The Times reported that Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights leader who pledged his support for Clinton, is switching his super-delegate vote to Obama. NBC is reporting that he hasn't actually decided to change his vote. But this illustrates a few things. First of all, it shows that these delegate counts are far from settled. Even the states that have already voted will show change. All of which means that we really shouldn't trust the delegate counts we get from news sources.But this also goes back to the decision in front of these party insiders, now referred to as super-delegates. I don't know the answer to the question of whether they should support who they want or who the voters want. I'm curious to hear what people think, so comment liberally.
5 comments:
there's a kind of paranoia building about super delegates. All our laws and up until JFK all our presidential candidates were made/chosen by the peoples' representatives (super delgates). Earning their vote is a legitimate task for a candidate, as legitimate as earning your or my vote.
That's fine, but the minute you support the existence and determinative power of super delegates is the minute you must cease complaining about the existence and determinative power of the electoral college, and its ability to put the popular-vote loser into the White House. (Not that I'm accusing Jed of wanting to have his cake and eat it, too). Neither are purely democratic, but then, neither is the United States.
But at least the electoral college is written into the Constitution...
As you probably know, the Times ran a pretty nifty breakdown today:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/02/17/us/20080217_DELEGATES_1_GRAPHIC.html
CQ Politics had an interesting take on the superdelegates:
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docid=news-000002671724
The crux is that this has been in effect since the 1984 election and the media is only now reporting on it. (the superdelegates did, apparently, play a role in nominating Mondale that year)
The best point CQ makes, I think:
most of the party leaders and elected officials who are superdelegates are political pragmatists. When the nomination is resolved, they want to be on the side of the winner. And they want that winner to be someone who they feel also can bring victory in the November general election.
OK here's the link again, hopefully in full.
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