Realism is a trait not always characteristic of presidential candidates.
After all, to get up each morning for a year and a half or more to face grinding 18-hour days of fundraisers, meet-and-greets and interviews, candidates have to believe, despite the odds, that they will win, that they will become the president of the United States.
Having developed and relied on that mindset, it’s hard to abandon it.
{mosads}It’s particularly difficult to walk away once you’ve tasted victory — and all the harder when the crowds are still cheering and you are still winning.
This is Bernie Sanders’s predicament.
It’s clear to just about everyone, with the possible exception of the senator and a few of his acolytes, that Sanders will not win the Democratic nomination, yet he persists in his desire to “take it to the convention floor.”
Let’s first review the current bidding.
As of Monday, the Associated Press reports Hillary Clinton has garnered a majority of the convention delegates. And she is poised to win more — a lot more — by the time you read this.
Through Monday, she’s won over 54 percent of the pledged delegates and over 55 percent of the popular votes cast. By the usual definition, her margin, which is better than 10 points, is a landslide.
So what is Sanders’s play?
His only hope is that hundreds of superdelegates renege on their private and public commitments to Clinton and embrace him.
This prospect is sheer fantasy. Reneging on personal commitments isn’t easy.
Sanders and company offer an argument, though, claiming the Vermont independent is more electable than the former secretary of State against Donald Trump.
Strangely enough, there is evidence for this proposition.
Nearly every poll that has included both Democratic candidates finds Sanders doing better than Clinton. In the HuffPollster averages, Clinton now leads Trump by 5 points, while Sanders leads by 11.
Sanders hopes late primary victories will put an exclamation point behind his electability argument.
Nonetheless, no matter how many more primary victories Sanders posts, and no matter how many polls show him stronger than Clinton, there are not five Clinton superdelegates who believe the socialist senator will prove to be a bigger vote-getter than the tried and tested former Democratic first lady, former Democratic senator and former secretary of State.
Their judgment may be right or wrong — and we will never really know — but most superdelegates, and certainly nearly all those pledged to Clinton, will no more than chortle at an electability argument.
Sanders’s hurdle is bigger than that, though.
I have defended the institution of superdelegates in this space on several grounds, one of which is that elected officials know the candidates far better than most of us do.
Bernie Sanders has served in the both the House and Senate, and it is no coincidence that just 11 of the officials elected to those bodies have backed him as superdelegates, while 212 have pledged their support to Clinton.
Elected officials do know these candidates and they see Sanders as a lone wolf, unwilling to work with others or to compromise. That may comport with the attitude some of their constituents want, but it will not achieve the results most desire.
By contrast, elected officials believe Clinton fights for principle but is also interested in progress, even if it requires compromise.
In short, they believe they can work effectively with Clinton but not with Sanders.
Finally, there is the matter of the role of superdelegates themselves. Bernie Sanders has said, wrongly in my view, that they should not exist, that they are in effect a blight on democracy.
And now he expects them to flock to his side?
Get real.
Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has worked for Democratic candidates and causes since 1982. Current clients include the minority leader of the Senate and the Democratic whip in the House.