Bernie Supporters in Washington Demand that superdelegates Respect the Wishes of their Constituents
Bernie Sanders supporters in Washington state are demanding that Washington’s superdelegates respect the wishes of their constituents, who voted 72.7% for Sanders in yesterday’s Democratic caucuses.
Unlike delegates who are elected through the Democratic process in primaries and caucuses, the so-called superdelegates are free to vote for whomever they want at the Democratic Convention. A majority of Washington’s 17 superdelegates already endorsed Hillary Clinton, even before yesterday’s caucuses took place, as have the vast majority of superdelegates throughout the United States, giving Hillary Clinton a much greater lead (if the superdelegates who have endorsed her vote for her at the Democratic Convention) over Sanders than she would otherwise have. Most public published accounts of the current delegate counts actually include the votes of those superdelegates who have endorsed Clinton. Clinton currently leads Sanders in those superdelegate votes by 469 to 29, which takes little or no account of the public voting in the states that they represent. Their votes give Clinton an apparently insurmountable lead over Sanders. They fall in line with the wishes of the Democratic Party establishment and are a blatant affront to the democratic process. Not even the Republican Party uses such a process.
Sanders supporters in Washington are circulating a petition, which already has more than 6 thousand signatures. They are warning the elected superdelegates, “You work for us. We want Bernie. Respect us or lose your jobs”.
Other states should do the same. They should also consider whether there is a significant gap in favorability ratings of the candidates (Bernie’s is currently +7.4%, Hillary’s is -13.2%) and how they do in head to head competition vs. the Republican nominee (Bernie does much better than Hillary against all the major Republican likely nominees).
= new reply since forum marked as read
they do have a history of supporting the final pledged delegate leader at the convention, which isn't for a while yet. superdelegates supported McGovern in '72 and Carter in '76, back when the system was fresh. they supported Obama in '08. they may not be supporting the winners of state delegates at this stage, but that really isn't their role.
the DWS comment is damning on its face, but we could probably cut her some slack in that "grassroots movements" might mean something very different to a Jew living in Florida. 
a lot of things just won't be settled until the convention; i think we are not too far away from unification regardless of which candidate ends up as the nominee. gaffes from DWS won't help, but a solid speech from president Obama likely will.
If Hillary can make it past California and still be ahead in pledged delegates with nowhere else for Bernie to go, WA's superdelegates have a viable reason to stay where they're at now.
Earlier in the primary, I argued that if Bernie goes into the convention and the supers give it to Hillary anyway, there's gonna be hell to pay a la 1968.
However, even though I caucused for Bernie yesterday and view Hillary as Nixon-lite, I'm NOT a hypocrite (and even Nixon had some redeeming qualities, ironically the creation of the EPA was signed by him).
If California wants to give Bernie another blowout and Bernie pulls ahead in pledged delegates, that's when I start writing my office-holding supers to let them know that recreating 1968 is a bad idea. 
Now at 20,526!
"Clout" happens when you win something. "Clout" happens when thousands of people support a particular idea.
Now "Clout" can be subverted by money or favors, but that tends to have bad optics, particularly when it is noticed far and wide by the public, who are the people you are trying to gain "Clout" with in the first place.
I hope that helps. 
