The Literary Divide/Dr. Paul Barrows
    In the Presidential race for 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the election to George W. Bush. Bush won because he received the majority of the
votes from the Electoral College. Many, including myself, complained loudly that the Electoral College was unfair as it undermined the democratic
cornerstone of the U.S. Constitution which called for one man, one vote. There was a national call for reforming the Electoral College System, with many
demanding that it be done away with altogether.
    One would think that the Democratic Party Establishment, learning from the terrible experiences and the serious consequences that our nation has had to
endure since 2000 with the Bush Administration, would learn its lesson and be ardent and uncompromising supporters of “one man, one vote.” In media
interviews on “Super-Tuesday,” Howard Dean, the former New Hampshire Governor and current Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC),
proclaimed that Democrats were very excited about the two outstanding candidates, Obama and Clinton, that Democratic voters were awarding delegates
to in this monumental contest. When you take a look at what is actually happening in the Democratic Primary with the presence and reality of the “Super
Delegates,” nothing could be further from the truth.
    What is the “Super-Delegate System” and how could it undermine one person, one vote? The Super-Delegate System was established in the early 1970s
by the Democratic National Committee as an effort to get out from under the power influence of the big-city Democratic bosses, like Chicago’s Mayor Richard
Daley, whose machine could very easily influence the outcome of national elections. The notion was that the national elections were too important to be
overly influenced by such individuals. An effort was undertaken ostensibly to “democratize” this process with the DNC being given the authority to appoint 842
Super Delegates supposedly from across a broad spectrum of grassroots Democrats who would be given a vote at the Democratic National Convention. At the
forthcoming DNC Convention in 2008, the Democratic candidate will need 2025 delegates to win the nomination. The Super-Delegates appointed by the
DNC, far from being represented from the “grassroots,” actually represent the full spectrum of the Democratic Party Establishment which includes, former
presidents (including Bill Clinton!), vice presidents, governors, senators and members of congress, and state party chairs. They constitute approximately 40
percent of the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination! They are not elected by anyone, yet they have the power to overrule the will of the
people. They can state whom they are going to vote for before, during or after their state’s caucus or primary election. They are in no way obligated to vote
the will of their electorate. They can change their vote right up to the point at which they are asked to vote at the Democratic National Convention. During
the interviews on television on Super Tuesday, Chris Mathews asked New Jersey Representative Bob Menendez if New Jersey was won by Obama, would he
continue to commit his Super Delegate vote for Hillary Clinton, to which he replied, “Yes, I would.”
    The Reverend Jesse Jackson, who ran for president in the 2008 election, complained bitterly about this system calling it just what it is, unfair and
undemocratic. This point was captured in a piece written by Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor of The Nation when she noted that “Jackson challenged the
notion that these appointed delegates be permitted to vote for the candidate of their choosing rather than the winner of the state’s caucus or primary. He was
right to do so. Twenty years later, when the word ‘change’ is being bandied about, isn’t it time for the Democratic Party to give real meaning to the word?
Strengthen our democracy by reforming the super-delegate system so that the people, not the party establishment, chose their candidate. In an interview by
MSNBC’s Dan Abrahams on Super Tuesday, Roy Romer, former Chair of the DNC and himself a super delegate actually admitted that the system was not
fair and that “if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t set it up this way.” The Obama campaign has to be very concerned about the power of the Clinton
Machine to wield huge influences over the “old boys” and “the Party Establishment” to obtain a majority of the Super-Delegates to his political detriment
at the DNC Convention.
    There is yet another matter of urgent concern that the DNC must also attend to if the current campaign is to be fair to both candidates. That matter
relates to the fact that the states of Michigan and Florida were sanctioned by the DNC when they, without DNC support, like much of the nation, established
earlier dates for their primaries. As John Dean noted, both states were told that they could not award any delegates as a result of their primaries. The DNC also
informed ALL candidates that they were prohibited from campaigning in either of these states stipulating that if they did, they would be denied any delegates
from these states at the Convention. The logical question is, if there was no primary to win, how or why would delegates from these states be seated and
allowed to vote at the Convention if they were so sanctioned by the DNC? Chairman Dean said that these were “complex” issues that had to be worked out at
the convention. He said he saw it as unlikely that the Democratic Credentials Committee would not allow the delegates from Michigan and Florida to vote.
Why is this an issue? It is an issue because Sen. Hillary Clinton, directly in defiance of the sanctions taken by the DNC, made campaign and “victory”
stops in Florida and Michigan to give her an advantage over Obama who played by the rules. This was obviously unfair to the Obama campaign. In a hotly
contested campaign, Clinton is hoping that the pay-off for being the only candidate to woo the voters and delegates of these states will be well worth the
fallout that she gets from the DNC and the Obama campaign. In the spirit of openness and fairness, the DNC must take action to address both the Super-
Delegate System and the manner in which the situations unfolded in Michigan and Florida and the implications for the upcoming Convention.
Democratic Pary's "Super Delegate" System
A mockery of "one person, one vote"