’ve got some input from professionals and parties and they’re working in harmony and in balance. That’s more what the founders intended, and it’s probably a better system.

Make sure to watch the entire video above — or click here for the full transcript.

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4. The men and women in the arena

A regular roundup of the latest names in convention news

Democratic convention planners have reached out to Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Tony Award-winning writer and star of the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton,” about performing at the Wells Fargo Center, according to Politico.

Christina Reynolds, deputy communications director for the Clinton campaign, will be leading the Democratic nominee’s “counter-convention” presence in Cleveland. Reynolds was director of Barack Obama’s 2008 rapid response team.

Former George W. Bush political director Ron Kaufman will co-chair the Republican convention’s Rules Committee, while former RNC Chairman Haley Barbour will head up the Committee on Permanent Organization. Kaufman was national political director of the RNC under President Ronald Reagan, and served as a senior advisor for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential bid; Barbour was governor of Mississippi from 2004 to 2012 and is one of the GOP’s most trusted establishment power brokers.

Rep. Duncan Hunter of California — a Trump delegate — has announced that he’s not going to the GOP convention because he is worried that it will descend into “mayhem and riots and hooligans and thugs … a madhouse, really.”

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5. The best of the rest

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Countdown

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