This is my first diary, written one week after I joined Daily Kos.
I’m a registered Democrat, just an average voter who has always supported the party, but one who has never been involved in any party activities other than contributing money to candidates and voting in every election since I first voted 40 years ago. I am not raising this question to support a particular candidate. This is a critical issue of party policy for me; one of basic fairness to both the voters and the candidates, and of great danger to the party if not handled properly.
I hope the issue does not arise, but if the superdelegates become the ones who decide who the nominee is, I want to make clear that I will support either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama if they win the nomination fairly, but neither if the candidate is "coronated" by the vote of just 796 political insiders in an "undemocratic" fashion over a clear choice of another by the majority of the voters. This is not what I believe the party I have been a member of for all my adult life is fundamentally about.
This Democratic primary season has been simply wonderful - unique in my long experience. Huge, unprecedented numbers of voters have turned out, including many young, first time voters. We’ve all been energized by the prospect of voting for either the first woman or the first black man to be nominated for the Presidency by a major political party.
ALL these millions and millions of voters, however, expected that their votes would help determine who that nominee was, not the votes of a few superdelegates. Some say that objections should have been made earlier, but I'm just a voter, not a party insider. Who knew or cared about the superdelegates at the voter on the street level? I certainly didn’t until shortly before Super Tuesday.
If the popular vote of the people is overturned by the vote of 796 political insiders, it will be a travesty. It would make the 2008 Democratic nomination process as notorious as the Presidential election of 2000. Many Democrats, especially those young, first time voters, would feel the nomination had been stolen and that they had been betrayed. They'd be right and the party would have very real difficulty in re-energizing these people in November.
I heard Art Torres, the Chairman of the California Democrat Party, say in a radio interview today that he didn’t have a problem with the superdelegates because it wouldn't be a backroom process; that with all the media, "spaces" (his word), blogs, etc. out there today the process would be transparent. This is just hogwash. You’d know the votes, sure, and know if someone who’d publicly endorsed a candidate had switched, but you wouldn’t know why they switched. The pressure on these people would be personal and very private, done in direct phone calls and face to face.
I would hope that the superdelegates would make their decisions based on what’s best for the party and the country, but think it would be very naive to expect that these would be the only considerations. Some would take the high road, sure, but how would we know if others succumbed to offers of, "If you vote for me, next year I’ll appoint you as Ambassador to X," or "I’ll support that project you want in your district," or even to threats of, "We know what you did in September 1997?" Arm-twisting, deals, inducements, backslapping and backstabbing are how voting coalitions are put together every day in Congress for important issues. Why would this be any different and how could it be called transparent?
Some have complained that caucuses aren’t very "democratic" either. I agree, and think that "primaries only" should be the rule the DNC puts in place for 2012, but this year the caucuses did not discriminate against either candidate. Both had a year to prepare for them and an equal chance to get their people out. They also reflected the votes of real people like you and me who turned out, not party insiders. We know how the process worked. So, they are the best results we’re going to get from the states that used them, are basically fair and should be accepted. In no way does this contradict saying superdelegates are fundamentally unfair. As noted above, we simply can't know if their decisions are fair to each candidate, the voters and the party.
Some say you can't change the rules, but I don't agree. As I understand it, when you come right down to it, the rules are the rules only UNTIL the Convention; the majority vote of the Convention is the ultimate arbiter of what rules and procedures will apply in its deliberations, and they can change the rules. Even if that's not exactly right (I'm not an expert), I'm sure the party can find a way to get it done because, and more importantly, the rules should be changed if they're going to result in a completely unfair and undemocratic selection of a candidate.
So, one way to fix this mess if it occurs, is for the Convention to rule on the issue of the superdelegates before the first vote. To make this happen, the candidates need to be pressured by us little folks NOW to state publicly that they think the superdelegates should be split pro-rata based on the popular vote total.
I think basing it on popular vote total would be fairest since I'm no fan of the Electoral College system, and can't imagine any other Democrat is since 2000. I would listen to an argument that it should be based on delegate total to give more say to smaller states, but my first choice would be popular vote - we all understand that. It would also be in keeping with the basic direction to the state parties on how to allocate pledged delegates under the current rules:
"Delegates shall be allocated in a fashion that fairly reflects the expressed presidential preference or uncommitted status of the primary voters or, if there is no binding primary, the convention and/or caucus participants." [2008 DNC Delegate Selection Rules, Paragraph 13.A]
I think the candidates themselves can control this. One way to get them to do it would be to have the following question asked in the upcoming debates:
"Senator X, if neither you nor Senator Y win the nomination at the end of the primary process, and the decision goes to the Convention, would you accept the nomination if you were selected only by the vote of the superdelegates and had not won the popular vote in the primaries, and, if so, why?"
If the candidates are on public record that the superdelegates should not be allowed to overturn the voters' decision, neither they nor the party will be able to repudiate those pledges without paying a serious price in November, not only with party supporters, but also with Independents and Republicans. I've added a poll below to see what you think.