It’s looking more and more clear that we’re heading into a heated debate over the role of Super Delegates at the Democratic Convention since it there’s at least a very real possibility they could decide the nominee against the majority of the pledged delegates.
But I think it’s worth drawing at least a mild distinction amongst the almost 800 Supers who are going to show up in Denver. We looked into this last week. And it turns out that the Supers are divided roughly evenly between elected officials and members of the Democratic National Committee.
To give a little more detail, all Democratic members of Congress are Supers; all Democratic governors are supers; former Democratic presidents, vice presidents, Speakers and Majority Leaders and a few others are all supers. The rest are party functionaries from across the country, most of whom are roped in as members of the Democratic National Committee, the governing body of the national Democratic party.
To me it seems like there’s at least much more of a rationale for the officeholders to be super delegates, though the rationale might not be sufficient in any case. Basically, if you’re a national Democratic officeholder, you’ve been elected by (mostly) Democrats at a very high level, often many times. The number who voted for you are probably substantially more than vote in most primaries. And you also have the real world experience to know what it takes to run and win as a Democrat in your state.
Again, I think it would be very questionable if the Supers as a whole decided the nomination against a clear (and ‘clear’ is important here) majority of the pledged delegates. But I can see the rationale for having officeholders like these in the mix as a leavening.
On the other hand, you’ve got a bunch of people from party offices who’ve in most cases never been elected to any actual public office and who aren’t clearly accountable in any way. For instance, if my senator votes in a way that I don’t like or I think is illegitimate, he or she is up for reelection again in two years. But the assistant Deputy Treasurer or whatever of the Democratic party in my state? I really doubt people are going to mobilize to get involved in internal party politics to signal their disagreement with that person’s decision.
The rules we’re playing under now are the rules. So I’m not sure this has any particular relevance to what’s coming down the pike over the next couple months. But I think it’s a distinction worth keeping in mind if you’re giving this issue some thought.
And one other point: this debate is going forward with what appears to be the strong implicit assumption on both sides that the Supers will break strongly for Hillary. But I’m not sure there’s really an basis for that assumption.
