patrick.net

"The way to continue our fight now, to accomplish the goals for which we stand, is to take our energy, our passion, our strength, and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama as the next president of the United States," Clinton said.

"Today, as I suspend my campaign, I congratulated him on the victory he has won. ... I endorse him and throw my full support behind him."

Hillary Clintion, June 7, 2008.

At that time, she trailed Barrack Obama by only 123 pledged delegates. Bernie is losing by nearly 400 PLEDGED delegates.

Delusional Dan....

I love to vote when delegates can override ,one person one vote.
The two parties really care about your vote.
It as the stupid Rep & Dem voters intend.

Dan8267 says

Now you may complain that superdelegates are undemocratic, but in fact, they are intended to offset all the undemocratic aspects of the primary process.

From the two wrong's make a right department?

Did you notice that Obama beat Hillary in the pledged delegate count? The superdelegates didn't override anything. They collectively decided not to override the pledged delegates.

You can see the popular vote from 2008 here: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html
If you want to see what a close primary looks like, view that link.

Good points: superdelegates undemocratically threatened to take the election away from the rightful winner: Bernie Sanders.

But Bernie shrewdly lost the election, so now the superdelegates will be the force which anoints him the winner democratically.

Dan, look at the numbers from 2008. Obama won fair and square, based on regular delegates.

On the other hand, one might argue hat having the backing of the superdelegates gave him an advantage over Clinton during the campaign process.

YesYNot says

From the two wrong's make a right department?

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

Example 1: Murder (two wrongs compounding each other)

Bob kills Joe. So Frank kills Bob. Now two people are dead instead of one.

Example 2: Murder (one wrong mitigating another)

Bob is beating Joe to death. So Frank kills Bob. Only one person is dead and the innocent person is still alive. It's still wrong that Bob was killed, but it was the lesser of two evils.

Example 3: The graduate income tax (mitigation)

Taxing productive income is wrong and it's unfair that people who produce more are taxed more. However, in our society unproductive and even counterproductive people have much higher incomes than productive people due to many flaws in capitalism. So a graduate income tax mitigates the wrong of unproductive people having large incomes at the expense of productive people and people who cannot be productive because the system requires unemployment.

Example 4: Theft (mitigation)

Stealing is wrong. Jane is dying painfully. She needs medication that is unaffordable. Her brother Bob breaks into a pharmacy and steals the medication. Jane is saved. Two wrongs made a right. Sure there is still harm done, but it is far less harm than not doing the second wrong.

Going back to the Democratic primary, fuck yes, two wrongs does make the whole less wrong. Not all wrongs point in the same direction. The Democratic primary process does NOT reflect the will of the people. At best it reflects the will of a narrow subset of a narrow subset of the voters, who are themselves less than half of the people.

Almost no one not registered as a Democrat has any say in the nominee. That includes independent swing voters who are the most important voters in the election. Even if you want all votes to be counted equally -- and that's a far cry from our election system -- it is undemocratic to have caucuses and closed primaries. Even people who do register as democratic voters can't often vote because they would have to attend hours long caucuses during work hours. The poor and lower middle class workers cannot do this, so they get no voice in caucuses.

So, fuck yeah, the wrong of superdelegates does offset a bunch of other wrongs and not having superdelegates but keeping the rest of the current system would be worse.

If you cannot understand why sometimes two wrongs do make a right, or more precisely, one wrong can and does mitigate the effects of one or more other wrongs, then you simply are not thinking like an adult.

YesYNot says

Did you notice that Obama beat Hillary in the pledged delegate count? The superdelegates didn't override anything.

justme says

Dan, look at the numbers from 2008. Obama won fair and square, based on regular delegates.

Correction: Obama would have won -- whether fairly or not is an opinion -- if superdelegates did not exist.

The superdelegates changed their mind, maybe because of the popular vote, but maybe not. You will never know because no one can force superdelegates to truthfully state why they voted they way they did. You might assume a reason, but you have no evidence to support you reason and you may very well be wrong and never find out.

Had the superdelegates not changed their minds, Hillary would have won the 2008 nomination. So I stand by my statement.

More importantly, the 2008 election demonstrates that superdelegates votes can change late in the game.

It is also very important to understand that just because superdelegates haven't voted against the popular primary vote in the few elections that have happened since superdelegates were created, the entire purpose of superdelegates is to do just that when necessary. So it should not be at all surprising if in this or a future election superdelegates do exactly that. It is the sole reason they exist. It is not expected that they do this often, just when necessary.

The justification for superdelegates voting strategically is greater in this election than in any other since the superdelegates were created.

In general, the argument X hasn't happened in the past so X won't happen is a really bad argument. If it were a sound argument, we wouldn't have airplanes, nuclear weapons, television, phones, computers, or most other things. New things under the sun are created every day.