A Super Ugly Mess

For weeks the candidates, the pundits and the media have been all a’ chatter about the Democratic superdelegates. Endless speculation about what could happen IF the Democratic nominating contest has to be decided by the superdelegates. Well, we’re way past that point because the superdelegates are going to have the final word in this historic contest.

Fears of a potential super ugly superdelegate mess? Did I say potential? Forget that. The future is here and so is the superdelegate mess.

Given the current delegate count (see visual) there is practically no way that either candidate can reach the magic nominating number of 2,025 without the superdelegates. As you can see, Obama needs to win 78% of the remaining delegates while Hillary needs almost a total sweep of  89% of the regular delegates left to win the nomination.

Given that Democratic delegates are awarded along a more or less proportional fashion it is for all intents and purposes a foregone conclusion. Neither candidate is going to reach 2,025

and we should hear now how the candidates and the Democratic National Committee are considering dealing with this inevitability. All the speculation and spin - from the candidates, their staffs, the media and the professional pundits – is drawing everyone’s eyes from the ball. And worse, it is sucking the Democratic contest into an old-fashioned, horse-trading, cigar-smoking form of politics that at least 50% of the Democratic voters are sick of, and likely a hell of a lot more.

The voters have spoken, and continue to speak in upcoming primaries, but we can already see that it will come down to the party insiders – the superdelegates - to decide. They have two major known options, neither of which is a shining example of democracy at work and neither of which shows any respect for those tens of millions of voters who have been really fired up about this race.

First, they can allow themselves to be courted like hesitant lovers, most likely also courting each other out of the public eye and then finally they’ll probably get together to chose the candidate they estimate has the best chance of beating McCain. The problem with this option is that tens of millions of Americans have voted based on their commitment to a candidate and his or her ideas and ideals. And then 796 insiders will make the final decision for them based on totally different criteria that are more about traditional political calculation and gamesmanship than about ideas or certainly ideals.

Their second option is to renege on the once broadly supported decision to not seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida. You see, the members of the convention credentials committee, who will decide the fate of those delegates, are by and large also superdelegates.

If the credentials committee seats the Michigan and Florida delegates, that would give Hillary an additional 178 delegates and Obama an additional 67. Fifty-five Michigan delegates would be ‘uncommitted’ because 40% of those who voted in Michigan’s unofficial primary voted ‘uncommitted!’ Obama’s name was not even on the ballot! You can easily imagine then how controversial it would be to seat the delegates from what at the time was not even a genuine contest.

Seating these controversial delegates will likely not give either candidate enough to reach 2,025. Hillary or Obama would still need to win 73% of the remaining delegates to hit that number, a most unlikely circumstance. Given the prospective delegate split from the two disqualified races, such a move would be a transparent ploy to influence the race after the fact in favor of Clinton. Such a move will still not forestall a superdelegate showdown. And it would be a slap in the face of every person who voted in good faith in the other contests and quite frankly also a snub to those voters who chose not to vote or who voted ‘uncommitted’ in the disqualified and uncontested primaries in Michigan and Florida.

Whatever the superdelegates decide, it will be an embarrassing blow to all the gains achieved in a historic campaign that has to a large degree been about Change. And it will be an insult to all the voters, especially the huge numbers of new participants, who have come out in record numbers to let their voices be heard and be counted.

What a super ugly mess awaits us in what could become the spring of our discontent.

Comments

[Graeme]

Nice graph and analysis. You put it in perspective much better than the media does. Nice job!

As for my two cents, I think the process sucks. Why is voting so damn difficult? Scrap super delegates (and the electoral college for that matter) and lets go with whomever gets the most votes. A radical notion indeed.

[lennybruce]

Hi Graeme,

I go with your two cents, making it four cents. It's pretty strange indeed that one of the allegedly most vibrant democracies in the world still uses a 200+ yr old indirect electoral system to elect a President. Let's get back to one person one vote direct election. As for the Dem primary and the superdelegates - another mechanism basically born out of mistrust of the will of the people. Its gonna be interesting for sure.

[Jamie]

Lenny,
Putting aside, for the moment, whether "superdelegates" are good or bad, I think that the (largely) unspoken fear is that, if it gets to the "superdelegate" stage, it will be in the bag for Hillary. That will not necessarily be so as: 1. some superdelegates who previously supported her are now coming out and saying they are switching to Barack; 2. some who had been hanging back in the reeds to see how the wind was blowing before stepping out into the light are now publicly endorsing Barack (e.g., Teddy Kennedy); 3. unless they are terminally stupid (I could be wrong on that and have overestimated their intelligence) there seems to be such a perceived groundswell for Barack, and Hillary's negative numbers are such, that they would be afraid of blowing the very real chance of having a democrat in the White House (Donna Brazil, a former member of Bill Clinton's administration and Gore's campaign manager when he ran for president stated (I heard it with my own ears, live on CNN) that she will resign from the party if Barack comes into the convention with more delegates and the superdelegate give it to Hillary; 4. they would be afraid of alienating the black/people of color vote for the foreseeable future.

To quote an October 27, 2006 article about the Jim Webb/George Allen senate race in Virginia,
"For Democrats like these in tight races, black voter turnout will be crucial on Election Day. But despite a generally buoyant Democratic Party nationally, there are worries among Democratic strategists in some states that blacks may not turn up at the polls in big enough numbers because of disillusionment over past shenanigans."

One other thing: "superdelegates" are not new, and have been around since 1980, after party leaders and elected officials felt that their power had been diminished by rules changes that had been instituted after the 1968 election.

With that as the stated purpose of “superdelegates” (most of whom are democrat public office holders) it obviously keeps those in power in power, even when that is against the expressed will of the people (and is totally contra to what the founders of the United States envisioned).

Lenny, keep up your thought provoking writing.

Jamie

[lennybruce]

Hi Jamie,

Thanks for stopping by and especially for sharing your comments and insights. You may be right that the largely unspoken fear may be that the superdelegates will help Hillary snatch victory from the impending jaws of defeat but in either case it feels so uncomfortable that 800 elected officials and DNC officials could have the final word after 20- 25 million voters have had their say.

Be well.