Posted by
Andrews on Saturday, May 10, 2008 12:49:35 PM
It is always interesting to see someone sabotaged by their own cleverness. And recently we have seen just that.
The Democrats, long convinced that proportional representation is more "just" than the old fashioned winner take all allocation of electors, delegate, whatever, set up a system of proportional delegates in the various states. Of course, since this would almost guarantee a tie in tight races, they knew the race would sometimes be decided by horse trading among state delegates. As they could not stand the thought of elected delegates deciding the nomination, they set up the system of "superdelegates". Normally superdelegates would be irrelevant. If the state races produced a clear winner, the superdelegates would just rubber stamp that outcome. But, in close races, there were more than enough superdelegates to decide the race one way or another, preventing the nomination from going to a brokered decision.
In their minds it was better than the old fashioned Republican system of winner-takes-all races*.
And now we see the consequences of that decision. Both parties started the primaries with contentious races, and no clear front runner. Yet the Republicans have a nominee who is already well along in his presidential campaign while the Democrats are still trapped in a nasty battle for the nomination. It is not clear, but it is possible that the candidate with the most delegates and the candidate with the most delegates and the candidate with the largest popular vote may be different people, precisely the situation this system was intended to avoid.
Worse still for the Democrats, as it has become clear that the race is not going to be decided in the popular elections,t he candidates have given up on trying to woo voters and are instead taking their case tot he superdelegates, trying to convince them they would be the best nominee. Unfortunately for the candidates, all these appeals to electability while ignoring the voters make each of them look less and less appealing to the voters, and make it ever less likely they will win in November.
And this system still is not avoiding the problem the Democrats hoped to eliminate with proportional representation and superdelegates. They had hoped proportional representation would make the system more "representative" and the superdelegates would eliminate any appearance of "back room deals", yet that is precisely what is happening. The Democrat voters do not feel better represented under the current system, instead they worry that the superdelegates will be selecting their nominee. The repeated threat of walkouts by supporters of the losing candidate show how little this system has done to increase voter confidence.
To be honest, I am a little disappointed in the Democratic primaries, as I am by everything about this election cycle. I would have preferred that both parties put up their best representative and the people decide between them. Instead we have a relatively weak Republican nominee being handed the White House by a combination of a defective nomination system and weak candidates. I am happy that neither Obama nor Clinton will be president, but I would ahve preferred an election that made clear that America has rejected the elft, rather than one where the loss can be blamed on so many irrelevant details.
If one good thing comes of this election, it will be the death of the idea that the system of assigning presidential electors needs to be changed. In recent times I have heard again and again that all states should go to a proportional assignment of presidential electors. I have argued against this over and over, as I think it would be a recipe for chaos**. Hopefully after this election, the Democrats will see my reason for saying so.
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* The proportional primaries predate 2000, but the supposedly "stolen" race of 2000 definitely cemented Democrat opposition to "winner takes all" races, as in a proportional system Gore would have done much better.
** Actually, I would not mind returning to the original system of electors being chosen on their own merits, then casting their vote as they see fit, rather than having committed electors. But given today's two party system, it would amount to the same thing as committed electors, so it would not be a meaningful reform so long as we have a two party system.