A Superdelegate Speaks About Superdelegates

[FlyingSquirrel]

Thursday, February 07, 2008
What one superdelegate thinks about the nominating process
Our superdelegate friend DNC member Jenny Greenleaf from Oregon commented in a post below and I thought it should be seen by everybody.

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I am absolutely remaining uncommitted until Oregon votes.

I've talked with some of the other delegates about what an odd process we have for electing a party standard bearer. As our former Governor Barbara Roberts said, "Making things fair makes things complicated."

Those who have more history than I do tell me that most ideas for simplifying the process will make it less fair. Certainly the way we award delegates proportionally in the congressional districts is odd, but that's because it really tries to be fair to the voters and reflect differences around the state. Winner take all is a lot simpler, but I'm not sure we'd like the result.

I'd love to see regional primaries, but we'd have to federalize the process, and the states who do caucuses would have to give them up. That might not go over so well in a lot of states.

As far as superdelegates...as I understand it, before the superdelegates existed, the party leaders and elected officials would run for the delegate slots (and win), leaving few for the regular folks who want to go to the convention. So that wasn't fair either.

I also think many of you are doing some of the superdelegates a disservice by making assumptions about them. Sure, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are superdelegates, but most of the DNC members are people like me who came out of the grassroots. I'm about as far from a "party elite" as you can get.

http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/

[Whisp]

1. i just choked on a breath of fresh air.

I hope she said what she really meant.

[FlyingSquirrel]

5. Me too. I wish so many hadn't already endorsed

[sandnsea]

2. Jenny Greenleaf is one of the good guys

For the most part. Came up through the grassroots with the Dean campaign. I've been wondering what she had to say about this whole debacle and I'm just glad she's not pledging until we vote. The other side of the coin though, if we didn't have some heavy hitters stand with challengers, we'd elect the party stalwarts time after time.

[WatchWhatISay]

3. How many DLC members are superd's?

All of them? A few of them? Anybody know?

[MoJoWorkin]

4. Way too many of them. The DLC has been entrenched quite a while.