The Monroe Street Journal

Issue date: 2/4/08 Section: Politics

Barack Obama. Winner of 34 primary delegates to Hillary's 21. Champion of 63 caucus delegates over Hillary's 47. Still losing to Hillary. So what's behind the fuzzy math that the Associated Press is using to claim that Hillary is in the lead? They're called Super Delegates, they're not bound by primary or caucus elections, and they will account for a full 20% of the vote at the upcoming DNC convention. Super Delegates are delegate votes held by Democratic Party officials and elected office holders, such as Governors, Representatives, and Senators. The Democratic Party has 796 of these unpledged delegates, according to the New York Times, meaning that Obama may lose to Hillary in the convention, despite having won more pledged delegates. The pendulum of party control over presidential nominees has swung several times in recent decades, and may yet swing again in the aftermath of 2008.

Interestingly, it was not until after the 1968 election that the Democratic Party relinquished control over selection of presidential candidates in the primary and caucus system, spurred on by the fallout caused by Hubert Humphrey's narrow loss to Richard Nixon, as Joshua Spivak of the LA Times adeptly points out. Many were outraged after Hubert Humphrey, who served as Johnson's Vice President but did not run in a single state primary, was selected by the Democratic Party to run against Nixon. He was challenged by Bobby Kennedy at the time, who was assassinated on the night of the California primary shortly before the convention. Mass protests ensued outside of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, with many people supporting antiwar candidates like McCarthy and McGovern.

Source of Delegates	Barack Obama	Hilary Clinton
Primaries	34	21
Caucuses	63	47
Super Delegates	84	181
Total	181	249

Once the system was changed in 1972, the pendulum swung too far for comfort, when McGovern swept the popular primaries and narrowly won the nomination at the convention despite a hobbled challenge by the establishment ABM (anyone but McGovern) movement, with Humphrey as the lead front-man. Of course in the end, McGovern went on to get thoroughly trounced by Nixon in the general election.

The Democratic Party was again steered by the populous in 1976 when Jimmy Carter won the nomination. Finally in 1980, when Senator Ted Kennedy was able to mount a powerful and damaging, but ultimately unsuccessful campaign against Carter, Democratic Party leaders were able to gain enough momentum to swing the pendulum back, again changing the system and regaining control over the nominations. This led directly to the creation of the current system of Super Delegates.

Part of the reason that Super Delegates account for such a large portion of the vote this time around is because Michigan and Florida's delegates were stripped this year after they attempted to move their primaries earlier in the campaign season without the approval of the party. Should both candidates keep up their momentum into the convention, a nomination decided by Super Delegates could lead to serious disenfranchisement of voters in the general election.

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