Purpose for super delegates?

[Sadie4629]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120631654451858227.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

Until recent weeks, one of the least understood aspects of the Democrats' primary contest was the role of superdelegates. These are Democratic Party insiders, members of Congress, and other officials who can cast ballots at the party's national convention this summer.

(snip)

Democratic Party reforms in 1982 gave super-delegates about 20% of convention votes -- so that party greybeards can stop a popular, but politically extreme, candidate from seizing the nomination.The Democrats deliberately rejiggered their party's rules to head off insurgent candidates, like a George McGovern or a Jimmy Carter, who might be crushed in the general election. Unelected delegates thus have more than twice the votes of the richest state prize, California.

I had read this before, and stated it in a post last week. Someone responded that that is NOT the reason for the super delegates, but didn't tell me what he/she thought it really is. If stopping an unelectable candidate from getting the nomination is not the purpose of SDs, can someone tell me what it is?

[ThomWV]

1. That is exactly the reason we have them.

Go look at the Democratic Convention of 1968. That is what brought them to us.

[polichick]

2. That's what I understood the purpose to be...

And why imo they'll stand behind Obama ~ in addition to the fact that he's winning the popular vote, state count and pledged delegates, he has a much broader coalition than Hillary for the GE. We need to win by a good margin.

[DrDan]

3. this brings a level of elitism to the D's that brings us to par with the R's

It allows the DNC to completely ignore the will and the voice of the people.

[ThomWV]

4. Maybe A Comment Is In Order

Just because the Super Delegates are there to stop an over exuberant party to mistakenly nominate someone they like but the majority in the nation do not doesn't mean that it will happen this time. It didn't happen in 2004, it didn't happen in 2000, it didn't happen in '96, '92, '88, or '84. In 1980 we got a Candidate who did not win a single Primary, that was obscene. However there is no good reason to think that the Super Delegates will do anything other than follow their state's lead, what ever way that might point. I think that delegates as diverse as Bill Richardson's and Jay Rockefeller's endorsements of Obama, even though at least one was well entrenched in the Clinton camp, show that those who have, in effect, two votes at the convention will not abuse the power they have.