What is a Superdelegate?
The way I understand it is, superdelegates are those that are big ballers in the Democatic party and whose primary vote, or endorsement, has more leverage than you or I.
Hillary Clinton is behind Barak Obama in the delegate race - and I'm not counting superdelegates. She is enough behind that she would have to win every delegate of every primary left to squeak out a victory.
OR....
She could be close enough in the final delegate count she could court enough SD's (superdelegates from here on) that she could theoretically overtake Obama for the nomination.
So, here is Mrs. Clinton, trying to be the people's choice, when she is actually discounting our vote by hoping that the SD's will put her over the top. So much for democracy. I understand that even some people don't like the electoral college anyway, but it's the system we have. Even though Al Gore pretty much got screwed by the electoral college in 2000, I still think it is a better option than simple majority vote. I believe if we were to use the majority vote outcome, we would end up with a system similar to third world countries where results are disputed for weeks, and with no candidate winning a majority, a runoff is needed, and the election process is dragged on some more.
Quite simply, the SD system needs to be trashed. Voters expect their vote to count for something and the SD option takes that away. Here's a good example. The democratic voters of eastern North Carolina vote overwhelmingly for Barak Obama during the primary. Then, our state level and national reps, who are SDs, turncoat and give their vote to Clinton. Those SDs will have told their constituents that their votes don't matter because I am going to vote this way, whether you like it or not.
With so much complaining after the 2000 national election about voter disenfranchisment, you would think their would be more vocal opposition to the SD system.
But when we let the media make the news, unfortunately, I don't think that will happen. Right now, the media has a lot invested in seeing this particular battle drawn out to the bitter end. May the person with the most SDs win!
3 comments:
If superdelegates voted exactly as their constituents voted -- say, a Senator voting as his state goes or a Congresswoman her district -- then what's the point of a superdelegate? It would be redundant, counting the same vote twice.
Instead, superdelegates are a good idea in theory, especially given the reason for their creation: the 1968 and 1980 Democratic Conventions. The former saw party bosses pick Hubert Humphrey as the nominee (which didn't end well) so they tried to limit party-boss influence. That led to McGovern and Carter getting destroyed. So after the 1980 convention NC Governor Hunt proposed the superdelegate idea. A sitting president (Carter) only winning 1/2 dozen states required something and this was it.
To be quite honest, I had never heard of a superdelegate until this election cycle. Now they're all the rage!
How does it look for Mike Easly to endorse Clinton then she gets hammered in his own state?
It looks fine. He's not running for re-election so he doesn't have to worry about what voters think. And secondly, I repeat, if superdelegates only ape their voters then there would be no reason for them. They were put in place to correct when the voters select the wrong candidate. Easley apparently believes (as do almost half of all Democratic voters) that Obama is the wrong candidate.
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