At the conclusion of the final primary (June 3) we will not have a democratic winner. Unless someone drops out of the race, which is highly unlikely, neither Hillary or Obama will have the necessary 2025 delegates needed to be named the democratic presidential candidate. Currently Obama is leading with 1614 to Hillary's 1482. With only 217 delegates left in the final 6 primaries, nobody will be a clear cut winner.
That leads us to the super delegates! What are super delegates you ask? Basically, super delegates are the big wigs in the Democratic party who represent about 20% of the total delegates and in some cases make the final decision as to who the democratic candidate will be. To be a super delegate a person would have to fit under one of these categories:
- Recognized Member of the Democratic National Committee
- Democratic President and VP (if applicable)
- All Democratic members of the House and Senate
- Democratic State Governors
- Former Democratic Presidents
- Former Democratic VPs
- Former Democratic Leaders of the Senate
- Former Democratic Speakers of the House
- Former Democratic Minority Leaders
- Former Chairs of the Democratic National Convention
That number could vary from year to year, but this year there are 795 super delegates (not including Florida and Michigan which would bring the number to 842). In 1968, many democrats believed that a primary only system diminished the role of party leaders and started working on a way to involved seasoned members of the party in the system. The super delegate system, used for the first time in 1982, was also designed to act as a check on ideologically extreme or inexperienced candidates and to ensure that the party nominated the best candidate. Until now, the super delegates have never faced a situation where there is no clear cut winner and where they will be asked to make the final decision.
So far, Obama has 212 Super Delegates who are publicly endorsing him while Hillary has 248 (actually she has 247 since supporter Spitzer has quietly left the NY governor's mansion......). While this shows a small lead for Clinton, the actually endorsements don't mean much since the party rules state that super delegates are bound only by their consciences when placing their vote.
Like I said before, no one has ever really cared about the super delegates and who they would vote for. There has always been a clear winner until now. This has fueled debates on how super delegates should vote. Some say that they should follow the party rules and vote on how they feel, while other say that they should vote according to the popular vote (which currently stands at Obama with 13,280,770 and Hillary with 12,577,044), and still others claim that it is an outdated system that undermines the American public.
Regardless of how many times the experts hash it out, the party rules allow super delegates to vote how they choose. There will not be a clear cut winner in August. It will be very interesting to see how things turn out and all eyes will be on the super delegates.
**Note to my die hard Republicans out there - there is no super delegate system in the Republican party, I am not ignoring you, it just doesn't exist. **
1 comment:
Someone hand me some kryptonite!
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