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When will this end? Let's look at the history.
Suuperdelegate endorsements at this point are just spin to increase the momentum of the candidate, protect them from their district/state voter backlash, or curry favor with the person they're endorsing. I doubt very much that the supers will shut this down early. I think enough of the supers will stay out until there's a clear winner even if it goes to the convention floor.
I've been searching google for information about past primaries because I knew I remembered many contests going into June. Contests that were much nastier and not nearly as close. But unfortunately my search skills suck. But Digby found the info for me finally and linked me to this article.
http://www.slate.com/id/2185831/pagenum/all/#page_start
McGovern sealed the nomination on June 21
Carter's first run went to June 15
Kennedy fought Carter right to the convention floor
Hart didn't concede to Mondale until June 25
Gore conceded to Dukakis on April 21
None of these contests were as close as this one. They were all nastier and they all went on longer then this one has so far. I just don't see the supers taking this away from the people while its still this close.
little plug for digby for getting me this info
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/there-wont-be-blood-by-digby-for-those.html
Comments (5)
maybe.
but it really isn't very close.
March 6, 2008 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
and one of the reasons they should end it: in every example you gave, the party lost.
March 6, 2008 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Carter won and didn't get the nod until June 15. There was no way he would get reelected no matter how early he became the nominee. Look up Iranian hostage crisis if you don't understand why.
Kerry got the nod on march 2 and lost. Gore got the nomination on March 9 and lost. Bill Clinton took until June and won. I didn't think I had to summarize the whole article for you but I guess I did. There are lots of reason why some of these candidates won or lost but I doubt that anyone looking at the history would conclude it was because the primary campaign went on too long.
March 6, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
The only relevant examples are the last two because the others all took place before the superdelegates were created in '82. Even then, the only one that was really this close was Mondale-Hart.
March 7, 2008 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
How many of these historical stop points have you created? You know, ones where everything that happened before this point has no relevance to anything that happens after it.
March 7, 2008 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
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