Handicap the Dem superdelegate count (and debate the system)

[BrainGlutton]

At the 2008 Democratic Convention in August there will be 796 superdelegates, not chosen by the primaries/caucuses. They will make up about 20% of the total convention delegates.

1. Will they (mostly) break for Obama or Clinton?

2. Is it a good thing to have superdelegates involved in the nominating process? Ari Berman writes:

Rewind to the 1968 Democratic National Convention, which showcased the undue influence of the party’s old guard. Big-city bosses like Chicago Mayor Richard Daley handed the nomination to Hubert Humphrey, despite Humphrey’s support for a deeply unpopular war and the fact that he hadn’t won a single primary. As Rick Perlstein recounts in his forthcoming book, Nixonland, Eugene McCarthy won 79 percent of the vote in the Pennsylvania primary but got less than 20 percent of the state’s delegates at the convention. The rest were picked by the party machine. The will of the voters was ignored at the convention, and protesters on the streets outside it were met with clubs and tear gas.

Despite the backroom double-dealing, supporters of McCarthy and Robert Kennedy were able to pass a rule at the convention mandating a study of how the party picked its nominee. This rather innocuous effort, initially led by Iowa Governor Harold Hughes, a popular liberal reformer, led to the McGovern Commission, whose 1970 report, Mandate for Reform, led to a sweeping revision of party politics, which greatly expanded the number of primaries and ensured that convention delegates were roughly proportional to primary vote results; drastically reduced the power of party officials to serve as delegates and dictate the choice of nominee; and mandated a greater role for rising forces within the party–young people, women, minorities. The new rules helped catapult two dark horses to the nomination, McGovern himself in 1972 and Jimmy Carter in 1976.

By 1980 the party establishment had seen enough. It struck back with a commission of its own, led by North Carolina Governor James Hunt. It returned power to elected officials and party regulars–the superdelegates, who will make up about 20 percent of the 4,049 delegates at the Democratic convention. They include all Democratic members of Congress and every governor, but roughly half of them are Democratic National Committee officials elected by state parties, who range from top party operatives to local city council members. Key interests in the party, like labor groups, can also name superdelegates. According to political scientist Rhodes Cook, superdelegates were created as a “firewall to blunt any party outsider that built up a head of steam in the primaries.”

That’s what happened in 1984, when Senator Gary Hart launched an insurgent challenge to front-runner Walter Mondale. Hart won sixteen state primaries and caucuses to Mondale’s ten, and barely lost the popular vote. Yet Mondale locked up virtually all the party’s 700 or so superdelegates even before the primary began. Hart likely would have lost anyway, but the superdelegates sealed his defeat. “I got almost none of them, because [Mondale] was considered inevitable,” Hart told me.

[Liberal]

What are your opinions and analysis?

[BrainGlutton]

List of pledged superdelegates (237 Clinton, 165 Obama)

List of unpledged superdelegates

@Liberal

What are your opinions and analysis?

Ambivalent on both points. Clinton seems to have a commanding lead and better intraparty connections, but “pledged” superdelegates can always jump ship, as Berman points out in the linked article. WRT to the wisdom of the system, look how the 1972 election worked out. The party insiders might have a better grasp than the rank-and-file party voters of what sort of ticket is electable in the general.

[DSeid]

As discussed in a similar thread not too long ago, HRCs’s current superdelegate lead reflects more those who wanted to jump on board early when she looked “inevitable” than anything else. Since then she has likely annoyed many of the DNC with her FL antics undermining their authority to set the primary schedule, many might now lean to Obama as a result … but the prime interest of the superdelgates is to avoid any ugliness too close to convention time.

As to the system itself … 20% seems like a bit too much power to give to the established powers. I understand the utility of having a party leadership input built in, but it seems a bit much.

[Phlosphr]

1. I think they will break for Obama to a greater extent than they will to Clinton. It’s going to be a horserace till the bitter end unless one really screws up - and the highest liklihood of that would be on Clinton’s side in my opinion.
2. Yes.

[tds1273]

How much of a factor are they really?

As important as it is right now for the Dems to get the White House back; with so many more voters involved in the primary season; and with all the talk of a united Democratic party; would they dare override who ever won the popular vote?

Most people simply don’t understand, or even know about the superdelegate system. With how unpopular of a mess the electoral system is seen now after '00 and '04, showing the people that they have even less say in the political process would be an absolute disaster.

Not only would be a spit in the face and alienate half of their voting block right off the bat, but they would probably lose a bunch of people even from the candidate that they did pick, because they would be disenfranchised with the system as a whole.

The press coverage would be vicious as well. It would be the end of the Democratic party likely, or at least as we know it now.

That said, the only real way I could see them coming into play would be if Clinton won the popular by a narrow margin with McCain as the Republican nomination; then the superdelegates could jump to Obama since he is the consensus pick as the most electable in the general election. As much as I would rather see Obama as the nomination instead of Clinton, I wouldn’t want to see it happen like this.

The only good I could see coming out of the whole mess would be that it would give a third party candidate a major boost. Still not at all worth it however.

[BrainGlutton]

@tds1273

How much of a factor are they really?

They could swing a close one. It seems entirely possible, at this point, that neither Obama nor Clinton will come out of the primaries with a really commanding lead over the other.

[Spoke]

I do wonder whether the superdelegates would be so bold as to give the nomination to a candidate who did not win the popular vote during the primary process.