Superdelegates

Increasingly it looks like the dead-lock in the Democratic primary between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will not be settled by the rank-and-file members of the party who vote and argue in the parties primaries and caucuses. Instead, it seems likely that the Democratic nominee for the presidential campaign of '08 will be decided by the almost 800 Superdelegates. Having the deciding votes cast for the Democratic nominee by a select group of party leaders seems extremely undemocratic, but should we be upset by this?

There's really nothing to be up-in-arms about. No age-old democratic principles are being violated -- the Superdelegates are not perverting the instructions of our Founding Fathers on the subject of political parties. In fact, most of our Founding Fathers considered political parties second only to tyranny (okay, if we dismiss "fuck," "damn," "fhit," and all of the 'normal' curse words) as far as obscenities go. The Democratic party is under no obligation to the principles of democracy at all -- they are a private organization. They could choose a nominee by lottery or brawling (neither of which would necessarily be a bad idea.) After all, what is a nominee other than a citizen who is going to try to run for an elected position?

Would it really be better if the nominee were chosen by the sum of all of the assorted state primaries and caucuses? If the voting ended today, Barack Obama would be the party's nominee, because he is leading the pledged delegate race 971 to 915. That's 51% to 49%. It seems to me that neither candidate has been able to convince a clear majority of democrats that he or she would be better than the other guy or doll. So I really don't see what the problem is with having party leaders decide who will be the best candidate to beat the Republicans and best President.

That said, there are two situations that I think could cause a real problem. If Clinton wins on the strength of her appeal to superdelegates it would be extremely easy for someone (almost anyone) to claim that it was not because of her experience, long service to the democratic party, etc., but because of her race. This could spell trouble. The other situation that could could blow up in a big way would be if one of the candidate's payment to a superdelegate became public. Regardless of whether that payment is a past favor, a future favor, a pledged vote in the senate, or cold hard cash, it would be very bad and very entertaining, but mostly very bad.

I'm still hoping that we will go into the convention still unclear about who will be the nominee and that there will be a back-room deal that would have Hillary Clinton running for President with Barack Obama as her Vice-Presidential candidate on the condition that Bill Clinton takes a long vacation to Tahiti until they win. Really, I think that would be the best for everyone involved.