The Minority Report. Why Clinton or Sanders are viable even with 25% of the delegates

[rpannier]

First, Democratic primaries and caucuses are not winner-take-all affairs.
According to Politico, "candidates get extra delegates for winning statewide, most delegates are distributed by candidate performance within congressional districts. Most districts offer four to six delegates. In most cases, those congressional district delegates will be divided evenly or, in districts with five delegates, in a 3-2 split. To win bigger delegate spreads, candidates have to score supermajorities of at least 63 percent within a congressional district."
So, if either candidates supporters refuse to go gentile into that good night, then either candidate could get 30-35% of the total count even if they lose the total delegates.

Why is this important?
At 25% or more candidates can make demands. In 1988, Jesse Jackson 1,075 delegates while Dukakis had 1,790, a plurality, but not a majority. Jackson began to make demands, like decrease military spending, be considered for a veep slot, super delegates allocated based on vote, etc.
Jackson had 26% of the delegates, so he had the same number of representatives on the platform committee

Now, demands are fine and everything and in 88 Dukakis didn't have a majority, he had a plurality. What if Clinton or Sanders gets say 33% of the delegates. The other would have a majority, so why should they care?

It's a thing called the 'Minority Report'
A 'Minority Report' is a public dissent from the official program. Using a Minority Report forces a vote on the convention floor to try and get positions favorable to the candidate in the platform. The most famous Minority Report was probably Hubert Humphrey in 1948 when he got civil rights for blacks into the party platform. Jesse Jackson was able to get the backing for a Palestinian state in 1988.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94011842

If either candidate hit 35% of the delegates they'd be well positioned to force the nominee to choose a canddate they approved to be Vice President.

If Clinton or Sanders wins the nomination, but the other has a sizable number of delegates (25-40%) they will need to get their house in order with the other campaign quickly in order to prevent the summer leading to the convention being tied up with the dissent.

When Clinton lost to Obama with the large percentage of delegates she had, there was no rancorous summer to distract.
For those who are trying to decide who the eventual vice-presidential nominee will be... maybe waiting to see who gets what in the percentage of delegates would be prudent.
It's probably a forgone conclusion that neither candidate will agree to be Vice-President for the other. Neither are young people, being the Vice-President will gain them nothing; I'd argue Sanders would lose out on a lot since he'd forfeit his Senate seat.

IMO, the nominee would be wise to choose someone in their mid-to-late 40's or early 50's, to begin to provide a bench for running after they hang it up.
I found the Minority Report to be interesting