bkelley@bushlies.net on "“Superdelegates” and the US election"

bkelley@bushlies.net — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:04:49 +0000

Commentator after commentator discusses Rule 9A in relation to the 1968 or 1972 or some other Democratic convention except for the one convention that gave life to the rule - 1980.

In August 1979 - twelve months before the convention - Senator Ted Kennedy held a 36 point lead over President Carter. Kennedy, however, formally declared his candidacy on November 6th - two days after the takeover of the US Embassy in Iran. As a result of the crisis, President Carter's approval ratings jumped from 31 percent before the takeover to as high as 60 percent two months after. This enabled Carter to score decisive victories in the early primaries. As impatience with the hostage situation grew, however, Carter's approval ratings dropped into the twenties and Kennedy won many of the later primaries including California, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. (I was a volunteer for Kennedy in the state that gave him his biggest margin of victory - Rhode Island.)

President Carter went into the convention with more than enough delegates to win the nomination, but with his abysmal approval ratings it was clear that was all Carter was capable of winning that year. Kennedy made an attempt to open the convention to release delegates of their obligation to vote as pledged which Carter successfully blocked. As a result, Carter won the nomination and the party suffered a crushing defeat in the fall.

Rule 9A is the result of the 1980 convention. It is a firewall designed to prevent a repeat of 1980 where the party was locked into certain defeat. There is no doubt that the party was also seeking to regain some of the power it lost in the Harris reforms, but Rule 9A is primarily the result of what happened in Madison Square Garden in 1980 and not what happened in Miami Beach eight years earlier.

“Superdelegates” and the US election, Godfrey Hodgson

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:05:37 +0000

Those who practice and those who report American politics have - almost overnight - woken up to the existence of a group of people called "superdelegates". There may be no such official category in the Democratic Party rulebook - the official term is "delegates selected under party rule 9A" - but the political buzzword conveys the point: the group has the potential to play a decisive role in the outcome for the contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democrats' presidential nomination.

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open Democracy News Analysis - “Superdelegates” and the US election, Godfrey Hodgson - Comments

bkelley@bushlies.net on "“Superdelegates” and the US election"

“Superdelegates” and the US election, Godfrey Hodgson