The Ferraro op-ed

[meglo91]

Probably anyone who cares has already read it, but if you missed it somehow, go read it.

And then puke.

Ferraro wants us to believe that superdelegates know best because they are party insiders and have some sort of super-special electoral wisdom that the rest of us don't, that the votes of independents and Republicans for Obama in open primaries

Comments

Oh take a chill pill

[chrisishardcore]

The rest of the delegate selection is hardly without its own inequities. For example, although Clinton won 43/53 Congressional Districts in California, her edge in Congressional district delegates was only about 5%. Because most Congressional Districts have 4 delegates, there is no difference in getting 37.6 or 62.4. 2 Delegates to the loser and 2 to the winner, even when the winner wins by 24.9%.

At the same time, the last time I checked our general election is nothing like a caucus but about 30% of the delegates are awarded in caucuses. Obama is winning some of these Congressional districts with raw votes in the 6,000:2,000 range. Now, that is a big percentage victory and so he might take 3 of 4 delegates. Meanwhile, Clinton may win a Congressional district in California by twice the raw margin 48,000:40,000 but walk away with only 2 of 4 delegates.

Clinton's supporters have been poorer, elderly, more likely to be single mothers, etc... Obama's supporters have been men, younger, affluent, etc. In Washington state, for example, the overall Democratic electorate supported Obama in a statewide survery 50-45, but in the same survey those who said they would attend a caucus supported him 61-33 while those who said they would only vote picked Hillary 51-42 (Washington has a caucus then a primary but only the caucus counts for delegates). Sure enough, Obama won the caucuses (and delegates) by a huge margin, Hillary lost by only 3 points a week later in the (meaningless) primary, which suggests she has a solid base of support in many caucus states that simply will not or cannot attend these events.

The 85 year old woman waiting her entire life to vote for a female President who can't go to a caucus because she's on an oxygen tank or in a nursing home or the 35 year old single mother who works a night shift during caucus hours have been having their votes count (in the delegate totals) proportionally much less than the 26 year old law student and her 60 year old activist mother (now that the kids are grown up). The superdelegates are one of many quirks in a system that isn't truly democratic to start with and it probably ultimately won't even benefit Clinton in anywhere near the way that many of the other quirks of the system have benefited Obama. Although it seems likely that Obama will defeat or battle Clinton to a draw in the large primary states of Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, superdelegates should pay attention to the results there if the overall pledged delegate total is not large enough for one candidate or another to win. It seems highly unlikely, but if Obama can't defeat Clinton in a primary in Pennsylvania where he has 6 weeks to campaign all by himself, it would cast some doubt on the relative legitimacy of the caucus delegates that give him his edge in those totals.