Political Game Theory: Biden's move

At the moment, according to FiveThirtyEight, Bernie Sanders is likely to win a plurality of the delegates but not a majority.  Bernie has a rock-solid base of 15-25% of voters who will support him no matter what.  The rest of the voters are split among the other candidates.

This is very similar to 2016's GOP Primary.  Trump had a rock-solid base, and the other candidates split the votes.  Since the GOP primaries are winner-take-all, Trump built up a large delegate lead even though he rarely won any states with over 50% of the votes.  

Because the Democratic primaries are proportional (if you get above 15%), Bernie isn't on pace to build that type of delegate lead- but if he wins a plurality by the convention, it will be difficult to not award him the nomination.

The other candidates have a classic Prisoner's Dilemma.  Any one of the could likely beat Bernie if it was one-on-one.  But all of them want to be that one.  So they need the others to drop out.  But none of them have any incentive to drop out to help the other.

So here's where someone needs to cut a deal.  If I were Joe Biden, I would be making two phone calls today.

The first is to Senator Elizabeth Warren, with a simple deal, "Bow out an publicly support me.  I will make you Secretary of the Treasury.  You will have the authority to reform Wall Street and the Banking System.  I will be focusing on so many issues that I will defer to your expertise on fixing the economy."

Will that work?  Possibly.  Senator Warren has to know she's a long shot at this point, and this would put her in a position to implement a lot of the reforms she believes in.  

The other phone call is to Senator Amy Klobachur, "Senator, you've run a hell of a campaign.  But it's time for us to join together to beat Trump.  Join me as my Vice President.  We both believe in the same policies.  And I'm 74 years old- I don't expect to run a second term.  You'll be in the driver's seat to win in 2024."

And end it with a little bit of arm-twisting, "If you're not interested, I'll call Pete Buttigieg and see if he'll take the deal instead."

Again, will it work?  Biden is 74.  And while it's very tough for one party to win three elections in a row, winning a second- especially if Biden steps down and makes Klobachur his heir apparent- is a good spot.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg has said that the other candidates should drop out so he can challenge Sanders.  But he's not giving them any reason to do so.  In this idea, Biden is offering something of value to two candidates to join him.  He's cutting a deal.

He's doing what a good politician should do.