Super-Delegates, Super-Delegates, And More Super-Delegates
Since super-delegates appear to be the only topic (aside from the Illinois shooting) that anyone wants to talk about these days, here's a quick roundup of today's super-delegate news...
* A block of New York super-delegates in districts that went for Obama say they nonetheless plan to stick with Hillary.
* Super-delegate Christine Pelosi, Nancy's daughter, tells The Huffington Post that super-dels should follow the will of the voters, and recalls what happened to Al Gore in 2000 as a cautionary tale.
* Obama picks up a couple more supers -- Rep. Brian Baird of Washington state, and State Rep. Pete Jorgensen of Wyoming.
* On another delegate question, Ben Smith flags an eye-opening quote from Hillary supporter Bob Kerrey about Florida and Michigan: “You don’t change the rules in the middle of the game. Period.”
* Obama tells reporters that he hasn't heard from Rep. John Lewis and doesn't know whether Lewis is supporting him. On this score, his spokesperson is still supposed to release a statement today clarifying whether he's definitely switching to Obama at the convention. Stay tuned.
MoveOn is also well on its way to a quarter million signatures on their petition to keep the superdelegates from hijacking this election.
February 15, 2008 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good.
"A block of New York super-delegates in districts that went for Obama say they nonetheless plan to stick with Hillary."
They should be challenged in the primaries. If they don't represent the views of their districts, they don't represent their districts.
February 15, 2008 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wish MoveOn would just stay out of it. Their ham-handed attempts at assistance often end up backfiring and hurting the very people they're trying to help. They may be enthusiastic, but they're not terribly smart. I'd almost be happier if they were supporting Hillary. Or McCain.
February 15, 2008 11:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Christine Pelosi has it right. Superdelegates should vote for whoever wins the most pledged delegates. That's the simplest and fairest way of solving this mess.
February 15, 2008 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
And what if the pledged delegate vote goes one way, but the popular vote goes the other? What's "the will of the voters" then?
And what about MI and FL? How do you get the "will of the voters" by excluding them?
February 15, 2008 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
The caucuses don't release raw popular vote numbers, so there won't be a popular vote total. The pledged delegate total will be the best measure available of the will of the voters.
The question of Michigan and Florida is a seperate question. I think the idea of running a new caucus is the fairest solution, but Bob Kerrey's argument is quite persuasive as well.
February 15, 2008 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh please.
Just about every caucus that has been held has associated with it the votes that have been cast -- how else does CNN, etc., know that they can declare who won and by how much?
February 15, 2008 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
FYI: "Frankly the zero" is the resident Republican troll and spouts winger talking points.
February 15, 2008 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh yeah, sure, run a caucus after you've run an election.
Here's what Bill Nelson, Senator from FL had to say about that:
February 15, 2008 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Frankly0,
"CNN, etc" are making an estimate based on exit polls whenever they talk about the popular vote from the caucuses. There are no official numbers though, so it's hard to use that as deciding factor.
Nelson is just making up numbers. Way more people than that would show up. And unlike the previous election, the candidates would actually be able to campaign and the voters would get to see them before voting.
February 15, 2008 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Look, nobody is going to count the caucus vote down to single votes; reasonable estimates are plenty good enough, given that whatever spread there will be ultimately in the popular vote will almost certainly dwarf any uncertainties in these estimates.
And even if Nelson is wrong about the number that would show up, what absolutely nobody doubts is that the number of caucus goers would be a very small fraction of the number who already cast their vote.
February 15, 2008 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Er, I expect quite the opposite. If they had a re-vote in either state right now, with all the excitement in this race, I expect that turnout would dwarf the races they had in January. Not that I am proposing this as an argument in favor of re-votes (which seem rather impractical to my mind) but I find the premise of your arugment (that fewer folks would show up now) totally implausible.
February 15, 2008 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
You can't undo an election with a caucus, and especially you can't undo an election where 1.7 million Florida Democrats have gone to vote in a secret ballot and replace it with a caucus .
You also can't have a fair game where both teams agree not to show up, and then one team shows up anyway, plays (against whom?) and then declares a win.
February 17, 2008 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
The obvious follow-up for Kerrey: does your rule apply to the Michigan-Florida delegates question?
February 15, 2008 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kerrey's comment WAS about the Michigan-Florida delegates question.
February 15, 2008 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have the funniest feeling that even if Obama loses the popular vote, and wins the pledged delegate vote, he's going to insist on "following rules" -- as if those rules themselves aren't often total arbitrary contrivances.
If he does this, maybe he should drop out of the nomination for the Democratic Party and become the nominee for the Hall Monitor Party, you know?
February 15, 2008 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course, Hillary has already put herself on record that superdelegates should vote for her, even if she trails in both the popular vote and in pledged delegates.
February 15, 2008 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not true. Only biased media reports claim this.
February 15, 2008 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK! Then I guess Ted Kennedy should vote for Hillary because SHE won Massachusetts? I didn't think so. So enough of this Super Delegate must vote for the winning candidate non-sense. So I guess the Super Delegates have NO VOICE and must toe the line? You fail to realize that the Democratic Nomination isn't Democratic. It is a PARTY! Set by PARTY RULES! Of course when people see rules that hurt THEIR candidate they squeal but when they HELP they CHEER. PURE BS! I will happily vote for either candidate over ANY Republican and I won't knee cap one of them to help the other.
February 15, 2008 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dont' be ridiculous. At the end of the primary season, one or the other candidate will be ahead in delegates. It's the job of the super delegates to take the candidate with the most delegates over the top. If they try to anoint the loser, there's going to be hell to pay in Denver.
Once we get to the convention, the way individual states voted is immaterial. This is a national election.
February 15, 2008 11:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is such an absurd argument because it will never get that far. Eventually, it's going to be mathematically impossible for one or the other to win the most pledged delegates. At that point, all of the supers who have been waiting for that moment will get on the phone to the runner up and say I'm sorry, you fought a good campaign, but the voters have spoken. I'm not announcing anything yet, but I'm going to support your opponent.
After about 300 of those calls, the runner up is going to publicly end their campaign and support the last person left in the race. Publicly, it will be a result of their decision and not the result of the super delegates or any backroom deals.
At that all of the remaining super delegates will come out in support of the last person standing, putting them well over the number they need to secure the nomination. At the convention MI and FL will be sat because it won't matter anymore.
The idea that this will be a public fight is nothing by drama.
February 15, 2008 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Word.
February 15, 2008 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
yes.
February 15, 2008 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bob Kerrey is right, and Dean knows it.
a) The Florida and Michigan delegates can not be seated as things currently stand. Period. There would be mayhem (something no one wants). Whether the DNC wants to have a redo or not is entirely possible, but still disruptive. I am sure that there are by-laws that allow for some sort of redo. My guess is that they are going to wait and see on March 4, and perhaps it will be irrelevant. I, for one, think that Hillary is first and foremost a pragmatist. If she loses Texas or Ohio, she will be magnanimous, and step aside. I think that Bill is the entitled one, not Hillary.
b) The superdelegates should do whatever they want to do. Period. All of them (except the former VPs, POTUS and senate and house leaders) are subject to a vote in the future where their constituents, whether in the DNC or the general electorate, can protest with their vote. I know that if Charlie Rangel or Chuck Shumer get into some ugly mess with Obama being the clear voters choice and they still support Hillary, I would vote for Rick Lazio before voting for either of them in the future.
February 15, 2008 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I disagree with birds...the Florida and Michigan delegates MUST be seated. The punishment was way too harsh. And 1.75 MILLION voters turned out in Florida where everyone was on the ballot. Everyone not on the ballot in Michigan CHOSE not to be on the ballot. The only candidate with a whiff (two whiffs, actually) of having broken the rules and campaigned in Florida was Obama. It was fair, and they should be seated.
If those voters in Florida don't represent a real election, how many voters does bird or anyone else require to make it a "real" election that should count?
February 16, 2008 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are getting yourself another Jimmy Carter in Barack Obama you just don't want to see it.
February 16, 2008 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
So what does "will of the voters" mean anyway? In what pro-Obama way does Move On define it. Is it solely the national popular vote? Is it the voters in the district the superdelegate represents? Can the superdelegate take into account Florida and Michigan? Can the superdelegate make judgements about how percentage attendance at caucuses don't represent percentage of votes in a primary? Does one caucus vote equal one primary vote, even though generally one caucus assigned delegate represents about half the voters of one primary assigned delegate? What happens if Washington's primary results give Hillary a win after she loses the caucus? Do we ignore the fact that delegates were assigned proportionally to how much support a state or district gave to the last nominee? What happens in Texas if Hillary wins the primary part and Obama wins the caucus part? Where is Obama's and Move On's open letter to Ted Kennedy asking him to, for the sake of democracy, switch his vote to Hillary?
I know we are not supposed to change the rules in midstream for Michigan and Florida (even though stripping them of all delegates was a change of rules in midstream), but these and other questions just show how silly this debate on superdelegates is. Most of these guys are going to wait and see how the wind blows and then do what most elected democrats do: vote in such a way that they are on the winning side without their vote actually having made a difference.
On that note: Kudos to Kennedy for bucking his state and my chosen candidate. That's his job here--to weigh all kinds of factors, pick what he thinks is important to him and the people he represents, and make a decision (and even, like Lewis, change it if he feels he needs to). What we should be asking these superdelegates is: if you are an informed and educated person, why haven't you been able to make up your mind yet?
February 16, 2008 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink