Here is an in-house fight I think most DUers would agree on - get rid of Super Delagates!

[grantcart]

195. You have a very two dimensional understanding of a three dimensional organism

and again you don't have the facts

Here are the facts

1) Delegates operate as commissioners and vote on a wide range of issues and not just the nomination. They, in effect represent the entire party on a wide range of issues including the platform, the rules of the party and various issues that are critical to the party, lets take for example one of them, the primary process and the exclusion of urban states in the crucial beginning of the primary season,.

2) Lets look at the facts about the Democratic Process of selecting delegates

A primary delegate is selected by the nominee to be on the slate. In essence an appointed position. The slot for that delegate will be determined by caucus or primary vote, lets say 40,000 votes. That delegate continues to represent the voters of that slot on only one question, voting for nominee A, and on nothing else. When nominee A is no longer in the running then the primary delegate is, in effect, an appointed position.

While not as common as it once was this issue is not an academic one. Lets look at the Democratic field in 2008

Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Biden, Evan Bayh, Tom Vilsack and Obama

The race eventually narrowed to Clinton, Obama, and Edwards. If the scandal about Edwards had not come to the surface until after the primaries and before the convention it is quite likely that Edwards would have gotten enough delegates to make it a brokered convention.

In the event of a brokered election only the delegates of the two final candidates have any claim to represent voters, or are "democratically chosen". All of the delegates from the other candidates no longer have standing as being "democratically elected" as they are there by appointment and no longer voting for the candidate that the people in their district or state voted for. They are, in effect, non democratically appointed representatives who were appointed. The people who voted never expressed their opinion on who their second choice was.

Now lets look at one of the evil "super delegates" Governor Jerry Brown. Over his career, which includes, Mayor of Oakland, Attorney General of California and 4 terms of Governor he has received over 20 million votes. In his last election, which qualified him to his SD position he received more than 4 million votes and won his position by 50%.

SDs have arrived at the convention as having won either electoral contests or won positions in the party through party votes. They have a much stronger claim to being democratically selected on the issues beyond the question of party nominee than a primary delegate has and a much more valid claim on the nominee vote than the delegates who are there who supported candidates who are no longer running.

If you wanted to hold to the two dimensional view that you promote that the votes for presidential nominee should only be those that represent primary or caucus votes then you should not only move for the elimination of SD but also invalidate all the votes by delegates who were elected by voters who supported other candidates because they have no claim for popular representation.

3) Inclusion of Super Delegates have two functions a) by including elected officials you are giving continuity by ensuring that about 15% of the delegates have previous experience and represent voters at the delegation.

You have neglected the other reason that we have SDs, so that heavily Democratic areas are rewarded and not punished for supporting the Democratic Party. It is true that California has more proportional representation than Alaska or Mississippi at the convention and that is because California supports the Democratic Party and by including all of the DEMOCRATICALLY elected officials it gives a reward to those states that support the party.

4) Your opposition to SDs is not based in its structure or you would not only be advocating for the elimination of SDs but also for the elimination of delegates voting in the nomination process who were elected to support candidates no longer in the running and by definition "no longer having any democratic standing" for their votes as their presence their was based only on getting elected to vote for a candidate who is no longer in the running.

Your real objection is that Sanders didn't get support from the SDs. Had SDs provided Sanders the nomination you would have considered them a wise and very democratic addition the process.

What you have not faced is the reason why Sanders didn't get more support from the SDs. The reason was that the people that knew him the best may have admired him but didn't think he was Presidential material. On the first day I joined DU I voiced a question that bothered me: as an Edwards supporter I thought he was a great candidate but it bothered me that he didn't have greater support in South Carolina where he lived. I was castigated as a troll but we all eventually found out the facts about the rumors that were common in SC but unknown to rest of the country.

Among the people that knew Sanders the best he received virtually no support. Of the 50 Democratic Senators who he worked with only one gave him support. The Governor of Vermont and the other Senator from Vermont would not support him. The reality is that being a good Senator is one thing and being President is another. There are issues, like universal Health Care, that Sanders is informed and eloquent and others where his positions approach gibberish (and yes I can prove it). Secretary Clinton on the other hand didn't just take positions while Senator she exposed and implemented corrective action on issues that have existed for decades and no other Senator addressed and for which the public is generally uninformed of but the Senators of both parties appreciated (and yes I can prove that statement as well). Secretary Clinton was able to get agreements done in areas where tensions remained red hot for decades and as a result saved hundreds of thousands of lives (and yes I can prove that statement as well).

The real issue that you cannot face is not some system that is completely undemocratic (which the facts show is not the case) but why did virtually all the people who worked with Saunders on a daily basis (many of whom were more politically aligned with Mr. Sanders than Mrs. Clinton) weren't simply in favor of the latter but were absolutely confirmed not to endorse the former.

Secretary Clinton won the nomination fair and square and would have won it without the Super Delegates. This is simply another attempt to re-litigate the primary, an issue I have avoided but felt that the facts were so distorted in your post made an exception.

Your reference to 1984 shows not only how thin you are with understanding how delegates and conventions actually work, and how these dreaded SDs are in fact popularly elected Democratic office holders but also that you have a very weak grasp of logic.

The SD change was made to ensure that we didn't repeat the McGovern debacle. It of course would not apply to a situation where we selected a weak candidate against a popular one, ala 1984. In 1972 we were facing a very unpopular candidate and had we selected Robert Kennedy, or even a moderately popular candidate we had a good chance of winning. For your reference to 1984 be relevant to support your position you would have to show that the elimination of SDs would have provided a different candidate and that would have resulted in a different GE outcome. You can't make that connection because the question of SD wasn't relevant in that race but it does show that you aren't really committed to a position anchored in logic but simply want to re-litigate the Sanders defeat and absolve him from the responsibility he had for losing the nomination.

The current nominee process is based on solid democratic principles and SDs are popularly elected officials who have been selected by democratic means outside the direct primary process but added to the convention process. As proved above, when voting for non nominee issues they have a greater democratic mandate than delegates who are appointed to their slates. Delegates who support candidates no longer in the nomination process have no democratic standing according to the narrow definition you advance which wants to restrict the definition of "democratically selected" to only whether or not the people in that state or district voted for a candidate that was on the ballot. The real issue that you cannot face is why your candidate received virtually universal rejection by the people who work with him on a daily basis.