If Foodle -- as shown in his excellent diary on this subject -- had a problem with Tad Devine's editorial in last Sunday's New York Times, then Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann are really going to drive him up a wall with this one in today's Times. They certainly send me there, anyway. Each defense Mann and Ornstein offer for the superdelegate system is -- to my ears, anyway -- more perfectly illegitimate than the last.
The authors acknowledge the "legitimate concern" that "heavy-handed lobbying" (is there any other kind, in this climate?) "might reverse the outcome of the contest." This pre-convention lobbying was the subject of Devine's piece, and God knows it's bad enough, but as Foodle points out, the power to reverse the outcome of the contest is the entire point of superdelegates. There's no other reason to have them. Thus Ornstein and Mann are acknowledging that there's a legitimate concern that they might do what they're intended to do. They deny this, though, saying that, indeed, superdelegates are "likely to play a constructive role in resolving the nomination before the convention." Since the theory was that a majority vote was going to be what resolved the nomination, it's pretty hard to distinguish between what the authors regard as "a constructive role" and simple damnable interference. But read on.
The authors describe the creation of the superdelegate system as follows:
Superdelegates were created by the Hunt Commission, set up in 1982 and led by Gov. James Hunt of North Carolina. The commission was reacting in part to a nominating process in which the weight of influence was with a relatively small cadre of ideological activists whose involvement with the party was essentially limited to the once-every-four-years push to nominate a like-minded presidential candidate. Their influence coincided with election losses in 1972 and 1980, when Jimmy Carter’s re-election effort was crimped by a draining primary challenge from the left.
That pernicious "weight of influence" on the part of that "small cadre" seems to have consisted of having a majority of the votes. No other interpretation is asserted. The role of this pesky majority was "essentially limited to the once-every-four-years push to nominate a like-minded presential candidate." Well, yes, nominating a like-minded presidential candidate is what majorities do. That was the plan. No support is offered for the assertion that these activists' involvement is confined to Presidential elections.
As for the Dems' election losses in 1972 and 1980 due to the insurgence of self-seeking lefties, no mention is made of the loss in 1968, which was pretty directly traceable to the interference by the Party's right wing to wrest the nomination away from those same activists, who may well have been in the majority, not that we'll ever know for sure.
Mann and Ornstein casually drop the astounding howler that the proportion of superdelegates to the run-of-the-mill elected kind was "initially set at 14 percent" but "subsequently increased to about 20 percent" without a word of explanation, but a change of that magnitude demands explanation. That's a gigantic change -- it's the difference between a very heavy, possibly decisive influence and a controlling one. Any superdelegates are a bad idea, but more is worse than fewer. Who thought that one up? When? And why? The authors are silent.
But then they get down to the actual reasons for superdelegates:
...to improve the party’s mainstream appeal by moderating the new dominance of these activists and by increasing the contributions of elected and party officials to the Democratic platform and their impact on the selection of a nominee; to provide an element of peer review, weighing the requirements of the office, the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates and the chances that they’ll win; and to create stronger ties between the party and its elected officials to promote a unified campaign and teamwork in government.
Let's take these one point at a time.
"...to improve the party's mainstream appeal..." This usurps the prerogative of the voters. It also substitutes the judgment of the superdelegates of what comprises "mainstream appeal" for that of the elected delegates.
"...by moderating the new dominance of these activists..." But it isn't theirs to moderate, because the activists' dominance is legitimate.
"...and by increasing the contributions of elected and party officials to the Democratic platform and their impact on the selection of a nominee..." This is a tautology. It says the superdelegate system will give more power to the powerful by giving more power to the powerful.
"...to provide an element of peer review..." No. In a democracy, party officials, elected officials, and the voters who put them in power are supposed to be peers.
"...weighing the requirements of the office, the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates and the chances that they’ll win..." No, the voters have already done these things. The superdelegates can only usurp their judgment.
"...and to create stronger ties between the party and its elected officials..." Right. There's nothing like removing the selection of a candidate from the hands of the electorate to cement its faith in and loyalty to you.
"...to promote a unified campaign..." Unified by quashing perceived dissent, though it comes from an actual majority.
"...and teamwork in government." Right, if by "teamwork" you mean teamwork between electors you didn't choose and the people they appoint.
The authors state that "the superdelegates do have to answer to the party's electorate. They have to go through the fire of elections themselves." Yeah, elections some time in the past, probably in another jurisdiction, in which you probably didn't have an opportunity to participate, and which have no particular relevance to the election at stake here.
Mann and Ornstein say the superdelegates' cooler heads make likelier "a reasonable outcome that enhances the party's chances of winning an election." I guess they're just smarter than we are, then. Funny how I thought the judgment of a voting majority about who was likelier to win the election was superior to the fiat of a cabal of insiders.
This Big Brotherly portrait of arrogant insiders secure in, and happy with, the rightness of their control of what was supposed to be an electoral process could hardly be more complete if they had blatantly asserted it: "We know better than you, and are perfectly justified in taking this out of your hands."
Is it unimaginable that the electorate could be spellbound by some glib, poisonous snake of a politician who spells doom for the party and the nation to anyone literate enough to read the signals? No, it's not unimaginable. But this system actually expects that to happen, which is preposterous. Much better to take our chances and actually trust the voters, as was supposed to be the point of democracy.
I also can't help but notice that the presence of superdelegates doesn't just rig the system; it does so with a particular bias -- an anti-progressive one. It is difficult to imagine a more certain recipe for hidebound, smug, corrupt, myopic, Beltway-blinded reaction than the roster of people invited to be superdelegates. All elected Democratic officials -- even past Presidents? And all party bosses? If only they'd thought to include appellate court judges, this gang could double as the Politburo. Of course these people, presented with any choice between the progressive and the bad old way, will choose the old way every time.
I'd like to address a few other vaunted justifications for the superdelegates that I've read elsewhere. One of the posters responding to Foodle's diary said something to the effect that the Democratic Party had the right to select its candidates any way it chose. Well, it doesn't in my mind, not this way -- at least, not if it wants to avoid making a mockery of its name. If it wants to revert to the days of the good old smoke-filled room, it's welcome to do it, but it's a bad idea for which it will pay a heavy price (the loss of its constituency) sooner rather than later.
Somebody else I read somewhere offered that the superdelegate system was intended to keep non-registered-Democrat independents from hijacking the primaries. Theoretically, huge masses of Republicans could swarm to the polls in an open-registration jurisdiction, pretend to be independents, and impose the least desirable, least-likely-to-win Democrat. But in the first place, again, it's preposterous to assume that this highly fanciful scenario is going to happen. And in the second place, if you're really afraid of that, OK then, make your primary a closed one. Frankly, as one who thinks less of the Democratic party the more I see of its organization and leadership, I wouldn't favor that solution. But it would take care of the problem.
Here's the bottom line:
The fundamental rule of any democracy is majority rule. All else is icing on the cake. Many of the Founders' highly sophisticated embellishments -- the checks and balances created to prevent tyrannical majorities, for example -- were inspired; indeed, the current administration has made me appreciate how important they are. But still: The fundamental rule is majority rule. And for a long time now, year in, year out, our political process has consisted very largely of one political minority or another (though they're usually right-wing ones) doing its best to game the system to circumvent this central rule. The Republicans in particular have practically worn out the illegitimate advantage gained by the disproportionately representative Senate; by the Electoral College; by the filibuster rule; by the comity rules that everyone used to think were strictly procedural; and by their latest innovation, the invocation of filibuster without actually filibustering. But the Democrats are guilty of this stuff too. Government has come to be about these circumventions and work-arounds and tricks, instead of, you know, governing. Everyone knows this; everyone sees it. And everyone is very, very sick of it.
As a man of the left I'm used to having my point of view disregarded in this country. I don't like it, but I am used to it. In the past I've simply accepted that my view was a minority view, and part of the price of living in a democracy was that you had to accept being outvoted sometimes. But lately it seems that the forces of reaction in both parties have grown more and more aggressively dishonest in excluding the liberal point of view -- and I'm increasingly persuaded that my views might not be so minority after all. That puts a whole new light on things.
Indeed, you don't have to be a progressive to see how this system victimizes all of us. You just have to believe in majority rule. Our current situation is a case in point. Here's a disclosure: Unlike a lot of people who post on this blog, I'm neither particularly excited nor particularly upset at the prospect of either of the two principal contenders becoming President. (I was an Edwards guy.) I can imagine either of them being a good President. But clearly, a lot of Democrats don't feel that way -- they have heavy axes to grind, one way or the other. Whichever one of our candidates wins this nomination, those people are going to be upset and angry. And it seems to me that their anger only stands to be exacerbated by this supernumerary gang of overlords interfering in the race.
Toward the end of their piece, Ornstein and Mann obliquely address this, saying darkly:
In this case, the nomination could come down to a difficult and complex credentials battle over whether to seat delegates from Michigan and Florida. To have a nomination settled in this way is a bit like having an election settled by a 5-4 vote of the Supreme Court. Averting this kind of disaster is just what superdelegates are supposed to do.
You remember the Michigan and Florida delegates. They're the ones who deliberately broke the rules the Party supposedly set for them, and whose votes we all agreed would not be counted, in what was supposed to be a long-since-settled issue. Yeah, bringing them up again for any reason is a bad idea, though not for the odd reason Mann and Ornstein give. The closest thing to a justifiable reason they offer for the superdelegate system is that it makes the nomination look more certain, more solid, more majoritarian, which is supposed to matter terribly in election seasons like this one, where the candidates are neck and neck. It seems like an odd fear for someone who lives in a democracy. The Supreme Court gives 5-4 decisions all the time. I thought we'd all grown comfortable with the notion that we just have to accept them -- they're another price of living in a democracy, and a pretty light one if you ask me.
Indeed, this final rationale strikes me as a very persuasive reason to not resort to superdelegates. How much stronger for the losers to be able to say, Yeah, that election was close -- but we accept it, because we're a mature democracy.
At the beginning of their article, the authors quote Donna Brazile's remark, "If 795 of my colleagues decide this election, I will quit the Democratic Party." I guess we might as well start preparing a farewell party for her, because that seems inevitable however we define their function.