I'm expecting the Democratic race to essentially be over today. Unless another Michigan happens (which is fairly doubtful), Hillary will win Florida and North Carolina running away. Depending on the margins in those states, even if Sanders had the best post possible day and won Illinois, Ohio, and Missouri, he would be at a 300 pledged delegate deficit with major states remaining (California, Pennsylvania, and New York being among them, though Hillary was Senator of New York so he has little chance of winning there).

There are no winner take all's on the Democratic side. It's all proportional delegates. Essentially, a 300 pledged delegate deficient is insurmountable. It would require Sanders not just to win many of the remaining contests, but to win them running away. We're talking 60-40 wins, which has no chance of happening. In short, the one rule of proportional delegates is, if you're going to lose then lose small. Big blowout wins, which Sanders has had few of but Clinton has had many of, are difficult to recover from. Sanders lost his campaign in the blowout loses of the south. Which was the problem with Michigan. Yes, it was a big win for him, but it wasn't big enough. Michigan just kept the status quo. It kept him in the race, but didn't significantly change the race. Both candidate essentially broke even. With proportional delegate rules, that meant Sanders barely bit into Hillary's 200+ pledged delegate lead. That's his problem at the moment. Even if he scores upset victories along the way, he has to do it by more than a 2 point margin. He has to be pulling 15-20+ point wins in some of these state.

Hillary will most likely want to sweep today, but the margins in Florida and N.C. should be enough, with any wins out of Illinois, Ohio, or Missouri coming as icing on top.

On the Republican side, it's about to clear how bat shit crazy the convention will be. If Cruz has a really good showing in Illinois and Missouri then there's a good chance we're heading to a contested convention. However, if Trump somehow take Florida, Illinois, and Missouri, and possibly Ohio, then Trump is the nominee.

Because the President doesn't have as much power as one would think.

Any president still has to deal with a Republican led congress. If Obama, a moderate, can't get legislation passed then why would Bernie pass any of his initiatives? He'll, it'd be difficult for some moderate Democrats to vote for most of Bernie's iniatives. Hard to see many from his "I wn" party sticking their necks out to be voted out in their next election.

There are also some who are worried that he's weak on guns, which isn't an unfounded claim, and foreign policy. He has real issues as a candidate, just as Hillary, and I'm not sure he'd make a very good president. And in the end, If he can't get his economic iniatives to pass then as a President he wouldn't be much better than Hillary.

I think in the end, many people see Jimmy Carter 2.0. A nice guy, a giving person, but not great on foreign policy and probably has unfeasible policy ideas economically. And I honestly couldn't argue against that.

The thing about superdelegates is that they are pledged to vote for a certain candidate, but can change their minds. They really come into play when two candidates have extremely close performances in the primaries and caucuses. However, if it becomes very clear that, say, Bernie Sanders is every Democrat's choice for the nomination, all of Clinton's superdelegates would vote for Sanders in the Democratic convention because they wouldn't want to look bad in the eyes of the public and choose a nominee the public doesn't want.

P.S. The purpose of the superdelegates is to give party leaders a say in the nomination, as all of the superdelegates are senior members of their party. The Republicans did away with superdelegates a while ago, now only the Democrats use them. Bet the Republicans are kicking themselves for that one, because with superdelegates, they'd be able to get rid of Trump easily!

EDIT: The Republicans do have superdelegates, but they do not have the freedom to vote for anyone they please like Democratic superdelegates.

He's soft on guns because he's from Vermont. Vermont is into hunting (they are with Texas in terms of the least gun laws in the nation), so it would make sense that he's never really gone hard after guns. He'd alienate some of the state and not be re-elected. He's tried to "right" himself on guns in the last year and a half, but you could argue that he began to do so when he knew he might be running for president. On foreign policy, in every debate he's not shown a great grasp of foreign policy. His policy position amounts to, I didn't vote for the Iraq war and Hillary believes in Kissinger, but it's clear he doesn't actually have a vision other than giving the same platitudes that every candidate gives, i.e. war is a last resort, but nothing on America's relations with particular nations or in particular regions. As I said before, many may not have liked Obama's foreign policy, but he did lay out a clear objective (wanting to speak to Iran, Cuba, and South America). In short, Bernie's been extremely vague.

I don't think the system is broken per-se. The issue is that electing a president isn't the best way to attack the system. That is to say, don't work from the top down, but the bottom up. You start at the local level, move to the state level, then to the national level. Get local state officials elected, get congressional officials elected, then get a president elected. Republicans, namely tea partiers have done that over the course of the last six years, and it has caused a more militant and distrustful right (which is what Trump has been birthed out of). So it is possible to change the system, but there is a balance of power in the American government. The president only has so much power, same the supreme court, same as congress.

This is correct.

In 2008 many of the super delegates were prepared to support Hillary. Obama went on a string of win and the super delegates switched to him.

Essentially, it's a fail safe. Republicans also have super delegates and they're hoping those delegates come into play to save them from Trump. That is very possible. So the Republicans may try to use their fail safe to keep Trump from becoming nominee. Delegates in the Democrat primary could do the same to Hillary, but if Hillary is taking the majority of the pledged delegates, then there's no reason to switch from the actual electoral results/votes. Just think of the super delegates as the third party referees of the election.

Rubio just dropped out. Nomination is now Trump's as there's no route to a brokered convention.

Welcome to Hell, America.

Over Hillary? Yes.

But I stand by what I said pages ago:

While I'm no Trump supporter, he won't govern based on his campaign rhetoric. I don't think Trump will be as bad or as scary as many are expecting or forecasting. BUT I don't have faith in his foreign affairs - he has no experience, and we just learned how diabolical it is for a president to have no experience (cough).

Obama has been hit or miss on foreign policy, mostly hit. Certainly not any worse than Bill Clinton or George W. Bush. Foreign policy wise he rates fairly close with H.W. Bush, which isn't surprising, considering H.W. Bush is his greatest inspiration on foreign policy.

As an outsider, I still think it's mental that such a huge and powerful country like the USA only has two political parties. Crazy.

So when I turn up at the ballot box at an election, how many candidates would I have to select from?

Come on, Mr Obama. You can choose a better nominee for the SCOTUS than Mr Garland. Choosing a centrist in hopes that you'll look "reasonable" when the Republicans inevitably refuse to confirm him is beyond delusional. Show some spine, for once! Nominate someone who is more consistently liberal! Obama has let me down so much ever since 2008. I feel hoodwinked and betrayed. In fact, I feel like Beady’s Here Now when I criticize him like this. And I'm not exactly a radical progressive!