You may or may not like the fact that Democrats count among the delegates to their national presidential nominating convention a considerable number of super delegates. There are 795 super delegates (not including Florida and Michigan), a total of 4048 delegates, with 2025 required to win. Hence, the total number of super delegates constitutes roughly 40% of the votes needed to secure the nomination. (See http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/ for extremely useful data on the contest.)
Not surprisingly, Obama’s campaign asserts that super delegates should vote to ratify or reflect the popular vote in primaries and caucuses in the super delegates’ respective states and congressional districts. Since Obama won more states than Hillary and leads in the overall popular vote such a position is not surprising. It serves his self-interest. It also sounds more “democratic.” Furthermore, just such “logic” has provided political cover for some African-American and other super delegates, John Lewis immediately comes to mind, to disavow their previous commitments to support Hillary Clinton and pledge their support to Barack Obama. Doug Wilder, mayor of Richmond and former governor of Virginia, apparently has predicted riots in the streets if the Clinton campaign were to overturn an Obama lead through the use of super delegates. But the contention that super delegates should or are obligated to vote pursuant to the popular vote in their states or districts is, in my view, meritless.
If super delegates are supposed to merely reflect the outcome of primary elections and caucuses in their states or districts, why have them in the first place? To be sure, there are those who oppose having super delegates and I respect that position. But the Democrats chose to have super delegates, just as they chose to apportion delegates by proportional representation rather than winner take all in their primaries and caucuses. Perhaps one or both of these decisions were in error. But having been made, it doesn’t seem fair or right or even smart to change these decisions now. True that having super delegates vote lockstep with the outcomes of voting in their states would not be eliminating super delegates, but it would essentially eliminate them by making them merely pawns of the voters rather than what they were intended to be.
Who are the super delegates? The Democratic Party’s Delegate Selection Rules for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, available on the internet, describes the positions held by the super delegates. These include all Democratic state governors, members of Congress, members of the Democratic National Committee, former Presidents, Vice Presidents, Speakers of the House, leaders of the Senate and House, and chairs of the DNC. These are unpledged delegates. (Rule 9.A.) It would appear that the Democrats decided to include these unpledged party leaders and former leaders among voting delegates at their national conventions beginning in the 1980’s to balance the impact of party activists who tend to dominate primaries and caucuses by allowing party ‘elders’ to bring their individual and collective wisdom to bear on the selection of the Democratic Party standard bearer.
As for the obligation of pledged delegates chosen in primaries and caucuses to actually vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged at the convention on the first or subsequent ballots, the Democratic rules are most interesting. Rule 12.J. provides: “Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.”
So, even pledged delegates are not required to vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged at the convention, even on the first ballot let alone on any subsequent ballots. And when one thinks about this dispassionately, it makes sense. Does it make sense to require delegates pledged to John Edwards or other candidates who long ago withdrew from the contest to vote for those candidates until released by the candidates even on a first ballot, let alone beyond that? No. What if the leading candidate suddenly lost favor among Democrats perhaps because of late breaking disclosures about him but refused to withdraw from the race? Imagine, for example, if Eliot Spitzer had been a candidate this year and despite the late breaking news of his visits with prostitutes remained in the lead by the end of the primaries and caucuses? Would the logic currently being offered about the role of super delegates or even obligations among pledged delegates make sense? Not in my view. Then, too, keep in mind that some states permitted Republicans to cross over and independents to vote in the Democratic primaries or caucuses, some of whom may have voted to aid the Republicans or simply without regard to assuring the election of a Democrat in November. That is another reason for rejecting the argument that super delegates must follow the popular vote in making their own judgment. (Interestingly enough, according to the media, the Obama campaign is eagerly seeking to register Republicans and independents as Democrats for the Pennsylvania primary which is a closed primary.)
But even absent any of these more dramatic scenarios, it simply does not make sense that super delegates should forego casting their votes based upon their own best judgment and simply vote to ratify or reflect the popular vote in their states or districts. To be sure, their own best judgment may be to support the candidate who won the popular vote perhaps because they believe he or she is the best candidate or that rejecting the popular vote will alienate those who voted and result in defeat for the nominated candidate. Using their own best judgment does not mean remaining committed to a candidate whom they informally agreed to support a year before just to show their loyalty or reap personal political benefit. It means stepping back and evaluating the overall political situation, bringing to bear their life experiences in and outside the political arena, and then exercising their discretion to decide how best to cast their votes at the convention to further the interests of the party and, even more so, the country in the upcoming national election.⌂
