The '80 Influence on '08

... or how one Obama supporter may have launched "superdelegates."


-- from The Made For TV Election

Watch how commercial broadcast networks use polls, gaffes, flip-flops, stereotypes, and show business values to create winners and losers in a drama of their own making to pump the ratings--and distract you from what you need to be an informed citizen and understand what's really happening in America.

"Profoundly enlightening... a devastating look at TV's impact on the presidency." --Helen Thomas, Hearst News Service and "Dean" of the White House press corps.

Sound familiar?

It sort of makes me wonder how Ted Kennedy could credibly join in any chorus that suggests Hillary Clinton drop out of the race for the Democratic nomination.

In a February New York Times op-ed, former vice presidential candidate -- and Clinton supporter -- Geraldine Ferraro explains the impact of the 1980 election on the creation of "superdelegates."

After the 1980 presidential election, the Democratic Party was in disarray. That year, Senator Ted Kennedy had challenged President Jimmy Carter for the presidential nomination, and Mr. Kennedy took the fight to the convention floor by proposing 23 amendments to the party platform. When it was all over, members of Congress who were concerned about their re-election walked away from the president and from the party. The rest of the campaign was plagued by infighting.

In 1982, we tried to remedy some of the party’s internal problems by creating the Hunt Commission, which reformed the way the party selects its presidential nominees. Because I was then the vice chairwoman of the House Democratic Caucus, Tip O’Neill, the speaker of the House, appointed me as his representative to the commission. The commission considered several reforms, but one of the most significant was the creation of superdelegates, the reform in which I was most involved.

Democrats had to figure out a way to unify our party. What better way, we reasoned, than to get elected officials involved in writing the platform, sitting on the credentials committee and helping to write the rules that the party would play by?

Most officeholders, however, were reluctant to run as delegates in a primary election — running against a constituent who really wants to be a delegate to the party’s national convention is not exactly good politics.

So we created superdelegates and gave that designation to every Democratic member of Congress. Today the 796 superdelegates also include Democratic governors, former presidents and vice presidents, and members of the Democratic National Committee and former heads of the national committee.

These superdelegates, we reasoned, are the party’s leaders. They are the ones who can bring together the most liberal members of our party with the most conservative and reach accommodation. [...]

Today, with the possibility that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will end up with about the same number of delegates after all 50 states have held their primaries and caucuses, the pundits and many others are saying that superdelegates should not decide who the nominee will be. That decision, they say, should rest with the rank-and-file Democrats who went to the polls and voted.

But the superdelegates were created to lead, not to follow. They were, and are, expected to determine what is best for our party and best for the country. [...]

I imagine the rhetoric will start to change as superdelegates move toward Obama. But if the people complaining about the influence of the superdelegates -- or at least those who were formerly complaining -- really want to prove they have the grassroots, rank-and-file party members back they will insist the Democratic Party seat the Michigan and Florida delegations.