The Democratic Party has screwed up their nomination process royally with FLA and Michigan delegate situation along with the Super Delegates.  The Super Delegates come straight from Orwell: "Some of us are more equal than others".

Anyway, are these supposed to be the people to create a national health care system??!!  Are they going to combat terrorism?  They turned a somewhat simple, time honored process into a giant debacle!!
And how 'bout the way Howard Dean is handling this crisis.  He's hiding under his desk right now hoping Hillary doesn't see him.  He was so ready to be President.

Super delegates are not "more equal." They have one vote, just like all the other delegates. And the problem in Florida was created by Republicans.  The Republican controlled legislature in Florida set the primary date in violation of the DNC calendar. So once again, just like in 2000, the Republicans fucked up an election in Florida.

Super delegates are not representative.  They don't have to follow the will of the people.  So one delegates vote may represent 100,000 people, but a super delegate = 1 person.  Oh so Orwellian.

The RNC penalized Florida and Michigan but they didn't give them the death penalty.  So nobody was disenfranchised and no screams for re-voting or whatever.  The Democrats gave this no forethought and it has blown up in their face.  They bungled it and Hillary will fully exploit it. And Howard Dean is a joke in an empty suit.

Posted by Tusyan  , 3/15/2008 12:04:31 AM   Super delegates are not "more equal." They have one vote, just like all the other delegates

Super Delegates are not more equal than others?

Come on man, the math here isn't difficult. 1 pledged delegate represents the votes of thousands of ordinary joes. One superdelegate vote represents the vote of 1 Democratic bigshot.

Last time I checked 1 is not equal to thousands.

You are correct about the Republican controlled legislature setting the date of the primaries though. Ironic eh? It wasn't the Florida legislature though that decided to shoot themselves in the foot by denying all delegates. That was the DNC's incredibly stupid decision.

The Florida and Michigan problem was caused by those two states legislatures.  Not the DNC.

The super delegates are ELECTED officials (Democratic Congressmen, Senators, etc), and ELECTED members of the DNC.   All should be held accountable by their constituents.  
A very small handful are distinguished party leaders (President Carter, President Clinton, Vice President Mondale, and Vice President Gore).  
Also super delegates only get a single vote the same as all delegates.

Posted by Gyppo, 3/15/2008

The super delegates are ELECTED officials (Democratic Congressmen, Senators, etc), and ELECTED members of the DNC.   All should be held accountable by their constituents.  
A very small handful are distinguished party leaders (President Carter, President Clinton, Vice President Mondale, and Vice President Gore).  
Also super delegates only get a single vote the same as all delegates."






I didn't get very far in Math but its easy to see it takes about ten thousand mortal voters to equal one Super delegate vote..

Lets not forget the add on Super delegates .  chosen by the DNC .....and the two parts I like the best are  Super delegates can change their vote at the last minute and that Super delegate status can also be revoked by the DNC...

OK, try this math: Senator Barbara Boxer is a Democratic super delegate and represents 36 million people. How does that factor into your equation?

Hearing that you didn't get far in math doesn't surprise me in the least, but please humor me, how do you get your ratio of 10,000 to 1?

So let's see if I have this straight:  this thread is all about how unrepresentative the Democratic super delegates are but you have no problems with the Republican winner-take-all system?  Well, here's a simple math question that even a Republican (except Bush) should be able to get: if a state is allocated 100 Republican delegates and the winning candidate gets 50.1%  of the vote, how many voters do those extra 49 delegates represent?

"So let's see if I have this straight:  this thread is all about how unrepresentative the Democratic super delegates are but you have no problems with the Republican winner-take-all system?  Well, here's a simple math question that even a Republican (except Bush) should be able to get: if a state is allocated 100 Republican delegates and the winning candidate gets 50.1%  of the vote, how many voters do those extra 49 delegates represent?"


 I don't have a problem with the proportional distribution method the Democrats have set up for the PLEDGED Delegates obtained from the voters will...The Ordained SUPER Delegates is what seems fishy to me. THEY  are not representative of the common man and possess 40% of the nominating voting power.
I am glad The Republican Party has a winner take all or else we might have gotten bamboozled with the Huckster.

"Hearing that you didn't get far in math doesn't surprise me in the least, but please humor me, how do you get your ratio of 10,000 to 1?"



I will humor you once and from now on I expect you to google or fact check on your own...I divided 30 million.. Guestimate on total popular vote between Clinton and Obama by 795 {number of authorized Super Delegates and I came up with 10,000
After checking my math now it looks like its 37,735, Mortal voters equals One Super Delegate
30 million real voters divided by 795 ordained Super Delegates

You're earlier estimate was closer. The correlation of pledged delegates to supers is not 1:1 so you can't say that all the votes are equal to all the supers. Obama and Clinton have a combined total of about 26 million votes and about 2,750 pledged delegates so far. That averages out to about 9,500 votes for each of their pledged delegates.

A pledged delegate can vote for anyone they want as well. There's nothing in the rules that says they must vote for the candidate they represent. Now this rarely happens since the campaigns only choose their most loyal followers to be their pledged delegates at the convention, but they do have the right to change if they so desire.

-- Modified on 3/16/2008 11:05:06 AM

"That's incorrect
Posted by majemi, 3/16/2008 10:57:01 AM
You're earlier estimate was closer. The correlation of pledged delegates to supers is not 1:1 so you can't say that all the votes are equal to all the supers. Obama and Clinton have a combined total of about 26 million votes and about 2,750 pledged delegates so far. That averages out to about 9,500 votes for each of their pledged delegates."

From now on I am referring my statistical analysis to you..Thanks for the clarification ..
 

Nice evasion. Care to answer the question this time?

Nice evasion. Care to answer the question this time?
"So let's see if I have this straight:  this thread is all about how unrepresentative the Democratic super delegates are but you have no problems with the Republican winner-take-all system?



No I don't have a problem with the Republican winner take all system..At least with that system it is the popular vote of the people making the decision even if a slim majority wins..It just seems fishy having ordained delegates making the final choice for the people..But in perspective it does seem best for democrats since they are used to being led.