Both the Call Rule 46 and the DFL Constitution expressly enforce the Call to all matters that it covers. But the group were told just the contrary in response to their objection. A legalistic response from the parliamentarian requested by the state party Chairman Ken Martin was so transparently flimsy that it essentially meant "so sue us." The group were informed that the Call was inoperative. The Call was just a deception, in effect, subject to another layer of complexity that could only be divined by the parliamentarian after the fact. Now only the Central Committee has the power to reconvene the Convention, the group was told.
The group spoke for other Sanders delegates in advising the party leadership that " Not following the DFL party rules blocks the very unity you desire." The group is now considering using the leverage gained by potential for disunity to continue the struggle to reform the state party,
Conclusion: Sanders "very good at arithmetic;" strategy not so much
Readers may find somewhat complex the above description of how one state Democratic Party establishment held on to control of the party notwithstanding that the Clinton establishment had suffered a landslide defeat in the caucuses. The complexity of the process itself is part of the problem, serving as a bulwark behind which establishment insiders defend themselves against the occasional flurry of novice insurgents seeking democratic reform.
One lesson this complexity teaches is that there is no need for parties to run a primary -- i.e., the first-stage run-off -- election. A fair election process is needed to replace the current complex and easily manipulated process. A process run by parties, whether by means of caucuses or closed primaries, sustains the corrupt duopoly.
A second lesson that can be drawn from the complexity of the process is that it requires strategic leadership for insurgents to take control when they are in the majority. The Sanders campaign utterly failed to provide that leadership, and therefore sacrificed delegate strength at the 2020 National Convention. The lack of organization and leadership by the Sanders campaign of its insurgent majority also conceded future control of the Democratic party, which in Minnesota will remain in the hands of the Clinton establishment for this and the next election.
The strategic incompetence of the Sanders campaign has influenced the outcome of the 2016 election in many ways, of which the state convention gambit described here provides only one example. A short list would include its failure to take easily available steps to appeal to black women, failure to effectively expose Clinton's fundamental corruption, failure to focus on changing the rigged DNC primary election rules, failure to promote as a campaign priority a progressive recess appointment to fill the fortuitous and historic Scalia vacancy, wasting money "received from students struggling to repay their college loans, from seniors and disabled vets on Social Security, from workers earning starvation wages and even from people who were unemployed" on advertising instead of on the grass roots organizing needed to sustain a movement.
The illustration provided by this article about state conventions confirms the insider critique that "Campaign strategy was flawed, often prioritizing advertising over organizing." The young people who supported the campaign are entitled to be "pissed off that (Sanders' campaign) was foiled from the beginning" due to such strategic failure. Hopefully they will learn the key lesson of Sanders' failure which -- aside from witnessing a rigged undemocratic system -- is the primacy of competent strategy.
As Sanders contemplates a final acrobatic pivot from leading a nominal revolution against the corrupt global plutocracy that the Clinton organization represents to supporting Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump (who is largely opposed by that same plutocracy), he has announced his litmus test: "whether or not we are going to have a strong and progressive platform." Wasting the political capital gained by progressives in 2016 on the party platform would be perhaps the most incompetent strategy of all.
The Democratic Party platform could hardly have less strategic importance. A Sanders supporter on the Platform Committee, James Zogby, admits: "People don't read the platform after it's debated." It's debated before and at the Convention by ultimate insiders primarily as a test of strength, and has a shelf life even shorter than a Clinton policy position.
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