The Problem unfolds for Democratic Convention Delegates

Today's polls on Real Clear Politics show what I believe will be the beginning of a growing trend. If Donald Trump can beat Hillary Clinton in places like Ohio, and Bernie Sanders can prevail over Trump there, the Democratic Party's superdelegates gathering in Philadelphia in late July will have a tough decision to make. Do they dump Clinton for Sanders?

Here, with weeks to go until the convention, is what today's polls look like. Call this a partial benchmark and a caution.

Try this one: Super Delegates, faced with a faltering Clinton, will choose Sanders.

Bernie Sanders should stay in the Democratic Presidential race. He may win it yet.

The media is once again creating its own myth when it predicts Clinton being nominated. 
The outcome of this primary season is far from set in stone as the media would have us believe.

Today’s stuck-in-the-moment media narrative is similar to what editors and pundits concocted for Trump as recently as three months ago.

No, the situation in both political parties (and in the electorate in general) is highly dynamic. Tomorrow shouldn’t be judged by today, just as next months shouldn’t be judged by this month.

The flux is particularly apparent with the Democrats and the Clinton-Sanders contest, which is still very much alive and will be right up to the time of the convention delegates vote.

As noted in my last post, public opinion polling in the nearly three months before the Democratic convention could spell real trouble for Hillary Clinton.

The entire electorate is unpredictable at this point, particularly since both Trump and Clinton, the "given" November match-up, have such high negatives.

Will large portions of the public simply abstain from voting at all? And, if they do vote, what will motivate them to?  Fear? Anger? Sweet reason?

And then there’s Sanders who is actually liked.

People may not agree with him but they respect him.

But what about this socialist business? Indiana and Michigan, hardly left-wing hot-beds, had no problem problem with Sander being a democratic socialist. It’s a non-issue.

Perhaps voters know more about the social/political history of Western Europe than the pundits do. Perhaps they know more about universal health care and free education than the lobbyists want them to. Perhaps they know that nothing changes until change is proposed and debated.

So here’s the deal: Given Trump’s obvious cartoonish, show-biz persona and its broad zany, nativist appeal, and given Hillary Clinton’s dynasty-bound, boring, predictable “establishment” stances, I fully expect polls in the next month to show her slipping behind Trump, and then falling way WAY behind.

Call her the Jeb Bush of the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, Sanders will continue to top Trump, if narrowly. Virtually every poll so far shows Sanders faring better against Trump than Clinton does.

Obviously these “shocking” poll results will not escape Democrats gathering in Philadelphia in late July. The unelected Democratic Super-delegates were created for just such an eventuality. Nominations are made at the convention and reflect reality at the time of it is held.

The nominating decision at the convention should be informed by the long, bizarre (and dated) primary season but not bound to it.

And as long as Sanders stays in the race and contests places like Oregon and California (and wins!) he will become a viable option as Democratic delegates face the consequences of nominating a deeply flawed and likely-to-lose Clinton.

A losing Trump will declare victory and quit

Putting aside how high the stakes of the Republican presidential nomination race are, I find that trying to read the mind and psyche (to say nothing of the popularity) of one Donald Trump is an intriguing puzzle.

In recent days I’ve concluded that Trump will drop out of the contest…and soon.

Consider his recent pleading with Iowa voters to return him to the top of the Republican Caucus polls in the Hawkeye state.

Trump reportedly feeds polls, but his portion of the numbers is dwindling. He’s beginning to starve for political popularity.

In his plea to Iowa Republicans, he, in full egotistical fervor, doesn’t continence that he, The Donald, may himself be doing something wrong, No, he blames Republicans who now prefer the mild-mannered Ben Carson to the petulant, mercurial Trump.

Accusations do not win votes.

Blaming “the other” not withstanding, Trump must sense that he could be — gasp!— a LOSER. That must be a nightmare scenario. Trump’s oft-repeated label for those he deplores is “loser.”

So imagine the shock of the narcissistic Trump’s looking in the mirror of polled public opinion and suddenly seeing a loser.

His answer has to be to blame the mirror, both it (the polls) and what it reflects (purportedly voter sentiment).

Which gets us to why Trump will certainly drop out. Rather that be stuck with the loser label, he will want to do what leaders of losing causes frequently do: declare victory and quit.

Somewhere he’ll find a new mirror with a new image that distorts his self-absorption to his liking.