Democratic Party to Keep Controversial Superdelegates

[Scurrilous]

A reform effort to take away party bigwigs’ presidential-nominating power suffers a setback.

<snip>

"Before 2008, your average American might not have known what a Democratic Party superdelegate was. But that year these mysterious party insiders became a feature of the daily news cycle as the fierce presidential-primary battle swept across the country. In a neck-and-neck race, the party confronted the very real possibility that these unelected delegates to its national convention might support Hillary Clinton in sufficient numbers to give her the nomination, despite Barack Obama’s slim but indisputable lead among pledged delegates, who are assigned by the results of state primaries and caucuses. The prospect of Democratic insiders taking the nomination away from the first African-American to qualify for it threatened to seriously damage party unity, and prompted a move to reform the Democrats’ nomination process.

But recently a party committee quietly tossed out a plan to take nominating power away from the superdelegates—former presidents, current senators and Congress members, members of the Democratic National Committee, and other party luminaries such as labor leaders. The superdelegates currently have automatic seats at the convention and are free to vote for whichever presidential candidate they please.

After Obama secured the party’s nomination, he urged the DNC to create a commission to examine superdelegates’ influence and other shortcomings in the nomination process. The Democratic Change Commission (whose members included Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, and House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina) took a tough stance. Superdelegates, it recommended, should be required to vote for a candidate assigned to them, based on the results of their state’s caucus or primary.

“We need to show deference to what the party members in our state have done,” said McCaskill, the commission’s co-chair, in December, when the recommendations were announced and forwarded to the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee for approval.

But the rules committee took a dim view of this proposal. While endorsing recommendations to dilute the superdelegates’ influence (mostly by increasing the number of ordinary delegates), it quietly nixed the redefinition of their voting powers at it July 10 meeting. How quietly? Enough that even some members of the change commission hadn’t yet heard about it when NEWSWEEK spoke to them last week."

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/02/democratic-party-to-keep-controversial-superdelegates.html

[Ken Burch]

1. Would it be ANY great loss to scrap the superdelegates?

After all, they're the ones who ensured that Mondale, Dukakis and Kerry(three of our least effective candidates)were nominated, despite the fact that there were serious issues with each of them by the time of their respective conventions.

And if the argument is "we have to make sure there's no more McGoverns'", why does everybody forget the fact that all the candidates who could have been imposed instead of McGovern were just as far behind Nixon as McGovern was, by the time of the conventions?

Why would it be so terrible to actually, just once, have an OPEN convention, with REAL debates on the issues and a roll-call vote that actually mattered? What do we really get from having bland, spontaneity-free "rubber stamp" conventions?

[Radical Activist]

2. You want a less democratic process?

No votes by the public? Back to the days of horse-trading among party bosses at a convention? No thanks. I'd rather let voters decide.

[BzaDem]

3. +1

[Ken Burch]

4. I want a fully democratic process

I want MORE primaries, with all delegates decided proportionally.

AND I want a democratic process ON the convention floor, with delegates allowed to vote their conscience on the platform.

The whole point of the superdelegates was to allow the party leaders to overrule the voters in the primaries. That's the only possible reason to give a blocking fifth of the delegates to people who don't declare a preference. The superdelegates have never made a choice that led us to victory. In the years in which we won, the person who was elected in the fall would ALWAYS have won the nom WITHOUT the superdelegates.

There needs to be a way to allow real debate on the issues at the convention(people will only watch, and we NEED people to watch, if something that's actually interesting or surprising is happening), and we need the possibility, if things are looking bleak and dreary, of someone being able to come in and do a William Jennings Bryan in 1896 kind of moment.

Plus, there does need to be a fail-safe so that the rank-and-file, NOT the party leaders, can remove a discredited frontrunner, as should have been done, if nothing else, in 1968, 1980 and 1984.

[Radical Activist]

10. You want two conflicting things.

If we're going to have a democratic process that empowers voters through primaries then the nomination will be a boring one decided long before it meets.

Yet, you also want to give the convention power to be anti-democratic by overruling the decision of primary voters. It seems you have a romantic notion of convention floor fights, but even in the case of Bryan, those were decided by party bosses. Giving the convention that much power will lead to party bosses making the kind of decisions that you believe were mistakes.

[Javaman]

6. Do you even know who the superdelegates are?

they are less the public and more special interest donors, former party leaders and former elected officials.

If they were actual normal average people, it would be one thing, but the position of the superdelegate has long been a sacred spot, meted out to the lucky rich and influential few.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdelegate

[Radical Activist]

8. Try reading my post again.

I wasn't arguing for more super delegates.

[Javaman]

11. Try reading mine again.

I was telling you how they are picked.

and you accuse me of misreading?

See here's the deal with making a point, it needs to have a reason.

[Radical Activist]

12. Then your comment had no relevance to what you responded to.

That's fine. Just checking.

[Javaman]

14. ??

you make a statement regarding superdelegates and I respond to how they are picked.

That is completely relevant, but then again, for someone such as yourself who appears to be reading challenged, I would expect nothing less.

[Radical Activist]

16. No, my comment was in response

to Ken Burch's idea that unpledged delegates should be able to pick any nominee they want at the convention, regardless of primary election results. I disagree with him. Who the superdelegates are is not relevant to that issue. It could happen with or without superdelegates.
You have to read more than the subject lines.

[Umbral]

7. That's rich. Super Delegates are the antithesis of Democracy. Fail! nt

[Radical Activist]

9. Reading comprehension fail.

I wasn't arguing for more superdelegates. Read the comment I was responding to and then read mine again.

[Javaman]

15. and yet you criticize me for showing you how delegates are chosen.

They aren't the least bit a representative selection of the people of this nation, but alas, trying to give you facts is like trying to force feed a goat.

[Radical Activist]

18. So it sounds like you actually agree with my point

but you're still throwing insults. huh

[Javaman]

26. No. If you made your point clear, then perhaps I would agree...

but your postulation is so incoherent, that I'm not the only one here that perceives your original post as being off base.

[Hannah Bell]

13. "the voters"? lol. how orwellian of you.

[Radical Activist]

20. You don't like voters picking candidates in primaries now?

I suppose that fits in with your authoritarian views.

[Hannah Bell]

21. "superdelegates" = "voters in the primaries"?

[Radical Activist]

22. You just read the subject lines, didn't you?

Try reading both comments and follow the conversation. My comment wasn't about superdelegates.

[Hannah Bell]

23. you didn't read the op, did you?

[Radical Activist]

24. Was I responding directly to the OP?

[Hannah Bell]

25. yes. you were responding to post 1, which supported the op.

cheezy orwell.

byee.

[Radical Activist]

27. Yeah, you only read the subject line

and decided I was arguing for super delegates. Nice job.

[Warren DeMontague]

5. If they're going to keep them, they should have to wear their undies on the outside of their pants.

[Odin2005]

17. The Elites don't want us rabble to make our own choices.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. "Some animals are more equal than others." Orwell