Why bother with primaries at all if party leaders will just pick who they want anyway?

[TheZug]

If the superdelegates can really contemplate nominating a candidate with fewer elected delegates, votes, and states, they could have saved us and themselves a lot of time and money by just skipping the caucuses and primaries and informing us who are choice will be in November.

And it would save Hillary and her supporters a lot of time and effort they've spent making up new rules, like how only primaries count, not caucuses, or "blue states" or "big states."

http://iwillwalkway.blogspot.com

[BlueJac]

1. It is unreal...

The past has not been good for the country. Vote for change: Obama

[antigop]

2. Funny...a family member asked that VERY question yesterday!

Why do we even bother having this charade of primaries and caucuses -- if our votes really don't count?

[TheZug]

3. Seems like a pretty good argument to me, even if I do say so myself.

[antigop]

6. I'm serious. One of my family members really asked that VERY same question.

I call it the "veneer of democracy"-- it's kind of like a pretend democracy. They make you think it is, but when you strip away the veneer, it's really not.

(Probably a bad analogy -- but hope you get the idea.)

<edit> They want you to think we have some control over the process when, in reality, we don't.

[Johnny__Motown]

4. For the illusion of control. that way we blame ourselves when the powerful fuck everything up-Bush

[TheZug]

5. Exactly.

[Beregond2]

7. Contemplate...

Uh...they won't. They have made that very clear. Yes, the COULD, but that is only to protect the party from having to run a candidate that was antithetical to the party's values. We are nowhere near that situation.

And do I have to point out, once again, that party primaries aren't elections? If a party wanted to choose it's candidate by having a monkey pull a name out of a hat, it would be perfectly within its' rights to do so. The rules of democracy only come into play once we are having an election.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

8. And not just Superdelegates, but elected Pledged Delegates as well! A scholar of this obscure

issue recently said this:

From http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18072/history_of_superdelegates_in_the_democratic_party.html?breadcrumb=%2Fexperts%2F1601%2Fmadeline_drexler "A History of 'Super-Delegates' in the Democratic Party"

"Op-Ed, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University February 14, 2008

Author: Elaine Kamarck, Lecturer in Public Policy

Lessons of the 1980 Democratic convention and nomination race were not lost on the members of the Hunt Commission (named for its Chair Governor Jim Hunt of North Carolina) as they met to write delegate selection rules for the 1984 nomination season. The 1980 race had concluded in an especially bitter and contentious convention fight between President Jimmy Carter and Senator Edward Kennedy. The convention fight had centered upon Rule 11 (H) that bound delegates to support the candidate in whose name they were elected. Senator Kennedy's campaign, in an effort to convince Carter delegates that they should abandon Carter and support him, waged a series of platform and rules challenges culminating in the fight over Rule 11 (H).

In short order the Commission agreed to get rid of the controversial Rule 11(H) and replace it with a less intrusive rule, but one that, nevertheless, urged delegates to vote for the presidential candidate they had been elected to support. The new 11 (H) read: 'Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.'

(This rule exists today, in 2008, as Rule 12 (J) of the delegate selection rules and has not changed since.)"

[leftrightwingnut]

9. Yep. And some wonder why Clinton hangs in there.

A lot of things could happen. I would be surprised if any gambit was left untried this time around.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

10. Please Educate Yourself On The Process First, Since You Obviously Don't Know It Well Enough.

[annie1]

11. you don't like superdelagates, you want new rules.

[milkyway]

12. Think of voters--us--as advisors to the supers. They listen to our advice and then decide whether to

follow it or ignore it.