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Wednesday, 27 February 2008 |
Superdelegates need to be a thing of the past
Its been a long time since we’ve seen such a close and hotly contested election such as the one we’ve seen so far in 2008.
There is excessive talk over whether or not a brokered convention will take place and the roles of the superdelegates, as they are so aptly named, have been called into even further question.
No, superdelegates aren’t regular delegates who have more power than the ordinary delegate, and they don’t get to wear a totally awesome cape.
Instead,
superdelegates are members of the party who have been deemed elite
enough and special enough to get to cast their own special vote in the
nomination process.
Superdelegates
haven’t been around forever, in fact they’ve really only been in
existence since 1980, and they are something unique to the Democratic
Party.
This was due to
the fact many believed the roles of party leaders in presidential
elections had been diminished because of the reforms of the
McGovern-Fraser Commission in 1968. The commission changed things to
make sure the election process was less subject to control by party
leaders and would go more to the will of the people.
However, after
the 1980 election the superdelegate role was put into place to give
some of the power back to elected officials and party elites.
And in 1984, the
nomination between Gary Hart and Walter Mondale came down to
superdelegates. Hart was behind Mondale by a slim margin in total votes
cast, but Mondale overwhelmingly won with superdelegates and became the
nominee. But as we all know, he did not go on to be president.
I’m not sure who really thinks having these party elites ultimately have the power to decide our nominee is really a good idea.
Well, other than those people who get the honor to be named superdelegates.
I don’t feel
comfortable with the fact these people might actually have a say in who
gets the nomination in what will likely be one of the most important –
if not the most important – election I ever get to vote in.
It is my hope
that after the next few contests whoever is in second place will bow
out gracefully and allow the will of the people to be honored (and just
to be completely open, I do hope that Sen. Hillary Clinton drops out to
leave Sen. Barack Obama as the nominee).
However, that
may not happen, especially if Clinton ends up not gaining any ground on
Obama in the March 4 contests, namely in Texas and Ohio, which are
being billed as “must wins” for her.
As of now,
Clinton has 237 pledged superdelegates and Obama has 181. However,
Obama is leading in pledged delegates with 1,184 compared to Clinton’s
tally of 1,031.
Now, there are a
total of 796 superdelegates and the majority have not been pledged yet.
I can only take this to mean that many of the superdelegates want to go
with the will of the people and are waiting to throw their support
behind the clear nominee.
There are still
those superdelegates who will show unwavering support to Clinton or
Obama for that matter, regardless of which one gets the nominee.
A superdelegate such as James Carville, would certainly not back Obama
And there lies
some of the problem with the whole superdelegate process. Many of those
who get superdelegate privileges are associates and friends of the
candidates, meaning they already have a pretty substantial bias toward
one or the other.
In all fairness,
I’d say the majority of the superdelegates aren’t that biased, but I
still find it odd that political pundits get what could be a fairly
substantial say in the nomination process.
But this does
represent a system that potentially puts little faith in the public. It
almost seems to me that the superdelegates are there as a safety net
for us – just in case we screw up and try to put someone the
superdelegates don’t like in the White House.
We don’t need that.
I like to think the American public is smart enough to be able to choose who they want for president.
I think the
record turnout we’ve been seeing throughout the primary season is a
testament to the fact that people want change and are becoming informed
about the election.
We don’t need Washington insiders and party elites telling us who to vote for, or deciding the nominee for us.
We’re quite capable of doing that on our own.
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