Super-Delegates Must Not Overturn Popular Will

Austinitis

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Thu Apr-24-08 01:53 PM
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Super-Delegates Must Not Overturn Popular Will

Super-Delegates Must Not Overturn Popular Will

So we've already had discussions showing that the pledged-delegate tally doesn't represent popular will anywhere near as well as any common method of tallying the popular vote (see http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Austinitis/7">here). But let's take a minute to really stress just why it is that super-delegates need to avoid overturning popular will in this race:

Argument AGAINST Overturning Popular Will:

First, this has been, and will probably continue to be a close and hotly contested election. No matter how things turn out, there are going to be a lot of people on the losing side and we need all of those people to stay with us in November. There's no better way to drive them away from the party than to tell that what they think doesn't matter; that because of archaic and idiosyncratic rules or because of the personal whims of super-delegates the person who got the most support from the people, nonetheless, had the nomination taken from them. If super-delegates overturn the popular vote, we don't only risk these people staying home, we risk them switching over to the other side.

Second, we've had tremendous success in this primary with bringing new voters into our party and energizing old ones. If we welcome these people into our party or reward them for their enthusiasm by telling them that their opinion doesn't matter we're going to drive them right back out of our party. Keeping these new voters is essential not only to this election, but also to the long-term future of the Democratic party and the long-term goals of the progressive movement. We have to make it clear to them that we want them here and that they matter to what happens. We do that by respecting their voices and listening to the popular vote.

Third, we're going into the general election arguing that America needs to throw off the legacy of the Bush years, including the anti-democratic (but at times, technically legal) abuses of the Republican party. We're claiming that we would make better guardians for democracy, but we're going to undermine our own case if we overturn the popular will without doing everything within the rules to avoid that.

Finally, democracy is just a good thing, and we really should avoid overturning the will of the people whenever possible for the simple reason that it's bad to do so. This is our party - it isn't just a party of super-delegates and candidates - and the people we nominate should reflect that fact. I mean, democracy is our party's namesake, and I at least think it would be a tragedy to turn our party's name into a lie.

Argument FOR overturning popular will:

I don't want this post to be entirely one sided, and so I'll respond to some of the arguments http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5643960&mesg_id=5643960">made earlier today by grantcart in his anti-popular-vote post. Note that I don't cover his points in order.

a) She doesn’t have the popular vote
Of course this is a particularly stupid device to argue when in fact you do not even have the popular vote.

If Hillary doesn't have the popular vote after all the primaries are played out on June 3rd, then she should drop out. But certainly it's possible for her to catch up, and I see no reason why she should back down if she has a decent shot at catching up. You can tally her chances of catching up in the popular vote http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/chooseyourown.html">here. (Remember to set PA to reflect the actual votes picked up by Hillary, since the sheet is from before then.) The spreadsheet shows that, with Florida, Hillary could probably catch up with Obama after a good primary showing.

c) It is dependent on the lie that somehow we can count either Michigan or Florida

It also requires the completely intellectually dishonest step of including the uncontested primaries of Florida and Michigan. If uncontested primaries are an accurate representation of popular will then why do we even bother with campaigns?

One of the unfortunate memes floating around the Obama camp is this idea that Florida wasn't contested. That's not true: both names were on the ballot, but neither campaigned there. I make the full case for including Florida http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Austinitis/3">here.

But Michigan actually was uncontested and I think probably the right thing to do there is not to count it. However, even if it is counted it screws up democracy far less than the caucus system does. From another http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Austinitis/7">post:

Now, I'll be the first to admit that there are problems with the popular vote (primarily involving what votes ought to be counted). But even the wildest and least plausible method for counting the popular vote is vastly more democratic than the pledged-delegate system. Bluntly, the pledged-delegate system is about as fucked up as any system purporting to reflect a popular mandate could really get.

For example, if you're a voter in California, your vote is vastly more diluted just in virtue of Minnesota's unmerited influence on the pledged-delegate system than it would be by the inclusion of Michigan on the popular vote. (Minnesota's caucus awarded one delegate to Obama for every 2,960 votes won by Obama, to a total of 48 delegates for Obama. Clinton picked up 204 delegates in California for a total of 2,608,184. That's a ratio of 12,785 Clinton votes to Clinton delegates. You could give the voters in the two states equal influence by adding Minnesota 9,825 voters for every Minnesota delegate. That would require adding 471,600 voters to the total number of voters. Counting Michigan in the popular vote would only mean adding 328,309.)

So even pointing to Michigan isn't going to do the trick. Personally, I think the best option with the popular vote is to count Florida and the caucus estimates from IA, WA, MN, and NV but not Michigan. The problem can be largely avoided though by letting super-delegates chose their own tallying method, just so long as they promise to respect the popular vote that results in.

b) We don’t have a system of popular vote. We have a mixed system
It also disregards the 12 states who decide not by popular vote but by state convention (no delegates are selected by caucus – the estimates of delegates based on caucus resorts are just that wild estimates – in the case of Iowa where Obama originally appeared to have 38% of the caucus delegates but will end up with 70% of the delegates there is no number of popular votes that can be added that will reflect the outcome of the state conventions).

Again, the popular vote is imperfect and so are the estimates, but both are FAR better than pledged-delegates for measuring popular will.

And you're right that the popular vote doesn't reflect state conventions, but that's a good thing. What do state conventions have to do with showing popular support? Everyone there already voted (in some cases like Texas, twice), so why would you be upset that we don't count the third vote? That this is the second or third time I've heard an Obama supporter give this argument just astonishes me.

And the same thing applies to the changes in delegates to each candidate at state and county conventions. It's a virtue of the popular vote that it doesn't reflect this and a vice of the pledged delegate system that it is thus polluted. I mean, in Iowa some of the Edwards county delegates went over to Obama. There was no reason to think that the people who voted for Edwards wanted their candidate to go to Obama. Again, I don't get it. Why aren't you Obama people embarrassed by this? This isn't an argument against the popular vote - it's an argument for it!

d) But this is not the main reason it is an inane argument. The main reason is that it simply is not true – its based on a flawed premise that those that have voted for Clinton in the primary at that point in time still in fact support her. It is premised on the idea that Clinton has retained the support that voted for her.

Read today’s New York Times. Does anybody believe that she would have gotten the endorsement after that excoriating criticism? Does anybody believe that she would have gotten the support of the following:

- the African American vote she got on Super Tuesday if they knew what was going to happen after South Carolina or her cheap comments on Rev. Wright?
- the same percent of vote in California once she trashed ‘closed door meetings’ and slimed Californians as being elitist?
- the activist branch of the party after she slammed MoveOn.Org?
- the same level of support after it became known that she wants to extend the threat of thermonuclear war?
- the same level of support when it became clear that her campaign and husband are working the other side of the street on NAFTA?
- the same level of support after her penchant for resume embellishment became exposed?
- the same level of support when people like the NYT had a chance to evaluate her negative campaign tactics.

If the vote was held today nationally she would have fewer popular votes not more.

This is certainly a problem, but it's a problem with a fact that we vote on one day and the results stick with us well after that day. It's actually a pretty silly argument because it applies just as much to the pledged-delegate count as to the popular vote. I mean, Obama is the one who was doing really well all February and has run into problems in the last two months. And there are a lot of people who wouldn't have voted for him if they knew the Jeremiah Wright stuff would come out, or who knew that his advisers would tell Canada that he lied about his positions on NAFTA, or that his foreign policy expert would tell everyone that he wasn't serious about what he was saying about Iraq. Who knows what else is going to come out about Obama over the course of the campaign?

That people can change their minds cuts both ways.

CONCLUSION:

So while I suppose I can envision some situations where it might be acceptable to flout popular will, the weak arguments above show us that this isn't one of those cases at all. There's no good reason for super-delegates to overturn popular will, and there are a ton of good reasons for them not to.