On Sun, 17 Feb 2008, Doug Henwood wrote:
> The whole point of the superdelegates is to counter the irresponsible
> choices of primary voters with responsible establishment opinion. Don't
> take my word for it - here's the argument from Ornstein and Mann from
> the NYT the other day.
It's true that's was the origin of the system. (And I totally agree with your characterization of Ornstein and Mann as mainstream apparachiks par excellence.) But as I read it, O&M's main argument is that, in their 25 year history, the superdelegates have always voted for the candidate winning the plurality of votes. And thus that their real function has become to avoid bitter televised convention fights into celebrations by transforming close contests into foregone conclusions.
And they seem to believe that's exactly what's going to happen here -- that the superdelegates will support the candidate with the most votes (so far Obama), so that the convention will be a coronation. As I read this article, that's their main argument for the utility of superdelegates -- that without this reserve clause of votes, this particular convention would become a knock-down drag out that could be decided on technicalities.
Looking at it from the other side, if the superdelegates voted to overthrow the primary choice it, would be unprecedented. It would likely destroy the Democratic candidate; it would certainly destroy the system of superdelegates. So that would seem two good reasons not to expect it.
Also now that the system of superdelegates has been hugely politicized -- now that people in Russia and Israel are talking about it -- it would seem almost impossible to pull such a thing off. This seems like the sort of maneuver that you could only pull off in the dark -- no elected official or party official would want to be on record as supporting such a thing.
So it would seem the Clintons' attempt at an unprecedented coup has been more than countered by the unprecedented opposition to it, the result of which has been to put the whole process in the glare of publicity -- and potential enormous outrage.
Lastly, if the original purpose of the superdelegates was to weed out weak candidates (in their establishment opinion) there doesn't seem to be anything to distinguish between Obama and Clinton and that score. Even in establishment opinion seems evenly divided.
So it's hard to find a good reason why superdelegates would commit hari-kari en masse.
But we'll see!
Michael