For all of you who even remotely follow the presidential campaigns, you are aware of the close race between Senators Obama and Clinton. Some of you may not be aware, however, that if one of them does not receive the majority of votes that a group of government officials and political activists, called superdelegates, will decide who the democratic candidate will be…. Not the people. To break it down for those who do not follow politics, there are 4,049 delegates total. Of those delegates, there 3,253 pledged delegates and 796 superdelegates. Pledged delegates represent the preferences of the voters and are awarded through the primary/caucus voting process. Superdelegates are selected by the party, and are to remain uncommitted until the democratic convention. In order for the democratic candidates to secure their parties nomination, the candidate would need to be supported by 2,025 of the delagates (the republicans need 1,191). So far, Senator Obama has 1120 pledge delegates and Senator Clinton has 991. Despite the fact that the superdelegates are to remain uncommitted, 156 have pledged to support Obama and 242 have pledged to support Clinton, bringing a total of 1276 total delegates for Obama and 1233 total delegates for Clinton (information cited from http://realclearpolitics.com). With this being said, if the primary finds itself at a stand still, the vote will be taken away from the people and given to the government. This means that the pledged delegate’s votes, a.k.a. the people’s votes, would be disregarded, regardless of one candidate having more of the majority. I don’t know about you, but this makes me seriously question the democracy of this election. At a time when our young generation is finally coming out more than ever to the poles to voice their opinion, the government is taking their opinion away from them. Given this, what would inspire them to come out and vote again? It is because of this that I say to throw out the superdelegates, make all of the delegates equal in vote, and allow the majority speak for itself.
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If neither candidate receives a majority, then they add the superdelegates to the totals that the candidates already have or do they totally throw out all of the delegates that each candidate has gotten so far and then only the superdelegates count in deciding the winner?
Another point about the democratic underlyings of this system is the fact that one candidate could get a majority of the primary vote, but another can receive the most delegates. The situation would be similar to in 2000 when Gore received the popular vote and Bush became president.
Great blog, thanks for the insight!
If neither candidate receives the majority, then the pledge delegates votes will be thrown out. This means that only the superdelegate votes will determine who the democratic nomination will be for the presidency.
"With this being said, if the primary finds itself at a stand still, the vote will be taken away from the people and given to the government."
The word "government" should be changed to "Democratic Party elites".
This whole process has nothing to do with the government. This situation is totally an internal matter to the Democrats. The Republicans have nothing comparable or so undemocratic. This is a very clear, dramatic and specific example of the fact that the elites in the Democratic Party don't trust their rank and file membership. It says a lot about the Party when they feel they need to retain 20% of the votes for themselves so that they can effectively override and veto the will of a 40 million or so grass roots Democrats in a close election. And to think Democrats are always the ones accusing Republicans of being fascists. Now we know who the real fascist are. They are the Democratic Party elites.
I find this situation quite amusing. I am hoping and praying for the scenario where the race is close enough that the decision is made at the Democratic convention and praying even more for the scenario where the will of the grassroots is trumped by the will of the Democratic Party elites.
I will be cooking up a major batch of popcorn because that will be funny as all get out and there will be much rending of clothing and knashing of teeth.
Thank you for the clarification.