Proletariat declares: All power to the superdelegates

Henry Dubb, of the Proletariat, responds to the Brawler's post "Hillary: Dems deserve to lose if I'm not the nominee," which criticized Hillary for saying McCain is more qualified than Obama -- the Dem frontrunner, mind you -- to be commander in chief. Hillary's experience traveling in Macedonia with Sinbad and Sheryl Crow, meanwhile, pushes her past that threshold:

Or she's just operating in the reality based community. Funny you quoted Gary Hart, he carried the same upper middle class base that Obama is now carrying.

There is no doubt in my mind that if Obama gets the nod, its a oops I did it again.

It seems to me Hillary is doing a needed service of pointing Obama's many weaknesses prior to the general which hopefully can be corrected.

When 13% of Ohio voters say they will vote for Nader if their preference is not selected, or only 16% of Mississippi voters stating they will support Obama as the nominee, then Houston we have a problem.

It seems to me this is the scenario that the Super Delegates were invested for. We'll see if they put Party before candidate.

There's a lot of this with which the Brawler disagrees, but the last line in particular jumped out.

Isn't having the super delegates decide -- as opposed to the pledged dels or, you know, the popular vote (both of which Obama will win under any realistic analysis) -- a bit of a Blanquist position for a champion of the Proletariat?

Comments

[Henry Dubb]

No, here is the point. In a healthy democracy there are two central values, the right to vote and the right for political parties.

Again, lets not confuse the process of "American Democracy" with the process of "candidate selection". The Democrats are selecting a candidate and part of that process is preserving party identity.

Yes, there have been many new voters coming into the Democratic Party nominating process, while at the same time Democratic registration is at the lowest level in 16 years. More and more of the decision who will be the nominee is being made by those who are not Democrats.

Now, certainly a party has a right to do this under the guise of "growing the Party". But, the party also has the right to have mechanisms in place that preserve its identity. The Democrats sometime back decided to use Super Delegates as a sort of firewall for this exact reason.

If a candidate would be weak in the general election, or could alter the party's identity, then the Super delegates have an obligation of party over candidate.

Here is my point. As a private organization the Democrats can choose whatever method they want. If they want to limit it to dues paying members, so be it, or even caucuses and primaries, I don't care.

But, as I said earlier what we need, in addition to the right to vote, is the right of political parties. That means it is important that parties have mechanisms in place to preserve their identity.

Again, I have to point out the Democratic Party is a private organization in a government sponsored primary. There is no popular vote here, it is simply a private organization selecting a candidate to participate in a democratic process. What we really need is separation of party and government. It seems way too many Democrats can not tell the difference between the two.