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MI and FL: Punish the Superdelegates, not the pledged delegates
I have been thinking about this debacle, and it occurs to me: the SUPERdelegates are the party leaders for the state. It is THEIR fault for not coming up with a better solution for the people of their states before the primaries were moved.
I have no clue whether they favor Obama or Clinton, but I think that THEY are the ones who should be punished with no vote.
As for the pledged delegates—the people voted, and their opinions stand as being on record. I think both states should be certified 100%, with all of Michigans "Uncommitted" votes going to Obama, since Edwards (the other guy not on the ballot) has now endorsed Obama.
Being a superdelegate means being a leader. These people failed as leaders, and should not be awarded votes. However, the will of the people should be represented in full.
Comments (10)
The will of the people was not accurately represented in these elections, so it can't be represented in full.
It's not fair to the voters who chose to follow the rules, it's not fair to the candidate that followed the rules and it's not fair to the other states that followed the rules.
May 17, 2008 8:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
what about the thousands of people who didn't vote because they knew their vote wouldn't be counted?
The superdelegates didn't make this mess - it was the state legislators. But the superdelegates are part of the punishment.
Once HRC concedes, the delegates will be counted.
May 17, 2008 8:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think seating half of them might be a way to cut the Gordian knot. There needs to be some repercussions to discourage early voting, but we also want to do what we can to get these states to vote Democratic in November. The elections (especially in MI) weren't fair, but we already know that seating these delegates won't change the outcome—even if we sat all of them.
I don't like it, but I don't like any of the possible solutions at this point.
I blame the Democratic parties in MI and FL, I blame the DNC, and I blame Hillary and Obama (and the other Democratic candidates) for not fixing this problem (or at least forcefully speaking out) prior to January. I think that anyone with any foresight would've known this would end up being a problem.
May 17, 2008 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
They should cut the elected delegates in half, and eliminate all of the Super delegates.
May 17, 2008 9:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I love this suggestion! It's the best one I've heard so far. I especially like this idea because it would stick it to Carl Levin, who is the one most responsible for the mess in MI.
At a minimum, Obama should get all of the uncommitted because there is no one else to give them to & this was obviously a "anybody but Hillary" vote since she was on the ballot & available for anyone who wanted to vote for her.
The breadkdown in MI was 55% Hillary, 40% uncommitted, & 4% Kucinich, who was on the MI ballot. Since Kucinich has dropped out of the race & has endorsed Barack, a good case could be madde to give those delegates to Obama because they are now also uncommitted.
It's no longer mathematically possible for Hillary to win this nomination with pledged delegates & highly unlikely - to say the least - that she can win it among the superdelegates either. Since FL & MI won't make a difference in the outcome, this should be a no-brainer.
After the election, the DNC & the party as a whole better get together & make sure that this kind of thing can never happen again.
May 17, 2008 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Some Super-delegates had nothing to do with the Primary date move. I would strip any super-delegate who was involved in the move though - if they had a vote and cast it to move up the date, they lose their SD vote.
I don't know if you can use the disqualified vote totals in any way to decide delegate breakdowns as it would legitimize that vote and in fact disenfranchise all those who decided not to vote because they were told their vote wouldn't count for anything. I guess the fact that Obama is very likely to win the primary season would be enough to appease Obama supporters who didn't vote though. Maybe half them and just get it settled. Though only after Obama has it locked up - Hillary will likely try some funny business. She has claimed and seated over 70% of the delegates in Michigan according to Detroit News reports.
May 17, 2008 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just some data from DCW to think about: with the MI and FL supers, seating MI and FL fully puts Obama at about 147 delegates ahead of Clinton. Without the MI and FL supers, seating MI and FL fully puts Obama at about 152 delegates ahead of Clinton. With so few elections ahead, it seems clear that seating or not seating will be purely symbolic, which is not to say the symbolism is unimportant. Do we risk sending the message that we don't care about MI and/or FL? Do we risk sending the message that we don't care about the rules?
May 17, 2008 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wwhen Obama takes a majority of the pledged dels, a bunch of superdels will put him within striking distance of winning the nomination. At that point the MI and FL delegates, all of them, will be seated, putting him over the top. Hillary can't object to seating them at that point because she's been pretending that getting them seated was an important cause that she was championing (even though she argued just the opposite before flip-flopping became her only chance of winning).
The net result is that the MI and FL delegates are seated in full, but it's also clear to everyone that they didn't get seated until it didn't really make any difference in the outcome. The former is important so that MI and FL voters don't get bent out of shape for having the rules enforced after their representatives were stupid, and the latter is important so that four years from now there isn't a competition to see which states can move their primary to the earliest date with the argument that since the rules weren't enforced in 2008 they won't be enforced in 2012.
May 17, 2008 10:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that this is what the Republicans did, right?
Regardless of how/if the pledged delegates are seated, the Superdelegates should be stripped of their votes anyway.
May 17, 2008 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting proposition.
It does have a ring of justness to it, however; it isn't accurate to state that "people voted, and their opinions stand as being on record" when in fact we know that many people didn't vote because they were told their votes wouldn't matter. Furthermore, the voters didn't have the benefit of having the candidate campaign in their states, which by the way, most experts agree favored Hillary given she was the familiar name. Results in other states seem to confirm this, as Obama's polling numbers always improved from where they started after campaigning in took place in any given state.
So, this is still a bit tricky.
May 18, 2008 12:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
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