In a shocking development this morning, Geraldine Ferraro, VP candidate from the Stone Age, published an editorial rationalizing the role of the superdelegates- essentially why us young whippersnappers should sit down, shut up, and let the grownups talk at the big table. Ms. Ferraro manages to simultaneously blame Ted Kennedy for the woes of the 1980s Democratic Party, justify the paternalistic nature of ossified Party leadership, advocate for the rule-breaking and totally rigged Florida and Michigan delegations to swing the nomination, alienate crossover Republican and Independent voters, and basically repudiate all that Dr. Dean and the modern Democratic Party stand for. As an attorney and distinguished Congressional alumni, I think it’s safe to say that she is completely aware that her fallacious arguments are bogus Clinton talking points.

So, Ms. Ferraro, allow me to retort….

After the 1980 presidential election, the Democratic Party was in disarray. That year, Senator Ted Kennedy had challenged President Jimmy Carter for the presidential nomination, and Mr. Kennedy took the fight to the convention floor by proposing 23 amendments to the party platform. When it was all over, members of Congress who were concerned about their re-election walked away from the president and from the party. The rest of the campaign was plagued by infighting.

Well, that is a pretty simplistic view of the situation. Jimmy Carter is a lovely man, but he was a failed President, a man who came to office with no idea of what he wanted to accomplish and no idea of how to get there- and it showed. He asked for his own Cabinet to resign, for God’s sake, was under siege almost constantly and the only plan he offered us was to turn down the thermostat, put on a sweater and despair. Ted Kennedy stepped up for the nomination because he saw his beloved Party failing badly, with its titular head basically its biggest problem. While Ms. Ferraro sees Senator Kennedy’s amendments to the platform as a problem, at least he was trying to do something differently instead of stoically going down with the USS Carter. Members of Congress walked away from President Carter very early in his administration, and spent the rest of his term showing the Executive who was boss. In 1980 they walked away from the Party because they could see the writing on the wall, and if they were to have any chance of maintaining their place in government they needed to distance themselves from the sinking ship pronto. And they knew they would have another chance in four years, so they changed the rules.

So we created superdelegates……These superdelegates, we reasoned, are the party's leaders. They are the ones who can bring together the most liberal members of our party with the most conservative and reach accommodation. They would help write the platform. They would determine if a delegate should be seated. They would help determine the rules. And having done so, they would have no excuse to walk away from the party or its presidential nominee.

So, their solution to fix the problem was to concentrate as much control as possible within their tiny personal club. Play by our rules or we won’t play at all. The Party intelligentsia handpicks the superdelegates, then controls the message and the rules, and if you disagree you simply will not be allowed to participate.

As a result of these new rules, we got the ultimate insider Presidential candidate, Walter Mondale. Most sensible Democrats knew right from the beginning that his candidacy was a huge mistake. Mondale lied and cheated, in concert with these superdelegates, to steal the nomination from the insurgent candidacy of Gary Hart. Ms. Ferraro served on the commission that created this system, was hand picked by Tip O’Neill to ensure that Congressional electeds would control the nominating process. She was rewarded with the VP selection, which Mondale hoped would give the appearance of inclusion without actually having to include anyone new. They were both part of the ruling class that created and benefited from this elitist system. Ms. Ferraro states with pride that that, “We lost in 1984, big time. But that loss had nothing to do with Democratic Party infighting.” No, it was because you were completely out of touch with the mainstream American electorate, had alienated half of your own Party, and had no creative ideas of how to deal with the Reagan juggernaut. But at least there was no dissention. Congratulations.

…The superdelegates were created to lead, not to follow. They were, and are, expected to determine what is best for our party and best for the country.

You know, because you and I and everyone else who bothered to educate ourselves on the issues, compare candidates, organize, and vote clearly should have no say in what’s best for the Party and the country. We really have no idea, actually. This argument is exactly why the same group of people who support the Clinton candidacy tried desperately to keep Howard Dean from becoming Chair of the DNC.

When Dr. Dean took control of the Party, over the vociferous objections of DLC and old school Democrats, he did something unusual.  He actually bothered to go out and ask all of the people for their vote. He created a strategy where we ask citizens in all 50 states what they want in a candidate and from the Democratic Party, not just the states with entrenched machines. And lo and behold, it worked. We started to win, not just in Democratic strongholds but in red states too. Montana and Virginia elected great Democrats, as well as Colorado, Missouri, and a bunch of other states that Mark Penn says don’t count. Tell Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid that they don’t count.

But despite the success of this philosophy we apparently still need the Party elders to give us what’s best for us, even if it does taste like castor oil. Ms. Ferraro argues that not enough Democrats have voted in primaries and caucuses to give a clear idea of which candidate they want. “If that is the case, we could end up with a nominee who has been actively supported by, at most, 15 percent of registered Democrats. That's hardly a grassroots mandate,” writes Ms. Ferraro. Maybe so, but it’s significantly more of a mandate than 796 superdelegates, don’t you think?

More important, although many states like New York have closed primaries in which only enrolled Democrats are allowed to vote, in many other states Republicans and independents can make the difference by voting in Democratic primaries or caucuses.

I guess this is why the Clinton campaign keeps telling us that New York is important, but none of the states Obama won is. In fact, Ms. Ferraro implies that Senator Obama only won South Carolina and Iowa because Republicans and Independents voted for him. (I thought it was black people, no, rich people? I get confused, it changes a lot…) “ He won his delegates fair and square, but those delegates represent the wishes not only of grassroots Democrats, but also Republicans and independents.” Guess what? Republicans and Independents vote in the general election too! Kerry and Gore taught us the painful lesson that without them, we lose. If John Kerry or Al Gore had appealed to these middle of the road folks, we wouldn’t have Chief Justice Roberts, countless brave men and women in uniform would still have their lives and all their limbs, and record numbers of Americans would still have their homes and their jobs. I guess only Minnesota has true Democrats, since that was the only state she and her ticket mate won in her completely incompetent national election.

But don’t worry, she’s only setting up the big straw man, “ if they are actually upset over the diminished clout of rank-and-file Democrats in the presidential nominating process, then I would love to see them agitating to force the party to seat the delegates elected by the voters in Florida and Michigan.” Bingo, there it is. Completely ignoring the fact that Senator Clinton’s campaign had the opportunity to object in 2007 but didn’t, that her mouthpiece Ickes voted for the sanctions, and that neither were fair contests because the other Democratic candidates followed the rules and didn’t campaign in these states, and disregarding the disenfranchisement of millions of voters in the other 48 states, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, etc., Ms. Ferraro valiantly fights for the rights of “grassroots delegates”, but only in Michigan and Florida, because they have been prescreened and found to be acceptable to her.

Here’s where it gets really good. “As it happens, the superdelegates themselves can solve this problem,” Ms. Ferraro opines, “At this summer's Democratic national convention in Denver, the superdelegates could assert their leadership on the credentials and rules committees. That is, after all, one of the reasons they were created in the first place in 1982.” A past Vice Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party is advocating that fewer than 800 faceless insiders overthrow the will of millions of American voters, simply because she doesn’t like whom they picked. It hurts my heart to read it.

If the only way that Senator Clinton can win is by changing rules, stealing delegates, and ignoring rank and file Democrats in favor of her political cronies (many of whom she and her husband have spent 15 years buying with ambassadorships, campaign donations, and DLC table scraps) then she deserves to lose, badly. If the best arguments that she can offer for her nomination are the anemic, fossilized, patronizing, alienating steaming piles of dung that Ms. Ferraro served up, then Dr. Dean should show Hillary Clinton, Geraldine Ferraro and the rest of the Geritol Gang to the door. And if the Democratic Party turns its back on millions of new voters, young voters, base voters and enlightened Republicans and Independents willing to actually listen before they vote, then we don’t deserve to win.