Dems move to sack superdelegates

[ensho]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/31074.html



Democrats are moving to eliminate from the party's national convention the superdelegates, the elected officials and party leaders whose role in the presidential nominating process came under intense scrutiny in last year’s closely-contested primary.

Those superdelegates provided, for a time, a lifeline to then-Sen. Hillary Clinton's flagging campaign, and the effective end of their independent role would be a major step toward reshaping the Democratic Party — and its internal politics — in President Barack Obama's image.

A group created by the Democratic National Committee to examine the role of the superdelegates, the Democratic Change Commission — steered by the Obama campaign's top delegate counter, Jeff Berman — held a conference call Wednesday to recommend that these unpledged delegates cast their votes based upon the electoral results of their states rather than on personal preference.

-snip-

"I think the goal here was to get away from what felt like almost a disenfranchisement at some point in time to the voters and to the caucus members in the various states,” McCaskill said.
-snip-
-----------------------------


good

[tekisui]

1. Good.

[PBS Poll-435]

2. Teh Politico!

Meh.

:thumbsdown:

[NJmaverick]

3. Agreed, but this story has been reported by other sources EOM

[PBS Poll-435]

5. I know. Your OP was one of the better iterations of this story. nt

[dpbrown]

4. Until Obama's the insider, then the shoe will be on the other foot

Elected officials favor the status quo.

[salguine]

6. Good. The whole purpose of having superdelegates in the first place was to enable the Party to

thwart the will of the voters if they felt like it.

Of course, if there's now a move within the Democratic Party to eliminate superdelegates, they'll probably find a way to let the Republicans water that effort down, too.

[karynnj]

12. The Republicans?? This is not something where they have a vote

This is internal to the Democratic party. The fact is that 2008 really showed us that superdelegates did not make sense. The issue of superdelegates was not really discussed until after supertuesday when some Clinton allies floated the idea that "if the pledged delegate count were close", the superdelegates could be the deciding factor in picking the "stronger" candidate.

The best reponse I saw from Obama supporters was Kerry's that he did not think the superdelegates should or would overturn the results of the pledged delegates. Now, while I think this is the correct position, it also was a no risk position for the Senator. There was no likelihood that had HRC gotten the most pledged delegates that the party and the elected officials would have wanted to override to give the nomination to Obama. They would have pushed a Clinton/Obama ticket. Politico is right that it held out a lifeline to HRC's team long after it was clear that Obama would get the majority of the pledged delegates. It is why she did not concede until a few weeks after all the primaries were complete. It was also the reason for the "popular vote" nonsense (yes, nonsense - adding caucus and primary numbers made no sense and eliminating a few caucus results because there was nothing that could work as "popular votes" was the height of desperation. It was needed to argue that there was a "tie" which was as true as Lieberman being in a three way tie for third in NH, when he was fifth.

[salguine]

21. DURRR! "Irony" is not just what a golf club tastes like. I KNOW this is internal to the

Democratic Party. I was commenting on the ability of Republicans to thwart everything the Democrats do. It was kind of like satirical political humor. A joke. As in, "not serious."

[IndianaGreen]

7. They should also ditch Iowa and New Hampshire's ego-driven 'first in the nation'

and rapidly move towards a system of rotating regional primaries.

[blue_onyx]

8. Yes!

It makes no sense why those two states have an undemocratic advantage in the primaries.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[karynnj]

13. No, we don't know that

Had they agreed to have those primariess, Obama would have campaigned in both states. It is possible that HRC would have won them, but not by the margins she did. Obama's name was not on the ballad.

If there were no superdelegates, Obama had the majority of the pledged delegates - so he would have won. It is ridiculous to state that the superdelegates pushed him over the top.

[mkultra]

14. we dont know that and it doesnt matter anyway

the super delegate systems is far less democratic than should be allowed.

[Davis_X_Machina]

10. Good analyis....

...on pros and cons - yes there are cons -- here.(Jonathan Bernstein's Plain Blog About Politics)

...superdelegates play a useful role -- not in representing "the party" against "the people," but in potentially resolving near-tie contests by shifting to the narrow winner. That was in fact tested in 2008, and it worked pretty smoothly.

[JNelson6563]

11. I really hope this comes to fruition.

This is an apparatus of the power structure that needs be mindful of who they are suppose to be representing. They should have the power to do that and only that as a super-delegate.

Julie

[burning rain]

15. It would be a good move, in my view.

If superdelegates will not overturn the vote of elected delegates, they are superfluous. If they will, they are an anti-democratic force. Either way, they should go. Another reform I'd like to see is a rule that only delegates awarded on the basis of a primary election can be seated. The lower participation in caucuses (or cauci if you want to be posy) unduly increases the chances of nominating a presidential candidate with fervent but narrow support, who can not prevail in a general election. I always want the left-most viable candidate, but I'm not going to lose sight of the viable part. If people in this or that state want to retain caucuses for selecting local and statewide candidates, fine by me, just not for presidents.

[MaineDem]

17. A candidate must get at least 15% support to get National Delegates

This eliminates those with narrow support. Regardless of whether selected by caucus or primary.

[burning rain]

19. Caucuses have lower attendance than primaries in the first place....

and so can advantage candidates with narrower support, and give them the appearance of viability in later primaries. Narrowness of support is a relative and not an absolute matter. 15% (say) in a lower-turnout caucus does not testify to as broad-based support as 15% in a primary with a higher turnout.

[TexasObserver]

16. Recommend

[Clio the Leo]

18. I'm reading in Plouffey's book about this very thing...

.... about how, after all of their hard work for over a year, the Obama campaign's victory in the primaries was going to come down to sweet talking party insiders. They (Obama, Plouffe, etc) conceded that they HAD to do it if they wanted to change the system.

And here they are changing it .....

[davidpdx]

20. I want to read that

Can you post something in the book section when you are finished?