Super Delegates; Democracy ?
May 9th, 2008 by FrankKnotts
As we continue to watch the battle of the primaries on the Democratic side of the presidential race , we are treated to a glimpse into democracy at work. Two candidates finishing the process in the fashion that it was intended.
And in between the mud slinging , hopefully there is time for them to discuss the real issues.
Even though it seems that Sen. Clinton is being told to drop out from all sides of her party, she has vowed to stay in and fight to the very end. Good for her. Why should she drop out if she has the desire and the money to continue ? Who gets to decide who should be the candidate , the party or the voters ?
Well that brings me to the point of this post, even though Sen. Obama has the lead in delegates and in the popular vote, one that Sen. Clinton can not surmount , she continues to fight on. Why? Because she is holding out hope that the “SUPER DELEGATES” will fly to her rescues.
What is a “SUPER DELEGATE ” you ask, well that is a Democratic party heavy weight. Some are just movers and shakers within the party , others are actually elected officials, no conflict there eh! Well these so called “SUPER DELEGATES” get to set back and watch the primary system work its way to a conclusion, and then if the voters didn’t select the right candidate , well then the “SUPER DELEGATES” get to fly in and throw the whole process out the window and select the candidate that they feel is the best candidate , and the voters be damned.
I ask you does this sound like democracy to you? Not to me . To allow the voter to believe that their votes actually matter only to have it thrown into the waste can is the cruelist of hoax.
Democracy depends on the voice of the voter to be the loudest. The government and the parties should represent the voters will, not the other way around.
What is the point of voting , if it matters not?
So I say to my fellow citizens of these United States of America, who are members of the Democratic Party, let not the voices of your voters go un heard, listen to the will of the people and allow them to choose those who will lead them.
But now as a Republican voter of the state of Delaware who looks around and relizes that I can not afford the windows in my glass house , I must say that here in Delaware the Republican party has made the same mistake in not allowing the voice of the voters to ring loudest. They have chosen to stick to a process that puts the voter second to party officials. To allow the party to decide who should lead the party and the government. This has nothing to do with whether I or anyone agrees with or disagrees with the choices , it is about what is right .
Democracy by its very definition means ; a government run by the (people) who live under it . In a democracy , the (people) rule either directly through meetings that all may attend , or indirectly through the election of certain “representatives” to attend to the business of running government.
If the voice of the voter is relegated to a secondary position, to that of the party they choose to be a part of, then why have voters at all? Are we as voters being told that our popular opinion has no meaning, by those who would have us believe that by the mere act of being in a position of power , that this some how adds weight to one or two peoples point of view that out weighs that of the masses?
I relize that we have once again moved past the point of changing this flawed system for this cycle of elections, but this does not mean that we should just stand back and allow it to continue . We as voters must recieve the respect that we deserve , or else the party leaders may find that they have no one left to lead.
I’m not a Republican, but I think Frank is doing the party a disservice. I thought the Delaware GOP simply endorsed candidates at its convention; the voters still get a chance, via the primary system, to get the final word. The situation for the national Dems is exactly opposite — the voters choose first, and if they don’t push someone over the top the party insiders get the final choice. What the Delaware GOP is doing is guiding its members; what Democratic superdelegates could do (indications are they won’t) is overrule its members. Big difference, IMHO.
“I’m not a Republican, but I think Frank is doing the party a disservice. I thought the Delaware GOP simply endorsed candidates at its convention;”
He is, and it does. In fact, we’ve had primaries in 08, 06, 04 and 2000.
The Delaware Republican Process fits the State of Delaware in a most appropriate matter.
Any Republican who truely cares about a candidate and/or the endorsement process can and will have their voices heard. All they have to do is show up. In the Brandywine Region, an 18 year old Wilmington Christian High School student cared enough to show up to the Regional meetings and was elected by acclaimation to be a delegate at this year’s convention.
He is no “insider”, but he has a great head on his shoulders and cares about his State. Anyone who cares, and cares enough to show up can have a say.
Secondly, the Delaware Republican Party process allows candidates to run, vet their ideas, gain precious feedback and get their name out there. No one heard of Tim Smith 3 weeks prior to the convention, and he had raised less than .5% of the money Ray Clatworthy raised in 2002. Yet he raised enough to campaign vigorously among those who cared enough to show up- and made a very positive name for himself. Even The Disgrace (you can see my previous post to see why I have no respect for him now) was able to mount a campaign while raising less than $5,000. The Delaware Republican Process encourages people to run and vet their ideas. Yet its a process that evaluates and vets both the candidate themselves as well as their ideas.
Imperfect? Maybe, but it allows all candidates to have a voice for the lowest initial cost.
Please forgive me if my opinion offends anyone, it is not my intention. My intention is to point out that the way we have been doing things has not been working for the most part. We as Republicans have been losing power in the state , and I believe in a large part do to our reversed primary system.
As for whether I am doing a diservice to the party , well I believe that the real diservice would be to not speak out against something that I believe is crippling the party.
Everytime I bring this up it is pointed out that we have primaries, yes but after the party has endorced a candidate , so anyone who “FORCES” a primary becomes a “CHALLENGER” instead of an opponent . These lables carry a certain amount of weight with them with the party loyal. If you vote against the endorced candidate you are made to feel as if you are disloyal to the party. If you happen to support the “CHALLENGER” and they lose (which most do) then you may feel as if the party has somehow rigged the process. This makes the healing of the party to run in the general election so much harder and is what I believe is causing the Republicans to lose power in the state. If we hold to something that is not working merely because it is the way it has always been done, then can we say we truly want to win?
Now to the point of anyone who shows up at the convention can have a voice.Well I am not denying this point, but I’m guessing that an 18 year old high school student may not have quite the same demands on his time as someone working to pay a mortgage and raise a high schooler themselves. If you have the time or are in a position to take the time then you can show up and be heard. But how many people don’t have the time to show up. I personally was working late Friday and all day Saturday. I didn’t have time to be there for the number of hours it may have taken to have my voice heard, if I was reconized at all. How many other voters work Saturdays to make ends meet? Many like myself are working for hourly wages for someone else,we can’t just leave our work for our employees to do.
But we can take five minutes to stop at our polling place between seven in the morning and seven at night, and cast our votes expressing who we would have lead us.
It leads me to believe that anyone who says that this can’t be changed , is either benefitting from this system or has no care whether the party wrest control back from the Democrats in the state.
Let us as a party open our eyes to the fact that we must try something different to break the cycle of Democrats in power. If this were a football game and we kept running up the middle , and the Dems kept shutting us down ,don’t you suppose we would try a long pass or an end around, the way it is now we just keep going three and out and punting the ball back to the Democrats.
We may again see just how destructive this reversed primary system is . I would rather have a candidate have their hat handed to them in a primary where the voters have voiced their opinion first , rather than give any wiggle room to be able to say that the process is stacked against them.
You would have really disliked things 32 years ago, then Frank. The convention was it - the grand decider. The problem with eliminating those conventions is that it would signal the death knell for the party organization.
As it stands now (at least in Sussex where I live), the monthly meetings for our region are where the most work gets done by the leadership of the party - namely the people who show up there. The leadership of the Sussex GOP isn’t some group of corporate overlords that is there to force anything down our throats, it’s regular folks. We are manufactured home residents, farmers, laywers, housewives, doctors, small business owners, and retirees. We’re nobody speci, but we’re the guys who work our tails off, getting volunteers and hustling at events. Those people deserve a chance to have their opinions known, just like any other organization.
Frank: I meant a disservice by comparing the Delaware GOP to the national Dem superdelegates. I just think the superdelegate set-up is a greater insult to democratic ideals.
Same with the Sussex County Dems, RickJ.
But I do think Frank has a point about the reverse primary.
And I also agree with Frank’s criticism of the Superdelegates. At least the Dems have proportional assignment of delegates in each state rather than the Repubs winner take all approach. And then, like the Electoral College, the delegates are committed for only the first ballot, correct?
So the age of the smoke filled rooms is not ended, except perhaps for the smoke itself.
Throughout our history we have disdained operating on purely democratic principles.
I think the time has come to restructure our primaries and general elections to reflect these principles that we tout to others but do not practice ourselves, to the point where one could not honestly call our system one in which the government is truly representative of the people.
Special interests have traditionally financed our primary and election campaigns and bribed our office holders, correct?
It is this corrupt core in Washington and in State Capitols that Obama wants to change! Join us!
Correction: The Electoral College delegates are not committed, rather they can vote as they please, a real problem in my view.
I would love to have the primary moved further up the calendar. The problems with that are numerous, though.
No one wants to vote in the summer - it would be a boondoggle in eastern Sussex (where I live) in the summer. The traffic is at such a level that voter turnout would be about nil.
Many of the facilities that host the polls are closed during the summer - opening them up would require air conditioning them (if you think poll workers have it rough now, put them in a brick building where the AC’s been off for a few months).
Moving the primary to before the summer would stretch out the elective season to a point where money would take over the process even more. Only a candidate who could finance two seperate campaigns could make it through November.
I agree RickJ. The internet age has enabled us to make changes in our election cycle, but we haven’t done so yet.
I favor the primary in mid-September, leaving about 1.5 months for the campaign. This is not so drastic when one considers that we are the only western nation that drags out its election process as much as we do. It’s totally unnecessary, wastes a lot of time and money. About the only people who like this are the media.
Aren’t the American people the one’s who should be considered primarily in all this?
Rick J , I thank you for pointing out that it was possible 32 years ago to make an improvement, I only hope it won’t take that long to make another one.
Now as for the destructive power of having just a primary, well I hate to say this , but am I wrong or does it not seem to be working for the Dems? And it hasn’t killed them in Delaware, if anything it may be why they are eating our lunch lately.
Think about it , no they do not know who their candidate is yet , but they are having the chance for the candidates to debate on an even playing feild , where neither is considered a trouble maker for the party. This may be why they seem to pull their party back together much quicker than do the Republicans.
That is what I invision for the Republicans, and once the people have chosen their candidate , then that is when the party machine goes into overdriver to elect that person.
Look I don’t mean to seem ungrateful for the hard work and time that is put in by the people who do it. Maybe I am not making myself clear, it isn’t the people that I have a problem with , it is the system.
It can be better , and I believe until we make it so , the Republicans in Delaware will continue to fall behind.
The Dems haven’t dealt with primaries that were 1/10th as divisive as the ones on their plates right now in a long time.
Frank — The current convention/primary system has absolutely nothing to do with the results of the general election. Nothing at all. Period.
Dave , I defer to the fact that you have far more knowledge of the workings of the process than I do. But as an observer of the process and as someone who does care deeply about the results of the process than I have to stick to my opinion of the process. Let us not forget that often it is easier for someone on the outside to see than someone on the inside who is determined to make it work for the good of all.
As for whether the convention / primary system has no effect on the results of the general election , well this I can’t accept. The way we choose our candidate must surely effect the type of candidate we end up putting forth, also the process has an effect on the attitude of the voters who are subjected to it. While I’ll admit to possibly being in the minority , I would say that I am proof that the process does bother some, and maybe it bothers others for different reasons, but to say it has no effect would mean that it was unneccassary or that changing it would have no effect on the out come, I don’t believe that anymore than I think you do, though we disagree on what effect a change would have.
My bottom line on this always comes down too , two things, one that we as Republicans put forth the best candidates with as little internal strife as possible, and second and maybe most important , that we involve as many people in the process as possible. I believe that democracy works best when you have more people involved so that you get the opinion of the majority.
Would changing the process make it perfect ? Hardly I’m sure , but in my humble opinion I do think that it would make it better, and give the Republicans a better chance to regain control of this state and move it forward for the good of all.
RickJ, I respectfully disagree. I agree that Too early of a primary is a problem, but the summer would be perfect. Voter turnout would not be lower than most September primaries. The key is to reform the absentee voter law and allow people no notary. If they say they may be away, we don’t need them to swear to it. You should have a choice in how you vote.