We're Going to the Superdelegates!

By David Epstein

Well, Hillary's big victories last night change my delegate calculus. Instead of 15-58-100 (see my previous post), we're now at 0-61-100. That's right -- neither Clinton nor Obama can win the nomination outright any more via primary victories. We're going to the superdelegates.

So now the discussion begins in earnest of what the superdelegates' roles are, and what kind of arguments the candidates need to make to win their allegiance. On these lines, reader xyz points us to an excellent article by Jay Cost at RealClearPolitics starting to sort out the issues (nice catch).

I like the article a lot, but I'd go even further; the candidates need make one argument and one argument only -- that they are more likely to win the general election. And for those who way that to have the superdelegates overrule the will of the people would be undemocratic, I reply that you find democracy between the parties, not within them. Our democracy is strongest when each party puts forward a strong candidate, the one most likely to capture the median voter in the electorate overall, not the median voter of their party. To put it another way, democracies legitimize themselves by responding to the will of the people; parties legitimize themselves by winning elections.

So let the debate begin! I'll throw out a starter factoid -- the electoral college votes of the states won by Obama so far is 193; for Clinton, it's 263. Hmmm....

Comments

[David Epstein]

Hmmm. Maybe Ed can look at my very next post and then tell me what he thinks.

[Ed]

Glad to see you're now supporting Obama. Your factoid clearly suggests that Obama is the stronger general-election candidate. Who are Hillary's supporters? Long-time democrats, the party faithful. Obama's? He draws in young voters and independents. Hillary's supporters will vote democrat in the general election no matter what. But many of Obama's supporters would go to McCain or not vote.

Touting Hillary based on her wins in democratic strongholds is exactly why democrats were killed in elections from 1996-2006. It criminally misses the point.

[David Epstein]

Very, very interesting. That's my perspective too: the onus shouldn't be on the superdelegates to follow the voters; the onus should be on the candidates to convince the superdelegates that they have the best chances of winning in November. Not that I think Obama doesn't have some solid arguments to make here, just that they have to be of the "I'm doing better vs. McCain in the polls now" variety rather than the "I have more primary votes than Clinton" variety.

This is how things used to be, and I might add that in many ways it was more civilized and healthy for the party. If I were a superdelegate (SD -- I like that abbreviation), I would be asking Obama to prove that he has no skeletons in his closet (or that the skeletons that do exist can be overcome), that he's tough enough to take on the Reps, that he can come across to voters as experienced, etc. And I'd ask similar questions of Hillary. So the hard questions can be asked, but behind closed doors, rather than via public accusations from one candidate to another played out in the national press. Those smoke-filled rooms had their advantages.

[xyz]

Your electoral college vote count is an interesting point--but would Obama not win these states against McCain in a general election?

[xyz]

Another article on politico. This one saying that Ohio SDs are waiting to hear concrete proposals from the candidates to see who can give them a better plan to protect American jobs. It should be interesting to see what the SDs demand (if they demand anything at all); they seem to be the ones with all the power in this equation. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/8867.html