Stanley Fish is a law professor and online opinion columnist at the New York Times. His column of March 16, 2008, entitled "Memo to the Superdelegates: No Principles, Please," takes up the question of whether the superdelegates should cast their votes according to some agreed upon standard. Ironically many pundits have characterized leaving the decision of who will become the Democratic nominee to the superdelegates as decidedly undemocratic. Fish points out many parts of our democracy that could be considered undemocratic. I would add to his list of our undemocratic practices the fact that electors from the states, choose the presidential winners in their states. Never mind that this led to Bush winning the presidency in 2000 even though Gore had more of the popular vote. And it also seems inherently undemocratic that voters in so called battleground states get disproportionately more attention from presidential campaigns than voters in non battleground states, defying the concept of "one man, one vote." And we all know that the Supreme Court intervened in Florida to effectively stop the voting recount in certain Florida counties.
I could not agree more with Fish's two concluding paragraphs. Editorialists and pundits are consumed with finding out from superdelegates by what standard they will vote at the convention. They feign shock and dismay that the "democratic" party has such a seemingly undemocratic process for ultimately choosing the nominee and that there is no agreed upon method for casting their votes. I for one would not want there to be such a standard. Let every superdelegate vote according to his/her conscience and political interests. That is the same democratic principle by which we all vote. Why should all "super"delegates vote according to some agreed upon standard that I myself would not submit to? That sounds like some Soviet-style election in which the outcome would be pre-determined. Being unable to predict the outcome of an election means that democracy is at work and not some super imposed standard that delegates must align with whether they like it or not.
As usual in close elections, the ultimate choice will hinge on how the undecideds break when their votes must be cast. This gives all sorts of anxiety to both Obama and Clinton supporters who believe that superdelegates should not use their votes to overturn the outcome of primary process in terms of pledged delegates or popular vote (Obama) or that the superdelegates should exercise their judgment and vote for the candidate who will be the best candidate to win in the fall (Clinton). We already know how many of the superdelegates will vote and Hillary has a slight edge, but it's total delegates that matter and the vote of a superdelegate is equal to the vote of a pledged delegate. There is little surprise that most of the undecided superdelegates wish that one of the candidates would break ahead in the count of pledged delegates so that they will not have be the deciding factor and perhaps pay a political price. This democracy thing can be so difficult!
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Ah...but we forget that most of these super delegates represent a district that will evaluate their vote and judge them in the next election. Some districts may be a little more insistant in this instance.
I suppose in the long run the super delegate is still voting conscience, but just based on a different criteria.
Yes, most of the super delegates are elected officials including all Democrats who are governors, U.S. Senators, U.S. Congressional Reps as well as former presidents, VPs, and party officials. The Congressional reps will feel great pressure to conform to the will of their constituents as they will be up for re-election this fall. No doubt that is why John Lewis of Georgia switched his vote from Hillary to Obama (though in my book he gets no points for loyalty). Those whose elections are farther off into the future will likely be judged at the polls by issues more salient than whether or not their vote for the Democratic nominee aligned with the majorities in their respective states. I can't imagine anyone two years from now making a big deal about someone's vote in the Democratic primary. Likewise, I doubt Ted Kennedy will suffer at the ballot box for supporting Obama even though Massachusetts went for Clinton. But all of these calculations are political, which means that the votes of the super delegates are as much about self interest as anyone else who's ever voted, including you and me. And in this light, the nominating process is as democratic as any that allows people to cast votes. Each voter has the privilege of deciding for himself or herself what criteria are most important to him or her. I would hate to see that some "party rules" dictate how votes must be cast.
I understand your comment on loyalty. But who does John Lewis personally feel he should be more loyal to? His voters or Hillary? Black people are his district…he just came out too soon, not seeing the Obama train coming down the way it has. And besides, if he didn’t listen to them they would remember! This is beyond politics. Ted and John will not suffer at all, but they don’t represent those passionately interested in Obama. The opinion of how to set the criteria is the democratic process in action as well as our right.
Well, in an election whose principle argument has been the importance of judgment, John Lewis really hasn't demonstrated any. His flip flop certainly harms Hillary while also damaging his own reputation in the Congress, with his friends the Clintons, and of course, with his constituents. He may be in the fight of his life for re-election despite the fact that he changed his support in light of how his district voted.
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