>>> Michael Pollak
On Thu, 6 Mar 2008, Charles Brown wrote:
> According to the analyses I heard, it is pretty certain that O (
quick
> as a b'rer rabbit) will have more elected delegtes, even if C wins
all
> the remaining states. But O won't have enough for the nomination. So,
> the superdelegates will decide the nominee.
If the superdelegates vote for the person who gets the most delegates,
they won't be deciding the nominee. They'll be ratifying the decision of the primary/caucus voters and then transforming that small majority into super majority so that the convention will be a celebration instead of a fight. That's their main purpose.
^^^ CB: Agreed. If the super-delegates had voted before the primaries and caucuses, we wouldn't be thinking of them as deciding the nominee.
The majority of the minority , the elite minority of super-delegates, is as you say transformed into a super majority.
This is similar to super-profits, which are tiny majority of profits altogether, but are a marginal difference, the difference that makes the difference, "marginally utile". ^^^^
They originally had another purpose -- to keep out (what party hacks considered) radical candidates -- but since, for lots of other reasons
(like money raising) no radical candidate (even by that weak criterion)
has ever gotten close enough in the last 25 years to bring that into play, that function has kind of become vestigial. But this other purpose --
transforming a small margin into a big -- they've used several times before.
Michael
^^^^^
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