Our friends over at Moveon.org are running a petition urging the super delegates who will be attending the National Conference in Denver to respect the result of the national popular vote and to vote accordingly. Many have already committed to either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama and they need to be made aware of the consequences of a vote that may send a candidate forward to the general election who was not selected by the people.
“they need to be made aware of the consequences of a vote that may send a candidate forward to the general election who was not selected by the people.”
What consequences would they be Matt? You would still vote for that person, wouldn’t you?
If that possibility is such a problem, why do the Democrats have that selection structure in the first place? The Republicans don’t do this.
If someone has a problem with these rules, maybe that person shouldn’t run for president. It is not like the rules are a secret.
In the general I will vote for the candidate who won the national popular vote in the primary even if that means writing in a name. The consequences of a candidate going forward from the convention that didn’t win the popular vote are a lot of disaffected people like me.
I agree, the rules are the rules and there’s nothing in those rules that says that the general population can’t lobby super delegates as hard as the candidates are.
Something else about this whole superdelegate business that stinks to me is the fact that they can be bought by the candidates. Most of the superdelegates run for office or re-election in their district. Most top tier presidential candidates have PAC’s. What is keeping Presidential candidates from buying superdelegates with PAC money? The whole shit is corrupt.
"I agree, the rules are the rules and there’s nothing in those rules that says that the general population can’t lobby super delegates as hard as the candidates are. "
OK, that is perfectly fair and a refreshing change from recent history.
Your bit about the popular vote though is problematic. Many of your states do not hold primaries, only caucuses which are attended only by a handful. I don’t think you want a CA voter to have 20 times the clout of an Iowa voter, do you?
Your Party doesn’t trust the great unwashed to chose their school, their health care provider, where to smoke, when to carry guns, what car to drive, what food to eat or, in a recent example, at what temperature to set their thermostat on the theory that these decisions are much better made by the elites. It is perfectly logical that the party elites should get the final say over the people, many of whom are poor, uneducated and just not intelligent enough to make such complex and important decisions. So where is the problem?
Man…the Dems came up with this system (proportional allocation of delegates, and the “superdelegates” as some sort of effort to ensure everybody gets at least a delegate or two) and now a number of loony-left moonbats want to whine about the end result. How typical. Why don’t they go back to the Florida Supreme Court and see if they can get a repeat of the stupidity that took place back in the 2000 before the USSC stepped in and made the kiddies play nice in the sandbox? That’ll be at least as fun as watching the MoveOn types run around in their Birkenstocks and Grateful Dead t-shirts bewailing the cosmic unfairness of it all
Democrats made their bed. They need to man up and get used to laying down in it, though that’s probably a stretch for more than a few of them.
But, go ahead…I’m rooting for anything that’ll help drive a stake through the heart of the Clinton vampiracy.
…"Of course, our political system is not designed to be perfectly democratic. Perhaps seasoned pols, the superdelegates, know best. But Democrats reflexively denounce any check on the naked popular will as tantamount to “disenfranchisement,” especially of black voters. Already, Al Sharpton and NAACP head Julian Bond are arguing over how racist it is not to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations. If Clinton denies Obama the nomination despite losing the popular vote, she will open herself to inflammatory charges of disregarding black votes of the sort that she and her husband would eagerly resort to if circumstances were different.
Hillary herself was once a democratic supremacist. After the disputed 2000 election, she supported abolishing the Electoral College. “I believe strongly that in a democracy,” she said, “we should respect the will of the people.” At least until that strong belief ran up against her pursuit of a presidential nomination. “I hope no one is ever in doubt again about whether their vote counts,” she said. This turns out to have been a wan hope.
Her attitude clearly is to win, no matter how, and worry about the repair job later. There’s no benefit to her in being a graceful loser, since she’ll probably never run again. And besides, she’s not going to defer to a callow, two-year senator trying to deny her what she’s rightfully entitled. There’s only ethic that accords with her interests and her style – by any means necessary."
