Here it comes: Obama supporters denouncing suprdelegates as "party bosses" who could dictate who the nominee is and Clinton supporters insisting that Florida/Michigan delegates be seated based on those primaries' voters.
Such appeals don't compute. Sure any of us could have originally come to a different method than creating 796 superdelegates or unseating delegates from states that violated DNC edicts. But now trying to alter the rules after the voting has begun -- which guarantees that one side or the other will piously whine "we wuz robbed," in the immortal words of the Brooklyn Dodgers -- is a formula for defeat. Any changes now will not only infuriate the losing candidate's supporters but also could delegitimize the nomination this Fall.
You don't change a law if you don't like the results -- you don't move the goal posts during the game to advantage your favorite team. I've lived through this one. When Mayor Giuliani tried to change a century-old constitutional precedent because he personally didn't want me, as Public Advocate, to succeed him if he won a U.S. Senate race in 2000 (against Hiillary Clinton) and left office, the public rejected him 3-1 in a referendum because we had both run under the existing law.
So is it unfair that Bush won the presidency over Gore because of a stupid two century procedure called the Electoral College? Or that multi-millionaires can self-finance because the stupid 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision overturned a 1974 congressional law? Yes to both. "Life is unfair," JFK famously said. And rules are rules. Gore knew about the 1789 Electoral College before he ran. And Obama and Clinton knew about the 1982 superdelegates rule before they ran.
The late Senator Warren Magnuson once sagely said, "All anybody wants in life is an unfair advantage." So is it an unfair advantage that Clinton had a long head start with party officials who are superdelegates because of her husband's administration? Or that Obama's very newness makes him a less inviting target of the Far (F)right accustomed to swift-boating Democrats? Sorry, the answer to both is not yes or no but -- it now doesn't matter. Each candidate will now play the hand they're dealt, according to the Rules of the House.
So I hope that we can be spared petitions and threats unless Florida and Michigan delegates are seated based on the prior votes or that superdelegates must be neutered. First, superdelegates are not Martians sent to screw up our democracy but governors, senators, representatives and party leaders who are surely interested in Democratic values and winning the White House; all together, they're less a Boss Daley than a huge focus group which wants to win. (And since smoking is prohibited in such venues, at the least critics should avoids references to "smoke-filled rooms.")
Second, if they should make the margin of difference, it's not that they'd be ignoring voters but, in effect, helping break a tie because voters themselves are essentially split between two evenly matched and superior candidates. For all but the most intense Obamamanics and Clintonistas surely now get that we have two extremely skillful center-left aspirants, each with 75%+ favorable ratings among Dems and each likely to prevail against a McCain seeking a 3rd Bush term.
Unless, that is, naive and immature supporters threaten ruin unless their guy or gal wins the nomination according to their suggested revised rules. This year, my-way-or- the-highway is so. so Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham.
When a legislative body considers election law changes or pay hikes, it normally goes into effect in the next cycle so that the presumptions governing current election laws or pay levels are not altered mid-term.
Ditto the race for the Democratic nomination.
If someone wins the nomination who has the most delegates and most pledged delegates, votes in primaries, states won and superdelegates secured, wonderful. But if one candidate has, say, the most overall delegates according to the rules -- even though he/she has slightly fewer pledged delegates, votes and states won -- then let's unite behind him/her...and empanel another commission to reconsider the rules next time.
For now, every petition circulated, every threat made is a stalking horse for McCain. The most important thing by far is that Dems unite behind either Clinton or Obama. After eight years of serial catastrophes, I'll be happy with a Democratic president who's law-abiding, fact-based, progressive and competent -- which describes both aspirants. Remember disaffected, sanctimonious Democrats who in 1968 found such fault with Hubert Humphrey that they then indirectly helped Richard Nixon win?
That was brilliant.
Democrats, it's time to win, not whine.
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