We've been hearing a lot about the monster known as "superdelegates" first created by the Democrats one dark and scary night back in 1982. It hearkens to a rule enacted by Democrat party leaders in what amounted to a clear embrace of the old boss-dominated system that protected insiders' influence over the nomination process (and of course enjoy the bounty of the political favors that derived from it). It was also a response to the historic Democrat debacles such as the disaster of the 1968 Democratic primary in which Hubert Humphrey narrowly emerged as the nominee over the anti-war movement's screaming protests, the crushing 1972 George McGovern campaign collpase, and the humiliation of the Jimmy Carter presidency as well as the bitter and destructive 1980 primary against Edward Kennedy that ushered in the Ronald Reagan era in a landslide. That's the history.
What I'd like to focus on is the clear intent of the super delegate from the outset: to have the capability to interfere with the will of the voters in back rooms for the "good" of the party (as decreed by party insiders). The super delegate rule has never truly reared its ugly head since its enactment because a clear nominee has always emerged before the super delegate rule kicked in. But chickens have a way of eventually coming home to roost. It is frankly incredible that the Democrat Party illuminati never seem to have thought of this inevitable eventual outcome.
Two things emerge from the Democrat Party's embrace of the super delegate rule:
The first is the sheer ANTI-democratic tendency inherent in the concept. Currently, many Barack Obama supporters (such as Al Sharpton) are loudly claiming that superdelegates must vote according to the will expresssed by the voters in each district. But that is clearly false; if it were even remotely true, then the super delegates would obviously be completely unneccessary and superfluous. No, rather, the super delegate rule was deliberately enacted to create the capability to interfere with the democratic process if it was ever deemed necessary. Super delegates were given the ability to vote however they wanted, irregardless of how their state or distric voted. The "will of the people" is fine, as long as the "right" people decide it is the "right" will.
Secondly, not only does the concept of "super delegates" patently reveal the anti-democratic agenda of the Democrat Party, but even worse, it also reveals a contempt for, suspicion of, and distrust of its own party voters. I find the idea that the Democrat Party leadership feeling it had to protect and innoculate itself from the potential stupidity and ignorance of its own membership is particularly telling. This is frankly the same elitist "big-government" mentality that conservatives have always complained about being applied to the Democrat's own electioneering strategy. Democrats believe that even their very own are too stupid, ignorant, childish, simplistic, etcetera etcetera, to decide for themselves. Big Brother must be able to stomp in and make sure that the foolish masses vote correctly. Given this attitude, it is understandable that Democrats demand that so many basic decisions be taken away from individual Americans and their institutions and handed over to courts and big government bureaucracies. If you are a Democrat you must be a fundamentally ignorant and foolish human being - your own party thinks so! I'm so glad that MY political party has a higher view of me and my fellow conservative voters.
If I may offer one or two further observations, Democrats seem to love byzantine, complicated, arbitrary systems. This mindset has always lurked behind the scenes in their shrill rhetoric and their bizarre legislative agendas. But now we get to watch it reveal itself in the Democratic primary system's real-life take on Edvard Munch's The Scream. I can't help but picture a decrepit, obese, ungainly, and obscenely unattractive dancer awkwardly doing a total striptease as everyone just stares in horrified, uncomprehending fascination. Those who've always known what the Democrat Party truly represents can't help but cheer and jeer at this unravelling.
Democrats also seem to have an unnatural fondness for complex rules that can be interpreted in myriad ways so they can manipulate whichever game they're playing without looking like the hypocrites they really are. Who is ahead by how many delegates? Boy, does it ever depend on a bunch of factors. DNC chair Howard Dean punishes Michigan and Florida by stripping their delegates with widespread Democrat approval. Then Democrats protest the harshness and unfairness of stripping states of their delegates and demand Michigan's and Florida's vote be counted even though it amounts to changing the rules in the middle of the game. Then it just starts getting crazier and crazier. On the other side of the country, Texas has a primary which gives unnatural weight to certain districts because of the new-math-style calculus from previous elections, with the result that Senator Clinton easily wins the overall popular vote and still loses in the delegate count. But if that isn't weird (and anti-democratic) enough, voters return later for a caucus in which a small fraction of earlier primary vote get to award a third of the state's total delegates. Watching the mess unfold, you can't help but remember that a lot of the psychedelic drugs that liberals put in their bodies in the 60s produce flashbacks.
And of course both the Clinton and Obama teams have frantic boiler room operations working non-stop to squeeze public pledges from as many of the super delegates as possible before the Party's August convention. Both campaigns are using every inducement - and even every threat - in their arsenal to jockey for every delegate they can snag. Both campaigns are known to have dossiers on each of the super delegates that would have made J. Edger Hoover drool with envy, covering both the causes they would love to champion as well as the skeletons in their closets. The super delegates themselves, meanwhile will be able to use their artifically-exaggerated influence to extort and armtwist their way to virtually any sweatheart deals and pork barrel politics their little rodent brains can imagine. Just what promises are Clinton and Obama making to these 800 super delegates to obtain their vote? You don't get to know. But you can bet you'd find it truly ugly if you had a chance to see inside the smoke-filled back rooms.
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