Wednesday, February 20, 2008
By The People for the People
As I have been closely following the Democratic primary like most people it suddenly dawned on me, why do we need super delegates? Or even delegates at all. If the democratic process is really supposed to be about the people and what they really want, why not let the citizens and members of a particular party decide who would be the best candidate for a particular party. What I find particularly disturbing is the presence of super delegates who are not bound to support a particular candidate. This does not sound very democratic. The unfortunate consequence about the presence of delegates and super delegates is that candidates start to court delegates rather than focusing on everyday voters, and privileging certain states over other states because those states have more delegates. All the recent stories about Obama and Clinton focuses on their race to get enough delegates, rather than the issues central to their particular platforms.
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Stanley Fish wrote an interesting take on super delegates
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/memo-to-the-superdelegates-no-principles-please/index.html?ref=opinion
Although the process of super delegates does seem undemocratic, it pretty much sums up politics. Even in a government by the people, there are always a few people looking to wield more power than others. The only thing we can hope is that the superdelegates use their influence for the public's gain and not their own.
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