Posted on 05/13/2008 6:24:34 PM PDT by neverdem
Outright victories for the Democratic Party are rare in presidential politics. Only Bill Clinton in 1996 won decisively among Democrats since the party opened up its nominating system in 1972. Now, it might be argued, the Democrats have managed to achieve the worst of everything in their current system.
A quick history of the nominating system explains why it looks the way it does now. The open system after 1972 produced mostly losing candidates from the left end of the political spectrum. The few winners managed to stay close to the middle of the political spectrum, such as Carter and Clinton, while sounding liberal enough to survive in the primaries. Although no one wanted a return to "smoke-filled rooms," a sense that party professionals could provide some wisdom would appear to have motivated creation of superdelegates.
This system encompasses the worst of everything. The primary system is long, expensive and extremely competitive. From the beginning it has a high likelihood of censoring out the most electable candidates because of money alone. The need to raise money from those with strong feelings generally to the left in the Democratic Party is virtually guaranteed to push a candidate away from the center. This is true in reverse for the Republican Party--a tendency to lean to the right in the primaries. The problem that besets the Democratic Party, however, is the combination of primary and superdelegate dynamics.
Superdelegates have an incentive to block-vote in order to exert the most influence. Candidates know this and that creates an incentive to "hang around" even if significantly behind. This is the exact story of the campaign underway now. McCain's opponents in the Republican race could not wait for a miracle to come and rescue them; once he got far....
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
“Superdelegates, put simply, are a bad idea for a party that consists more of a combination of demographically based interest groups than a consistent ideology.”
Yes, the Democrats are a collection of various interest groups, or groups that have a grievance/victim mentality about their place in society.
I’m not sure about the Republicans unified party ideology sometimes, but I think it’s true that, if you consider yourself a member of a group that has grievances and has been allegedly victimized by society or goverment, chances are, you are a Democrat.
Maybe, but human nature being human nature, and politicians being politicians (of whatever ideological stripe), this "Superdelegate" (read: elitist) concept just rings of anti-democracy .. the will of the people be damned. I don't hold with it.
“...this ‘superdelegate’ (read: elitist) concept just rings of anti-democracy...the will of the people be damned. i don’t hold with it.”
superdelegates....closely resembling politburo.
Thanks neverdem. The road to Hell runs through Denver this year.
I still get nothing but an ERROR message.
It is a national picture of super delegates per state.
It is shaded by color, thus is interesting to note the trends.
One trick that has worked for me is to copy and paste the address directly...rather than click on it.
I will try to find the site where I found it ; I forgot exactly.
8-)
Thanks for the link.
ping
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