SUPERDELEGATES WERE LITERALLY CREATED TO ELECT A CANDIDATE LIKE BERNIE SANDERS
ELECTABILITY. It’s a term batted around with such frequency during the months of caucuses and primaries leading up to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, its significance and history has LARGELY been glossed over. But for fervent supporters of the unfavorable candidate Hillary Clinton, her nomination for president hinges on the Democratic Party establishment’s willingness to uphold its purpose — and Clinton, doesn’t quite fit the bill. At issue are superdelegates. Despite conflicting reports concerning their significance, the fact is, due to structural changes in the party’s nomination process implemented in the 1980s, superdelegates have the potential to nullify a popular vote for the former Secretary of State — because that’s what they were designed to do. To understand how this superdelegate arrangement works, it’s necessary to understand the delegate system. Delegates — “often party activists, local political leaders, or early supporters of a given candidate” — are chosen in processes that vary from state to state, but generally represent candidates proportionally based on the outcome of those states’ primaries or caucuses. Those state delegates are thus “pledged” (or, “bound”) to their candidate, whom they must vote for at the national convention following the primary process. To clinch the Democratic nomination for 2016, a candidate needs to secure at least 2,382 total delegates. Superdelegates, also referred to as “unpledged” delegates, are elected officials, and “include not only members of the national committee, but all members of Congress and governors, former presidents and vice presidents, former leaders of the Senate and House, and former chairs of the Democratic National Committee.” For 2016, they constitute roughly 15 percent, or 712, of the party’s 4,763 delegates. Being “unpledged” to a specific contender means the superdelegates remain free to choose their candidate up until the convention — and even if a superdelegate backs, say, Clinton at one point, they are free to change their mind and ultimately vote for Sanders. After the 1980 election, which was largely considered a disaster due to pledged delegates, two-time former North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt headed a commission named for him to rework the nomination process — which resulted in the adoption of superdelegates. In a recent interview with Democracy Now, Duke professor David Rohde expounded on the creation and purpose of superdelegates: “The reason that the Democrats adopted the superdelegate plan was really because of the possibility.. the possibility of 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 go on to lose the general election […] “[T]he 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.” This superdelegate arrangement essentially ensures that should an unfavorable candidate emerge who lacks electability, party insiders can close ranks and intervene by casting their collective vote for the ‘better’ candidate. Establishment groupies who were happy to learn Sanders’ landslide popular victory in New Hampshire could result in a tie with Clinton because of supers didn’t gauge the Democratic Party’s hardline dedication to self-preservation. Carried away by establishment politics and rigged elections, however convincing they may be— they are forgetting the party system must, above all, take the White House to advance its narrative. Superdelegates are not guaranteed to rule out a Clinton nomination; but, by design, they should, if the Democratic Party establishment feels the need to protect itself from a threat to its existence. And Sanders, who is an Independent running as a Democrat, bothers party hardliners who then leave him out of the headlines — not necessarily because he isn’t electable — but, arguably, because he is. (Referencing: Bernish, Claire "Superdelegates Were Literally Created to Prevent a Candidate Like..." The AntiMedia)
