And Then There Were Two

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2020

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Just over a week ago, Bernie Sanders seemed to be the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. Then came some prominent withdrawals from the race, and, on Super Tuesday, the resurgence of Joe Biden’s campaign. (Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii remains in the race, but has no chance of winning the nomination.) But the narrowing of the field only highlights the gulf between the Party’s moderate center and its energized Left. David Remnick talks with Amy Davidson Sorkin, a political columnist for The New Yorker, about the possibility of a contested Convention. Then Remnick interviews Michael Kazin, an historian and the co-editor of Dissent magazine. Kazin points out that Sanders is struggling against a headwind: even voters sympathetic to democratic socialism may vote for a pragmatist if they think Biden is more likely to beat the incumbent President in November. But Sanders seems unlikely to moderate his message. “There is a problem,” Kazin tells David Remnick. “A divided party—a party that’s divided at the Convention—never has won in American politics.”

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:10.3	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. We have had 28 Democrats vying for the party's presidential nomination.
0:18.6	Just over a week ago, Bernie Sanders seemed to be the clear frontrunner
0:22.0	after three very strong primary performances. Then came some prominent withdrawals from the race
0:27.7	and the resurgence, really the resurrection of Joe Biden in last week's primaries. What will
0:33.8	happen next is entirely up in the air. Joe Biden could keep riding this new wave of momentum,
0:39.3	or we could be headed for a contested convention,
0:42.0	something that we have not seen in many decades.
0:45.7	Amy Davidson-Sorkin is a political columnist for The New Yorker,
0:48.5	and she's going to help us with a little civics refresher course.
0:52.1	You know, there's a lot of states left to vote, and you've sewn up the nomination
0:56.1	when you get 1,991 of the pledged delegates.
1:00.7	When you cast your vote in a primary, you're not really voting for the candidate so much
1:05.5	as you're voting for a delegate who's pledged to that candidate, as long as that person
1:10.5	is still in the race when the convention
1:12.2	comes. And then things can get really complex. You go to the convention with a certain number
1:18.6	of delegates who are pledged to you. So everybody gets the convention and they vote. If nobody
1:24.9	has a majority, then there's a second ballot. But on that ballot, there's
1:30.6	another factor, the superdelegates. They don't get to vote in the first ballot. They get to vote
1:35.2	on the second ballot. The superdelegates are Democratic insiders, members of Congress, senators,
1:41.2	higher-ups in the party. There are nearly 800 superdelegates at the convention,
1:45.9	and if they get to vote, it's a whole new ballgame. Now, Amy, does it go without saying that
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC Studios and The New Yorker, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.