Feb 10, 2008 – Like I was sayin…., some people believe that us everyday Americans need a little help from time to time.
Like many Americans, I have been paying attention to the 2008 elections. Being mostly conservative, I have been paying a lot of attention to the republican candidates and some attention to what is happening on the democrat side of the equation.
Watching the delegate counts, I saw several times that the Democrats include something called super delegates in their process. I was shocked about what I found out when I did research on how super delegates impact the process.
A regular delegate is assigned during the primary or caucus process. Some states are winner take all, others distribute them based upon a percentage of votes either across the state or by district (and sometimes a bonus for the winner).
However, the Democrats throw another twist to this with the assignment of super delegates. Super delegates are made up of democratic congress members, some governors, past presedents and democratic party officials. And this is where I get concerned.
Note that the constitution doesn’t dictate how presidential nominees are picked and I am not trying to say that this is illegal or anything. However, it somehow bothers me that the ‘establishment’ holds such a large amount of power in the nomination process. There are 796 of these people that will cast a vote at the democratic convention. That is roughly 20% of the total delegates and 39% of the total amount needed to win.
It would seem that the democratic voters get a 61% say in who their nominee is and the party establishment gets a 39% say. Theoretically, a candidate with only 12% of the voters support could win the democratic nomination. That wouldn’t be the smart thing for the super delegates to do, but it seems odd that the democrats have set up their party this way.
To those of you that normally support the democrat party, does it bother you that party officials and members of congress get such a large say in who your nominee is?
I would understand if those 700 would vote for who the nominee would be if there was a tie. However, it is quite possible that either Barack or Hillary will not get the 2025 need to win from the common people and the Super Delegates will get to pick the nominee. Would it be right that if the person trailing would get the nomination because of super delegate support?
Posted by smrtas1 