Chaos at the Convention

[jducoeur]

It occurs to me that the Democratic Convention this year is likely to feature fireworks -- and not good ones at that.

The numbers at the moment are interesting. If you look at the CNN Delegate Scorecard, as of right now Obama holds a slender lead in terms of the "pledged" delegates -- the ones who were chosen due to the primary process. But Clinton leads overall, because she has promises from more of the "superdelegates" -- the party honchos who get a vote because of their position in the party.

So let's look at a moderately likely scenario. The convention rolls around, and the race is still too close to call. Obama still holds a lead in the pledged delegates, Clinton in the superdelegates. Things begin to solidify towards Clinton *because* of the superdelegates. What happens?

Hard to say -- not riots, because people generally need better reasons to riot nowadays, but massive and vocal unhappiness among the party. The convention itself turns into a huge scandal, as the pundits talk up the anti-democratic nature of the superdelegates. The superdelegates come under *enormous* pressure to swing their votes to match the popular vote, and people start talking loudly about eliminating the superdelegates entirely. And the whole thing does a fair amount of damage to the Democrats, who look chaotic next to the coronation of McCain (with the hardcore conservatives quietly holding their noses) happening over at the Republican convention.

I do hope the party leadership is ready for this, and thinking about how to react, because it looks to me like it has a fair chance of playing out just this way. They will undoubtedly make lots of noise about how the system is so much better than back in the days of backroom deals, but I don't think that the modern electorate is going to have much sympathy for that. The superdelegate system has continued for many years precisely because it hasn't mattered much. If it *does* start to matter, I think it's going to turn into quite the national stink...

Comments

[redsquirrel.livejournal.com]

I am a Florida Democrat. And I am indeed pissed. And in fact, I am pissed at my state committee. Of course, that predates this mess; my Dad's been involved with the local Dems and the state committee promises candidates the moon and then welshes on that promise on a regular basis. So I have a very low opinion of them. I am even more pissed at the DNC. The FL legislature set the primary date. It is overwhelmingly Republican (in a pretty much 50/50 state due to the use of creative gerrymandering). The few Dems in the legislature voted for the primary date because they were bribed with an amendment they'd been trying to get passed for years and it's not as if they'd have any effective say about the date anyway. The Republicans are laughing themselves silly over the success of their plan. I'm seriously pissed at ALL the candidates for gutlessly knuckling in to the party and boycotting our state. If they'd all decided to ignore the ban en masse, the party would have found it impossible to enforce. Grrr.
Now that the whole farce has been enacted, I think it would be outrageously two-faced of the party to turn around and say "oops, we didn't mean it, sorry." Because we didn't get a fair election - we never got to hear the candidates, we never heard them speak to us about our issues. I tend to favor Obama. He's not well know in the state and never had a chance to be known. So Clinton won easily on the little old lady and cracker votes. But it doesn't really matter in the general election because after this debalce the Dems sure aren't going to take FL. Hell, I'm a flaming liberal Dem and if Clinton gets the nomination, I'm considering voting for McCain. And if she succeeds in getting away with taking the FL delegates without us, I'm bloody well doing so.
Clinton may get the nomination. But she'll lose the general election. (Think Dukakis. Or Mondale.) You can't win on just the Democrats, you've got to get the swing voters and too many people hate her guts. And her conduct in the primaries isn't helping her image. Too bad the party honchos owe her and Bill their superdelegates because they've got to have some idea about this. Or maybe not. After all, they're the ones who fell for this whole Florida primary set-up.

[laurion]

Nice to see your perspective! I'm really pissed that the DNC knows the Republicans got the primary moved just to screw with the Democrats, and let them get away with it. I mean, yes, the Dems set a reasonable policy of 'no state primary before the 5th, with certain exceptions'. They set the rules, when someone uses the rules against them, they should be able to change them again so crap like this doesn't happen.