Democrats: Get Rid Of The Super-Delegates And Let The Voters Decide; Set New Elections In Florida And Michigan
What will it say about the democratic nature of the Democratic Party if the candidate who wins the most votes and delegates in the primaries and caucuses were to lose the nomination because of the super-delegates?
The Democratic Party is trying so hard to be fair in its rules on the caucuses and primaries and having proportional representation that it seems ludicrous to allow the possibility of elected officials and other party elders be the deciding votes.
This would smack of old style bosses in the days before the primary and caucus system where the Mayor Daleys -- the original one -- and other political bosses in cities around the country decided on their candidate in the famous so-called "smoke-filled room." Now with non-smoking ordinances in place around the country, the smoke would be gone but the idea is the same: party bosses and not the voters making the final choice on the candidate.
This is extremely unfair in this very closely fought election between Senators Clinton and Obama. I would hope neither of these candidates would want to win by having people other than the primary/caucus voters put them over the top.
At this point, Obama has the votes and the momentum and is likely to be the nominee if the party goes by the election results.
Were Hillary able to woo the super-delegates through phone calls from her husband and other surrogates, it could appear that the election was taken from the person who legally won the votes in the contested contests from Iowa to the Potomac primaries of yesterday.
Hillary, Obama and Howard Dean should hold a press conference and release the super-delegates. They should say they have decided it is unfair to let these party elders and others have the final say in the nomination, which could be different than what the voters have decided.
Not having super-delegates gets rid of any hint of the "bosses" still controlling the party and makes the Democratic Party seem like the party of the people once again. And, in addition to making good common sense, it is fair and puts more faith in our primary/caucus process.
At that same press conference abolishing the role of the super-delegates, the candidates and Howard Dean should announce that the states of Florida and Michigan will hold competitive primaries or caucuses before the Democratic Convention later this summer.
The Democrats have to make certain that the voters in these two key states have the same say in choosing their Democratic presidential nominee as the other 48 states.
It is quite unfair at this point for the Clinton campaign to say these states are in her column as the contests in both states were uncontested. The national Democratic Party working with both state parties needs to work out a plan and decide who will foot the bill for the primary or caucus in these important states.
The Democratic Party, by abolishing the super-delegates and having honest and competitive contests in Michigan and Florida, will show the country and the world that the party of Jefferson and Jackson and FDR is truly the party of the people and the party that plays by the rules.
A spirited and contested Democratic Convention in Denver is fine, but a convention that tears itself apart over which delegates get seated from Michigan and Florida will be a convention that could also tear the party apart. It is better to solve the problem before the convention begins.
Democrats: Say goodbye to super-delegates and say hello to new competitive primaries or caucuses in Michigan and Florida!
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you can't change rules in the middle of the game. Isn't that the cries we've been hearing from a certain camp?
This is how our Democratic nomination and process has gone. That is how it is set up. I realize thing make look different now for Obama and he wants to change the rules in mid stream, but as much as the DNC can't change the delegates from Florida and Michigan, they can't strip Super Delegates either.
Deal with it.
Now the voters have a better Ideal of both Candidates
There is a difference between Florida and Michigan.
Both names were on Florida's ballot.
Michigan was not a contest.
Michigan should hold a new caucus for delegates. The Republican controlled Florida legislature moved up the primary one week. Big whoop.
All these rules to protect small, unrepresentative rural states. Gag.
Florida's delegates should be seated. Michigan is a whole new matter. Caucuses should be held there.
I agree re Florida and Michigan. Seat FL.
And if a caucus isn't plausible for MI, then I think Clinton should get the delegates who voted for her, and Obama should get the rest. They had a chance to vote for her and didn't.
Both issues need to be addressed. I'm not sure at this late date how viable new voting in Michigan and Florida is.
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I would be willing to chip in $50 to assist the Democrats in paying for new primaries in both Michigan and Florida. Give both candidates the opportunity to make their cases to those voters and then stage a legitimate election there.
If the Super Delegates counter the decision of the voters, I will be among millions who will turn a deaf ear to their appeals in November. If 800 delegates can overturn the expressed will of millions, then let them figure out how to get the candidate of their choosing elected all on their own as well.
This is about whether we want to live in a democracy or an oligarchy. So many times, the ability to weigh in on that question seems to be outside of the hands of the American voters. But in this instance it's an easy choice. Let the people decide or the people will stay home in November.
Or, scrap ALL the delegates and get rid of this whole convention system.
The delegate system is as insipid as the Electoral College is antiquated and immoral.
For this farcical season:
The superdelegates should vote the way their states and districts voted (not who wins the most pledged delegates because the delegate proportion rules within a Congressional district allow someone to get more delegates statewide even if they received fewer votes).
In 2012 let's end this insanity with one primary day in the Spring and a direct popular vote election in November, using the ranked-choice voting method used in Ireland, Austrlalia, San Francisco and increasingly in Britain so that everyone can vote their first choice, extremists are unlikely, a consensual candidate emerges and there is not such thing as a "spoiler".
But never again. This caca process has been a heartbreak.
Surely a candidate that gets 99% of the black vote is tearing the party apart.
How many elections do you want? Until you get the result you want?If the people of Florida had refused in numbers to go out and vote there would be some treason to question the result but over a million people participated in the election so what was wrong with the result? You lost.
Yeah, We'll try that. Then if it turns out that Obama isn't a clinch with the changed rules, we'll change them again. See, it's easy.
Those races are scuttled and cannot be redone. Hillary has already blown that by insisting that her name remain on the ballots, and then giving a faux victory speech, which has allowed her to campaign in direct contravention of democratic party rules.
Senator Obama was on the ballot in Florida and lost. Hillary won Florida fair and square. Doing it over is a nod to the Obama people, and a slap at the Hillary Clinton supporters. Michigan I think should be redone.
Hillary is allowed to give a victory speech because it was done AFTER the polls were closed in Florida. Obama, whose name WAS on the ballot, ran campaign commercials on TV before the election in Florida. He was the one in direct contravention of democratic party rule. You Hillary Haters keep spewing the same old lies and distortions. Shame on you! As for Michigan, no one was forced to remove their names from the polls. Hillary kept her name on while Obama removed his. It was a bad dicision on his part. But hey, he's learning.
I believe there should be new and level-playing field primaries for MI and FL. But the fact that the DNC has remained totally silent about this issue, other than an apocalyptic warning from Howard Dean does not leave much room for optimism. One has to wonder whether they are even paying any attention to the issue.
Having said that, the Clinton campaign is way off base for claiming those two states' delegates since they agreed to the rules before hand: they all agreed to not campaign there, knowing that the DNC would not honor the delegates.
Hillary's claim is the proverbial moving the goal post in the middle of the game. I believe the more she stakes this claim, the more her support will dwindle because she will be insulting the intelligence of the voters.
And I also agree that the institution of superdelegates should be abolished and may even be challenged on the basis on constitutionality. But realistically it is not going to happen, not in this campaign which is already under way.
Yes, the voters of MI and FL need to be re-franchised. But handing the delegates to Clinton just because she asks for them will tear the Democratic party apart. She apparently does not care about that.
Who to blame for the mess" There is not one else to blame but the DNC and its head, Howard Dean. Now they must fix it and soon.
Hillary Clinto won Florida by 200,000 votes out of almost 1,700,000 cast. Now the Obama people want those same people to vote again? That's garbage.
The Obama people want to have the rules that suit them. The rules were fixed in Nevada against Hillary supporters, and when they complained she was slammed. But guess what she won anyway.
The Obama supportes are disenfranchising the 1,700,000 people who voted in Florida's primary. The republican governor and legislature did that. Why should the Democrats who cast their vote have to do it again?????
Why? Because it was set in stone that the delegates wouldn't count and that nobody would campaign there. Who are you kidding? Don't pretend that Obama is trying to spin this in his favor, all of this mess is on Clinton insisting that the votes count simply because she won. Nevada has nothing to do with this, either.
SuperDelegates, in my opinion, are the consequence of not having a winner-take-all system like the republicans. If anyone is going to sway the nomination after a 50/50 split, it might as well be our elected officials and people who pay close attention to politics.
If we want to take the power away from SuperDelegates, then we should not pay attention to them. Their vote isn't cemented until the convention anyway, so why let them sway the momentum by acknowledging their current position. We should not ignore their existence, but we should ignore their preference until the August convention.
excerpted from: http://pol
"What will it say about the democratic nature of the Democratic Party if the candidate who wins the most votes and delegates in the primaries and caucuses were to lose the nomination because of the super-delegates?"
It will say that the Democratic Party achieved their goal in having the superdelegates in the first place: to allow the party leadership to have a substantial say in determining the winner.
Undemocratic? Sure. So where were all the posts calling for eliminating the superdelegates before the primaries started?
Getting rid of the superdelegates now, in the middle of the primary, is a horrible idea. By all means, get rid of them before the next election, but don't call foul in the middle of the game after the players have already agreed to the rules.
"...the candidate who wins the most votes and delegates in the primaries and caucuses..
Those two things are not necessarily the same.
Under the rules where most of the delegates are divided up proportionally within Congressional districts, it is possible for the candidate who received the most votes in a state or nationally to be different from the candidate who received the most pledged delegates within a state or nationally.
In that case, how do they vote?
Better to scrap this whole delegate nonsense in the future, which the intraparty equivalent of the immoral Electoral College and go to a system of direct voting for the nominee, with a runoff via either two-round or ranked-choice voting.
Agree. If the party changes the rules midstream and holds new election in Michigan and Florida, Democrats are going to going to look like colossal idiots who can't even run a convention, nevermind the country.
Start making the changes in December.
What I don't understand is why the states refused to go along with the rules to begin with? Florida was told long before that it's delegates wouldn't be seated but went and did what they wanted to regardless of the rules that the Democratic party has set down. Same with MI.
Exactly what were they trying to prove? I mean ego can only go so far before you begin to shoot yourself in the foot.
So why didn't those two states simply follow the rules to begin with.
Other than those questions, I agree with your assesment that those two states should redo their primaries. And those two states democratic parties should pick up the cost.
What those states were trying to prove and they have my full support on this is that we shouldn't let small, unrepresentative, disproportionately rural states "winnow down" the nominees when most of the Democrats, not to mention the American people, live in Metropolitan (urban and suburban areas).
In four years, I hope Michigan and Florida are joined by California, Texas, Florida, Illinois and New York and other sizeable states and they link their primaries to Iowa and New Hampshire and end this tyranny of small and swing states.
I didn't need, nor did I want, the voters of Podunksville County or Dicksville Crotch "winnowing down" my choices for me. I am just as smart and as good a judge of character as they are and I can think for myself.
I understand that the republican Florida legislature and republican governor passed and signed the law moving the primary. The Democrats didn't have anything to do with it.
I'm a bit suspicious of Democrats who use Republican arguments against other Democrats. In this case, as with many others on these pages recently, such arguments are coming from Obama-ites. No to superdelegates because they are "undemocratic" AND at the same time no to the voters in Michigan and Florida? Why, because they must not have understood how they were supposed to vote? This is rampant foolishness. No to do-overs!
I agree. Almost 2,000,000 Democrats voted and the Obama people want a do over....
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Posted February 13, 2008 | 11:52 AM (EST)