Your Humble Blogger suspects that much of Left Blogovia will be cranky about Geraldine Ferraro’s op-ed in this morning’s Times. It’s called Got a Problem? Ask the Super and it argues that (a) the superdelegates are trustees, not representatives, and as such should bring their own judgment to bear rather than going along with the result of the primaries, and (2) the superdelegates, in their role as credentials committee, should seat the delegations from Michigan and Florida as if their primaries had been approved by the national party. She brings her experience to bear on the question, as she was on the committee that created the super delegates in 1982, after the 1980 election.
Her recollection is that the 1980 convention was a disaster, with Sen. Kennedy causing trouble. “When it was all over, members of Congress who were concerned about their re-election walked away from the president and from the party.” I find that both plausible and perplexing. What would superdelegates have done about it? Is she suggesting that they would have voted against the incumbent president? Or is she suggesting that in the name of Party unity they would have prevented Ted Kennedy from proposing platform amendments? Would either of those have prevented Phil Gramm from becoming a Republican?
Which is not to say that it didn’t seem like a good idea in 1982, with the defections and all, to give the Democrats in Congress a sense that they were the Party, now, particularly with the Republican Party having a lock on the Presidency for a generation, as they were claiming. Still. Why, in the name of Party unity, should a superdelegate who thinks that either candidate would be fine, cross up his constituency?
Ah, but it wouldn’t be crossing up the constituency, argues Ms. Ferraro, because “the delegate totals from primaries and caucuses do not necessarily reflect the will of rank-and-file Democrats.” That’s because of low turnout (the turnout is higher than expected, but still well below a third of registered Democrats) as well as because of the open primaries, where Republicans, independents and other riffraff pervert the course of democratic and Democratic representation. Well, and you know, Gentle Reader, that I prefer my primaries closed, but I don’t see any way to read these combined arguments other than as a total dismissal of the primary and caucus system altogether. In which case, let’s bring back John Edwards! Let’s bring back Bill Richardson! Let’s bring back Chris Dodd! The people haven’t spoken!
A better form of this argument would go like this: currently, we have two very good candidates, and both the polls and the elections have indicated that our party would happily back either. In this circumstance, the superdelegate is free to follow her own whim, because it simply isn’t possible to make a bad choice. The party will be unified, either way. In fact, the rank and file, in its wisdom, has in effect presented the superdelegates with a choice and said whichever you like, it’s OK with us. A hundred delegates more for one or the other (the argument goes) merely shows how close the candidates are to each other, rather than being some incontrovertible evidence of real preference. In that circumstance, it’s incumbent on a superdelegate to consider carefully the two candidates in the light of superdelegatory experience and wisdom, and come to an independent conclusion.
See? Isn’t that easier to swallow? I half believe it, myself.
Now, to the matter of the contested delegations from Michigan and Florida. Lordy, lordy what a balls-up. It’s utterly preposterous to seat the delegates selected by an unapproved election, where the voters were told in advance that the delegates would not be seated, where the candidates did not campaign, and in one case where one candidate wasn’t even on the ballot. It’s also utterly preposterous to not seat a delegation from Michigan and Florida, simply choosing the candidate without letting those states have a say. We could scramble together a new caucus or primary in those states, now that we know it counts, but that would be just as preposterous and a lot more expensive. No, there are no good answers here at all.
Do you know who got us into this balls-up? I believe it was, hm, let me think, yes, the Democratic National Committee. You know, the superdelegates. The ones whose superior judgment, experience and expertise in politics we should look to in candidate choice. No, nobody expected it to wind up like this, but then, most of us aren’t claiming special powers to “determine what is best for our party and best for the country”. You see, Ms. Ferraro, before your 1982 committee, there was another committee to correct the balls-up of 1968. And there will be another committee in 2010, you betcha. We tend to solve the problem that we see in the rear-view, not the one in the windshield. That’s how people are, and fine, but in the meantime, it would be nice, as events unfold, for the superdelegates to act with some modesty, some decorum, some generosity of spirit. For the sake of party unity.
And then vote for Sen. Clinton, if you like. Because we really do have two wonderful candidates, and I think any Democrat worthy of the name will support either, with vigor and passion and pride.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
it just didn’t seem wise to punish swing states in the first place.
Well, and the whole situation was screwy. If they didn’t do anything to punish the swing states, that would have been it for a nationally-guided schedule. Not that the schedule they did approve was all that hot. Which brings us back to the main point.
Because—you know who’s got just a top-notch sense of politics, of exactly how to respond to cultural pressures, to take advantage of every opportunity, and to avoid stepping in horseshit?
No, neither do I, but I’m pretty sure the answer isn’t The Democratic National Committee.
And even if they are (and I think they are) somewhat less embarrassingly tone-deaf, blundering and impotent as they used to be, I think there’s a difference between a Most Improved trophy and, you know, our full trust in choosing the candidate.
Thanks,
-V.
how do you feel about tightening up control of federal elections? tech standards, process standards, schedules. have you written about that? “not having primaries” — effectively disenfranchising millions of people who were absolutely not going to vote outside the party in november — seems very much in line with the republican voter culling in florida, before.
I don’t think I have written about this, at least not recently. Mostly because I think the whole thing is a mess.
I’d be interested in a serious discussion of a Constitutional amendment to move control over federal elections from the states to the federal government, with federal protections in place. There would be problems with it, and there are problems with the state control, and I’m not sure if there would be an improvement. Absent federal control, it’s not clear to me that the Right to Vote means much of anything, nationally, and I don’t know how to go about making it mean anything.
The state of our elections in our culture is one of the things that I cannot think about without getting depressed. On one hand, they are over-hyped, as if elections were the be-all and end-all of democracy. On the other, few people seem to enjoy them, and almost nobody seems to think of them as a pinnacle of achievement to be constantly celebrated and bettered, like the record for running a mile or the highest prime. Solving any of the technical problems is (to me) dependent on addressing the cultural issue, which would put pressure on local and state structures.
Having said all of that, if the primaries were a Party matter, paid for and certified by the Party, then people in Florida and Michigan wouldn’t have much of a kick, since they put up the reps who screwed with the national system, and they could have worked something out in advance. They didn’t, which should in itself be reason enough to get rid of the party leadership both in the state and at the DNC (although, sadly, that would mean getting rid of people who are not to blame and are doing good work—it would be nice if they were replaced by other good people). But what do we do now? I have no idea.
Look, not seating any delegates from Florida—particularly from Florida—would be terrible, politically. But seating the delegates that were elected in the non-binding non-contested primary would be bad, ethically, would disenfranchise the voters just as much, and would (possibly) lead to tremendous bitterness when the “wrong person” got nominated (again, not that I think Senator Clinton is a bad candidate, just that if she is perceived to be nominated on the strength of those delegates, lots of Democrats across the nation will view her as illegitimate). Nothing good can happen, although I hope lots of bad things can be avoided.
I haven’t seen polls on this specifically, but I suspect that lots of people in Texas and Ohio who like both candidates are taking into account that if Senator Obama wins by a large margin in both states on Tuesday, Senator Clinton may concede the nomination to him, which would allow the delegations from Michigan and Florida (and the superdelegates everywhere) to pledge their support to him, which would allow the credentials committee to seat them without anybody worrying about it, and the Floridans and Michiganders would feel no more disenfranchised than the Pennsylvanians (or New Yorkers). It wouldn’t be enough to sway my vote if I thought Senator Clinton was a substantially better candidate or would be a substantially better president, but then I don’t, at least not this evening.
Then, as I say, we’ll have another committee in 2010, which will be fun. I’d like to see some money and energy spent on the states in the interim (have you noticed that Ralph Nader is whining, again, about state laws, as if he was in a coma for the last three years unable to lobby, fund-raise or write?), and that discussion about an Amendment, but I’d also like to persuade the country that putting John McCain in charge would not be a good next step.
Thanks,
-V.