unelectable candidate is being nominated by the votes of the people or in case of a tie, but mostly the former.
If they are not corrupt, purchased, bribed, or simply among the 47 of them that are lobbyist paid to gain influence for corporations (yes there are some very small percentage of lobbyists that work on the side of good rather that corrupting and corrupt corporations whose entire job is to purchase by hook, crook, or blackmail the favor of politicians for the corporation(s) they work for), but the % of good lobbyists is so small as to be statistically, meaningless to this conversation. I had always thought there existence rather condescending and do not really support having SDs around, I even hope someday to be rid of them and have a fair and uninterrupted by election fraud (equal in all States) same day voting registration and until unnecessary, monitored by the UN or Carter election system in this country, but until we have fair and un-purchased, or fraud riddled elections we should at least follow the rules in place the best we can.
The rules do not include arbitrarily kicking out Democrats from the party to keep them from voting in the primary, but it happened to me (after 37 years a faithful registered Democrat that voted straight ticket in every election except in 2002 when I was in the hospital), but for some reason I had my 37 year Democratic Party affiliation changed to NPA
for me without consent or so much as a polite notification of the change. (and I understand many other Sanders supporters in my State NY) and others had their Democratic party affiliation tampered with as well.
For the first time since I joined the party 37 years and some months ago I was denied the right to vote in my party's Primary! (or should I now say former since I was quietly kicked out of the party).
I believe I was identified as pro Sanders supporter, because although this has been reported in many closed primary States starting with Arizona, it never seemed to have happened to Republicans or Clinton primary voters (not that I have seen reported anyway). I believe there was an effort to identify Sanders supporters and purge them from the primary rolls (also known as election fraud).
I even have a working theory on how it was done, I think I was identified as pro Sanders
after emailing a response back to an unsolicited Clinton campaign email from them to take me off their list and asking them how they got my email and other information including my name and telling them I would never support Clinton, in that email her campaign sent me, they "thanked me" (by name) for my support and asking if could I send them
another $20 or more if I could afford it this time?
Odd that I had never supported her, never contacted her campaign, answered any "surveys", ever Facebook posted or tweeted (I don't do social media nor have any such accounts), in other words never did anything where such information could be mined or sold, yet they knew the EXACT AMOUNT I GAVE SANDERS one time and my name and email
(three days I might add coincidentally after the "firewalls were down" and he was denied access to his supporters information for 24 hours)
Strange string of coincidences, them with a firewall downed server with my information on it and me receiving an email from the Clinton campaign with my real fucking name on it including a thank you for the exact amount I donated to Sen. Sanders and daring to ask for more!
Now back to other shenanigans, I lived and was politically aware and then later active during the time between 72 and 84 when the primary rules were changed and remember why they were changed and what role the so called superdelegates were meant to play,
and newsflash, it wan't to play kingmaker by proclaiming before the primary began they would vote for the chosen king (or queen in this case).
It was a instead a condescending idea by the party leaders to put in place party officials to (in rare cases) break a tie, or more directly and purposely because of previous election losses
to step in and override the primary voters if they chose a candidate they felt would lose or be to weak and/or flawed to win a general election!
Until we get rid of their super powered condescending asses they should do their job and if Sanders gets close enough to prove his electability by convention time (which he will do after the forthcoming string of victories) they should chose him, the much stronger candidate that has positive rather than record breaking negative favorable ratings, who brings in the independents and below fifty vote that would stay home if the corruption queen were nominated by them, the very weak candidate that polls as an untrustworthy liar by 70% of the population not in he roughly one half of but 30% of the population that are pro Clinton Democratic supporters.
It is also a sign of a weakness of a candidate that can't win an election if an entire universe of scandals and 3 separate FBI investigations, at least 3 other separate Information agency investigations and dozens of FOIA investigations (put forth by assholes put she did break FOIA laws) The Superdelegates should do their job since we haven't gotten rid of them and I just explained what that job is, they actually will do that job, if they are not simply bought and payed for corrupt officials like one sees in third world countries.
I expected the lying and denial of their intended purpose so I stayed up half the night after spending the better part of a morning earlier this week looking through old newspapers to prove what I've said is true, I will not respond to brock socks (paid by distort the record or otherwise) whom intend to lie about, or are in denial of the truth of what the superdelrgatescare are there for, I lack the time and patience to bother, so don't bother trying to engage me.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Professor Rohde, could you explain why the Democratic Party came up with the superdelegate system and whether the Republican Party follows the same system?
DAVID ROHDE: Let me take the second part first. The Republicans have—do have some superdelegates, but it’s—I believe the number is three per state. So it’s not very important. It’s for the national party representatives from the state.
The reason that the Democrats adopted the superdelegate plan was really because of the possibility of insurgent candidates, not for their own sake, but insurgent candidates who might not be successful in general elections. So it doesn’t do the party a lot of good to nominate a candidate that reflects the wishes of the party and then to go on and lose the general election. And the poster child for this, of course, was George McGovern, and that—who was an insurgent candidate, won out against the party establishment and then got beaten by 20 points in the national election in a gigantic landslide.
So, the Hunt Commission, the commission that was looking at various aspects of the way the party was organized, after the 1980 election, thought that having superdelegates—and they—in the Democratic Party, they are the members of the National Committee, of which there are a little more than 400, Democratic members of the U.S. House, Democratic members of the U.S. Senate and Democratic governors. And that adds up to 712. And the Hunt Commission thought that having those elected officials play a part in choosing the nominee would be a partial balance that would give more weight to the considerations of electability than might otherwise be placed by the delegates that were elected in the primaries and caucuses.
AMY GOODMAN interview FEBRUARY 11, 2016
DAVID ROHDE
professor of political science at Duke University and co-author of a series of books on every national election since 1980.
MATT KARP
assistant professor of history at Princeton University and contributing editor at Jacobin. His most recent article for Jacobin is "The War on Bernie Sanders.
Some history I've been reading regarding the supposed purpose of the Superdelegates and the reason for there existence:
To nominate a candidate who can win.
While the first two rationales are more procedural, the latter two have a somewhat more specific outcome in mind. For one thing, in light of what had happened in 1972 and 1980, there was some surprisingly frank discussion about the electability of the eventual nominee:
Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. of North Carolina is chairman of the 69-member commission reviewing party nominating rules for the fourth time since 1969. He began the first regional hearing by saying that the goal was to give ordinary Democrats ''greater faith and confidence in the nominating process.''
Victory Is the Objective
''We're about the business of winning again,'' he said, in describing the objective of the commission, which is to present recommendations for action by the national committee early next year. (NYT, 9/25/81)
Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. of North Carolina, who heads the latest Democratic rule-changing group, an unwieldy, 29-member agglomeration of the innocent and the experienced, describes its task as one of writing ''rules that will help us choose a nominee who can win and who, having won, can govern effectively.'' The rules will probably matter less than the unemployment rate to a Democratic victory in 1984. But the comments underscore a traditional motive for the task of rule-changing the Democratic National Committee will finish in March. Much of this year's deliberations have seemed infused with a desire to deny future nominations to political reincarnations of the Jimmy Carter of 1976. (NYT, 1/27/82)
The concept was spawned at a meeting of party leaders after the Republicans scored smashing victories in the 1980 elections. ''There was a strong feeling,'' he said.
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