Much Ado About Something: The Democrats' Outrageously Undemocratic Superdelegate Rule

9. UNPLEDGED AND PLEDGED PARTY LEADERS AND ELECTED OFFICIAL DELEGATES

A. The procedure to be used for certifying unpledged party leader and elected official delegates is as follows: Not later than March 1, 2008, the Secretary of the Democratic National Committee shall officially confirm to each State Democratic Chair the names of the following unpledged delegates who legally reside in their respective state and who shall be recognized as part of their state’s delegation unless any such member has publicly expressed support for the election of, or has endorsed, a presidential candidate of another political party: 1. The individuals recognized as members of the DNC (as set forth in Article Three,Sections 2 and 3 of the Charter of the Democratic Party of the United States); and, 2. The Democratic President and the Democratic Vice President of the United States, if applicable; and, 3. All Democratic members of the United States House of Representatives and all Democratic members of the United States Senate; and, 4. The Democratic Governor, if applicable; and, 5. All former Democratic Presidents, all former Democratic Vice Presidents, all former Democratic Leaders of the U.S. Senate, all former Democratic Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives and Democratic Minority Leaders, as applicable, and all former Chairs of the Democratic National Committee.

The role superdelegates might play in deciding the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party is bringing unwelcome attention to this outrageously undemocratic aspect of the Party's nominating process. In a February 8, 2008 interview (broadcast on Late Edition today) with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) explained and defended the involvement of superdelegates in picking her party’s presidential nominee. Superdelegates, who make up also 20% of the total delegates, were established, Pelosi explained, in order to allow grassroots Democratic activists to attend the nominating convention without having to compete with high-ranking Democratic party officials for a coveted spot on the convention floor.

Nice try, Madame Speaker.

Identifying the Superdelegates. Who are these 796 uncommitted "grassroot activists" who may decide the Party's presidential candidate during the Democratic Party Convention, August 25-28, 2008, in Denver? They include former Vice President Walter Mondale, former Presidents Clinton and Carter, former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, and ... Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. In fact, pursuant to Rule 9(A) of the Delegate Selection Rules for the 2008 Democratic National Convention [see sidebar | Download the complete text of the Delegate Selection Rules (pdf)], all Democratic members of Congress, Democratic governors, and numerous local party leaders including some mayors and legislators who are specially elected by each state's Democratic Party are superdelegates. Others (oftentimes large fund-raisers) are appointed by that well-spring of local activism, the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

On the Democratic Party Convention website, you can get information on the number of pledged delegates and unpledged superdelegates by state from the site's Delegate Map. The number of  unpledged superdelegates is broken down by type: DNC members, Members of Congress, "Distinguished Party Leaders," etc.

Here's the current list of superdelegates by name for the Democratic Party; no such list for the Republican Party because, in an apparent nod to democratic principles, that Party's establishment does not stack the deck in its nominating process.

Delegate Math, Democratic Party Style. As noted in the below table, the total number of superdelegates attending the 2008 Democratic Party Convention represents 39% of the number of delegates needed to win the Party's nomination.

Delegate Math, Democratic Party Style
Needed to Win:	2,025
Superdelegates:	796 (39% of total needed to win)
Pledged Delegates (Primaries/Caucuses):	3,253
Total Convention Delegates:	4,049

History of the Superdelegate Rule. To refresh Speaker Pelosi's faulty memory, here's how the superdelegate rule came into existence (according to Wikipedia which in this instance is accurate):

After the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the Democratic Party implemented changes in its delegate selection process, based on the work of the McGovern-Fraser Commission. The purpose of the changes was to make the composition of the convention less subject to control by party leaders and more responsive to the votes cast during the campaign for the nomination.

These comprehensive changes left some Democrats believing that the role of party leaders and elected officials had been unduly diminished, weakening the Democratic ticket. In response, the superdelegate rule was instituted after the 1980 election. Its purpose was to accord a greater role to active politicians.

The original superdelegate rule was promulgated by the DNC in 1982. It created this new class of delegates that allowed "uncommitted" party and elected officials to cast 14% of the 1984 convention's nominating ballots. The bottom line: Fearful that state primaries and caucuses would produce an unelectable Party candidate for president, one unelectable in the minds of party operatives, the "unpledged" superdelegate rule was established.

Impact of the Superdelegate Rule. Is it too far-fetched to believe that superdelegates may tilt the nomination in favor of the candidate the Democratic Party's political establishment wants? Check out the history of 1984 Democratic Party presidential primaries. Mondale was about 40 committed delegates short of the nomination after the California primary and could have lost the Party's nomination to Gary Hart but for support from almost all the uncommitted superdelegates. As observed by CNN, "in 1984, the superdelegates had the effect of stabilizing support for 'establishment' candidate Walter Mondale over 'insurgent' candidates Gary Hart and Jesse Jackson."

Remember the results of the 1984 election?

1984 Presidential Election Results
Ticket	Popular Vote		Electoral Vote
Reagan-Bush	54,455,472	58.8%	525	97.6%
Mondale-Farraro	37,577,353	40.6%	13	2.4%

The superdelegate subterfuge produced such "great" results in the 1984 election that the Democratic Party increased their numbers to almost 20% of the nominating ballots cast in 1988. Remember the results of the Bush-Dukakis contest?

See also, Superdelegate madness: 1984 version, which makes the following observation about this year's Democratic Party nomination:

Indeed, 2008 is looking like 1984 on steroids: For the poorly organized, underfinanced insurgent (Hart), substitute a candidate (Barack Obama) with the money and organization to compete with the establishment candidate (Hillary Clinton). For a front-runner about whom the party faithful are hardly enthusiastic (Mondale), substitute a candidate (Clinton) who has a loyal, energized following.

Nominating the "Unelectable." In the long-term, is nominating a so-called "unelectable" presidential candidate so bad for a political party? Look at the legacy of the 1964 Goldwater presidential campaign for clues on how to energize a political party; compare the "Reagan Revolution" and the impact of Republican "grassroots" special interest groups' influence at the state and national levels since 1988 with the Carter and Clinton failures for results.

Resources. For more on the Democratic Party's superdelegates process, view this recent video by TalkingPointsMemo.com's Josh Marshall:

For additional information, visit superdelegates.org. See also CNN's Why Delegates Matter in the Presidential Race.

More generally, I recommend Rhodes Cook's The Presidential Nominating Process: A Place for Us? (2003) and Larry M. Bartels' Presidential Primaries and the Dynamics of Public Choice (1988) (book information below the fold). [JH]

The Presidential Nominating Process: A Place for Us?
By Rhodes Cook

List Price: $26.95
Paperback: 184 pages
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (2003)
ISBN-10: 0742525945
ISBN-13: 978-0742525948

Book Description: The sprawling nominating process is the critical first step every four years in the election of the president. It is where the field of contenders is narrowed from a plethora of aspirants to the two finalists that carry the banners of the Democratic and Republican parties into the fall campaign.

In a democracy such as ours, the voters should be major players in this process. Yet while 100 million or more Americans regularly participate in the election of the president, rarely does more than a third that number vote in the presidential primaries and caucuses that nominate the candidates. And only a small percentage of these voters have a truly meaningful voice - the fortunate few in Iowa, New Hampshire and a handful of other early voting states that for all practical purposes decide for the rest of the nation who the nominees will be.

The thrust of this book is to discuss how we as a nation got to this point, how the nominating process currently works, how that compares to other countries, and how our process might be changed to give a more meaningful voice to a much larger number of voters.

About the Author: Rhodes Cook has covered presidential and congressional elections for more than a quarter century - as a political writer for Congressional Quarterly from 1975 through 1997; since then as author of "The Rhodes Cook Letter," the host of a political website, and as a contributing editor for "Public Perspective." Since 1996, he has been the author of "America Votes" (a biennial compilation of nationwide election data) and has written several books on the presidential nominating process, most recently "United States Presidential Primary Elections 1968-1996: A Handbook of Election Statistics" and "Race for the Presidency: Winning the 2000 Nomination."

Presidential Primaries and the Dynamics of Public Choice
by Larry M. Bartels

List Price: $37.95
Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Princeton University Press (1988)
ISBN-10: 0691022836
ISBN-13: 978-0691022833

Book Description: This innovative study blends sophisticated statistical analyses, campaign anecdotes, and penetrating political insight to produce a fascinating exploration of one of America's most controversial political institutions -- the process by which our major parties nominate candidates for the presidency. Larry Bartels focuses on the nature and impact of "momentum" in the contemporary nominating system. He describes the complex in interconnections among primary election results, expectations, and subsequent primary results that have made it possible for candidates like Jimmy Carter. George Bush, and Gary Hart to emerge from relative obscurity into political prominence in recent nominating campaigns. In the course of his analysis, he addresses questions central to any understanding -- or evaluation -- of the modern nominating process. How do fundamental political predispositions influence the behavior of primary voters? How quickly does the public learn about new candidates? Under what circumstances will primary success itself generate subsequent primary success? And what are the psychological processes underlying this dynamic tendency?

Professor Bartels examines the likely consequences of some proposed alternatives to the current nominating process, including a regional primary system and a one-day national primary. Thus the work will be of interest to political activists, would-be-reformers, and interested observers of the American political scene, as well as to students of public opinion, voting behavior, the news media, campaign, and electoral institutions.