Will Democratic Party Super Delegates spoil the broth for voters?
As it appears that the Democratic Party could be headed for its first brokered convention since 1952 (see here), news headlines about the key role of the party’s Super Delegates are mushrooming. Why? It could be they, rather than primary voters, who decide whether Obama or Hillary becomes the party’s nominee.
One of the best articles I spotted this morning about this is Primary Colors Revealed: Delegate Soup and American Politics by Rob Creekmore (Feb 4, 2008) on themsj.com. It’s a concise description of what Super Delegates are, how they came to be, and how they can disenfranchise voters.
The article begins with a punch to the solar plexus:
“Barack Obama. Winner of 34 primary delegates to Hillary’s 21. Champion of 63 caucus delegates over Hillary’s 47. Still losing to Hillary. So what’s behind the fuzzy math that the Associated Press is using to claim that Hillary is in the lead? They’re called Super Delegates, they’re not bound by primary or caucus elections, and they will account for a full 20% of the vote at the upcoming DNC convention.”
For a statement today by Barack Obama himself on the Super Delegate issue, go to The Huffington Post here.
The blogosphere: voters or villains?
Which position U.S. political candidates take on this question may correlate largely with which political party they represent, according to an article in The Times (“Are Republicans internet Luddites?” blog by Tom Baldwin, Washington correspondent, The Times, Nov 28, 2007). Republican politicians are considered “inept” in their use of the Internet, according to the article, in contrast to their Democratic counterparts who are utilizing it more.
In illustration of the difference, the article cites the number of Facebook and MySpace friends of various candidates — leading Democratic candidate Obama, for example, has 360,000 buddies on these two sites, whereas Republican candidate Giuliani has only 20,000.
A possible reason for the partisan divide? Though acknowledging that it is a” generalization,” Baldwin says that Republican “activists are more likely to regard the web as a purveyor of porn and terror or, at best, a business tool.”
