by Roy Exum
posted May 11, 2008
 Roy Exum |
Further, a mounting number of other media outlets are proclaiming Hillary is through, finished, and done. Today’s New York Times has a lead story that goes so far to outline Obama’s impending plan against the Republican candidate, John McCain, in the big race.
Mrs. Clinton vows to fight on, of course, but the key here, or so it seems, rests with the super delegates and somehow that sticks in my craw. Again, I am distrustful of politicians as compared to the “people’s choice” and a super delegate is nothing more than a politician.
Before 1972, America didn’t have any uniform primaries or caucuses. But party officials had been irked that Hubert Humphrey won the 1968 nomination without running in any primary, and then the primaries that you now see covered so intensely in the news got to be big business.
In 1982 the Democratic Party, from what I can learn, wanted to better control the nomination process, so they devised a way where every Democratic member of Congress, every Democratic governor and all elected members of the Democratic National Committee would also have a vote at the national convention.
When the Democratic National Convention is held this August in Denver, there will be 796 super delegates among the 4,049 total delegates, which is roughly 20 percent of the mix. A candidate must receive the majority vote, or 2,025 votes at the convention, for the party nomination.
But where it all gets screwy is that the other delegates are “pledged” to vote according to the outcome of each state’s primary, or state convention. In other words, if a candidate gets 45 percent of the votes in the state primary, he takes 45 percent of that state’s delegates to the convention. If the other gets 30 percent, he gets 30 percent of those pledged to him.
But a super delegate can vote anyway he or she chooses – with no restrictions - and that is why they have such clout, not to mention political power that has traditionally meant great bounty if they back the winning horse.
Now, the newspapers and televisions show the delegate count every day. It’s easy to track by following Mr. Obama’s and Mrs. Clinton’s popular votes in each primary. What you don’t see, or not until just recently, is what the super delegate will do because, remember, they are each “unpledged,” and any of them can change their minds on a whim.
So it doesn’t take an Einstein to see how the Democratic Nation Committee has far more zing than the Democratic National Convention itself, and – with the super delegates easily able to control the nomination’s outcome after the close primaries - it appears for all the world that the politicians will be the ones to choose the biggest politician of them all. That’s the politics I am talking about and the politics that I loathe.
According to CNN, there are now 273 super delegates for Sen. Clinton and 272 for Sen. Obama. There are also 251 who have yet to reveal a choice, and – remember this – they can change their minds, as now over 100 of Mrs. Clinton’s earlier fanciers have done.
Now, in case you think the Democrats are the only ones that have any problems, don’t overlook the fact the guy John McCain picked to run the Republican National Convention abruptly resigned yesterday when it was revealed Doug Goodyear’s company was paid $348,000 to lobby for Burma’s junta. Are you kidding me?
From where I sit, almost all of them could sleep in a barrel of fish hooks and not get stuck.
royexum@aol.com
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