Hillary is Wrong on Role of Superdelegates
Clinton and her folks argue that the superdelegates exist to exercise independent judgment, rather than just to rubber stamp whoever leads in pledged delegates, but my sense is that that view is misleading and mostly invalid as she would have it applied to this year's nomination. As I see it, based on the history of their creation, the superdelegates were created for two reasons: (1) to put a candidate with more pledged delegates and/or a high degree of likelihood of finishing with the most pledged delegates over the top (or the prohibitive favorite) to avoid a long, drawn-out, divisive and damaging continuation of the primary fight (i.e., to avoid another Ted Kennedy in 1980, as they did by nixing Gary Hart in 1984), and (2) to overturn the pledged delegate leader in exceptional circumstances if he is highly unelectable (e.g., McGovern) and/or way out of the mainstream of the party (assuming those who voted in primaries & caucuses were not representative of party members as a whole). Neither of these purposes apply this year, so it would not be legitimate for the superdelegates to overturn Obama's pledged delegate lead and give the nomination to Hillary. Doing so would be wrong as a matter of principle, in addition to being disastrous for the party, causing it to lose support from many African-Americans and young voters, many of whom would sit out this general election and probably a couple more.
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Comments :
IMO, the point of having superdelegates
is so they can be "super". If they have to vote like a pledged delegate, then why have any super delegates at all? It may be foolish, or non-democratic to have so many appointed, non-pledged delegates, but that appears to be the system created by the Dems.
name the enemy, win the war
Re: "If they have to vote
Re: "If they have to vote like a pledged delegate, then why have any super delegates at all?"
Although you seem to be asking that question rhetorically, I actually answered it in my diary.
From today's NYT: "Leading
From today's NYT:
"Leading contributors to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton intensified their effort to keep the Democratic presidential contest alive on Wednesday and urged Speaker Nancy Pelosi to stay out of the superdelegate fight, admonishing her for suggesting that the candidate ahead in pledged delegates — now Senator Barack Obama — should become the nominee...The letter...carried threatening overtones in noting that many signatories were major Democratic donors...In their letter, the Clinton donors reminded Ms. Pelosi that they had contributed to House Democrats and urged her to be “responsive” to their argument on Mrs. Clinton’s behalf."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/us/politics/27dems.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=...
Looks like some of the rich and powerful Democrats who always claim to want to protect the people from the rich and powerful now want to use their riches and power to overturn the will of the people.
+4
I'm the Bugs Bunny of Swords Crossed!
-4 Strongly Disagree - 0 Meh - Strongly Agree +4We agree
:-)
It's insanely delusional to declare that the will of the voters MUST be heard (Florida, Michigan) while at the same time claiming that the Super Delegates should have more power than the will of the voters.
They were put in place in case of some emergency situation, hypothetically some emergency where a candidate fell ill, or something of the like, to make sure that the party has a viable nominee.
This hard core blackmail and sense of raw entitlement is unseemly.
It is sad to see that the Clinton's care less about the democratic party than they do about their own sense of entitlement. It is no secret that the Democrats lost seats in the House and Senate under Clinton's reign.
Clinton's represent old money, and are starting to sound like the mafia. Support me or you are out of 'the family'.
I'm only half stupid