The Democrats don’t trust their constituency.
But that’s OK. Or so that’s what the Democratic National Committee would like us to believe. They are protecting voters from themselves in an effort to avoid another McGovern like disaster. Wikipedia can tell you all about that.
There are many explanations of the super-delegate, but I’m here to discuss the fact that these delegates are not bound to any currently-relevant primary election process. These folks are former presidents, current or former members of congress, and certain elite members of the Democratic party or the Democratic National Commitee. They are free to chose which candidate to endorse, and they are essentially a safety net for the DNC so they don’t end up with any ideological freaks representing the party in the general election.
In 2004, there were a number of notable super-delegates that had come out in favor of Howard Dean prior to the Iowa primary, based on his appeal to a young demographic. After his poor showing in Iowa, Dean was abandoned by those same super-delegates. This, of course, means that an endorsement is also not binding.
These super delegates represent about 40% of the overall delegates required to secure the Democratic nomination. Of the 197 super delegates who have endorsed a candidate to date, Hillary Clinton has support of 58% of those. Barack Obama holds 23%. If those percentages hold, that gives Clinton 488 or so of the 842 super-delegates available. That’s somewhere shy of 25% of what she needs to win the nomination.
OK – so what’s the point? Well, it would appear that the watchword in the early days of the primary season is change. Change is likely to become synonymous with another favorite and equally meaningless watchword – electability. If there is no clear-cut leader heading into the Democratic Convention in August, these super-delegates clearly become very important. We haven’t seen a race with two such strong and popular candidates in recent memory.
This puts the party and the super-delegates in an interesting position to chose the candidate to represent them in the general election. There will likely be enough poll data, enough conventional wisdom, enough punditry to go around for party officials (read: super-delegates) to chose the candidate of “change” who is most “electable”. At this point, all endorsements are up for grabs, including that of former President Bill Clinton, who is of course related to Senator Clinton through marriage.
Let’s say, by some strange twist of fate, conventional wisdom leads the DNC to believe that Obama is that candidate. Would the party ask Al Gore, Bill Clinton, the New York Representatives, et. al. to pull their endorsements of Senator Clinton and back Senator Obama for a run at the White House? Not hard to imagine this scenario.
As stated, the super-delegates were put in place as a safety valve for the party. This same safety valve could conceivably fracture the party, leading to a disenfranchised constituency and pave the way for a Republican victory.
Interesting times.
