only in a laboratory situation of sorts where factors like legitimacy or psychology play no role. It's technically entirely accurate that voters were not voting for a candidate, but for a delegate. It's also accurate that elected and unelected delegates to the convention have the same voting power on an individual basis.
However, the people voting for Joe Schmoe, the Obama delegate, didn't do so because they were enthralled with Joe Schmoe himself. They want to vote for Obama. It's disingenuous to suggest otherwise - Schmoe's name isn't on the lawn signs, Obama's is.
Convention superdelegates are entirely free to overturn the results of the electoral part of the process. If they want to expose the fiction that voters decide the outcome, they can do that.
But if they do so, they will rip the party asunder.
But sometimes in delegate selecting conventions some people do vote for Joe Schmoe because of who Joe Schmoe is and who Joe Schmoe has watching you to see how you line up. Or sometimes people really really like and respect Joe Schmoe for all the work he has done for their Party and they don't care that much more about their candidate so they select Joe Schmoe because they think Joe deserves to go to Denver.
That happens also, and this was just one of a number of factors I ran down that show that pledged delegate dispersal can not automatically be claimed to represent the popular will in a very tight contest. How was the popular will of Texans, or Nevadans respected by Obama getting more delegates from those states than Clinton?
My position on this is simple. The people who argue that the party will be ripped asunder by following our rules in Denver are the ones who contributing to ripping our party asunder. This in my opinion is one of the most dangerous and self centered talking points to emerge from the Obama camp.
Or sometimes people really really like and respect Joe Schmoe for all the work he has done for their Party and they don't care that much more about their candidate so they select Joe Schmoe because they think Joe deserves to go to Denver.
Yes, that's the 19th Century model of democracy. There is not, however, any empirical evidence that I'm familiar with demonstrating that any significant number of voters cast their ballot based on who delegates are. This is paternalistic thinking at its worst.
As to Texas and Nevada, that's a debatable point, but you can't really blame Obama for running in the way that the rules in force at the time dictated. And those rules specified that the goal was securing pledged delegates.
As to dangers to the party, I'd suggest this: the goal of a political party is to win elections. There is little I can think of more destructive of that systemic goal than sending someone into an election as a result of a process that overturns an election. Talking about it does not create this danger; contemplating it, as you do, does.
I have to say that your thought process here is deeply disturbing. I don't think I've ever seen such deep and obvious contempt of voters and democracy on a Democratic web site.
It didn't take you long to turn to making personal attacks. And your extreme hyperbole is characteristic of exactly what my Diary exposes; morphing my comments above into "a contempt of voters and Democracy" is intellectually consistent with claiming that failing to nominate, using the long established rules of the Democratic Party, whichever candidate ends the primary season ahead in pledged delegates is overthrowing the will of the people.
I don't blame Obama at all for competing for the nomination using the rules in play regarding those particular caucuses. And I don't blame either Clinton or Obama for making appeals for the support of Super Delegates. I don't claim that the Governor and Senators from Massachusetes have to vote for Clinton as Super Delegates either, just because Massachusetes voted overwhelmingly for Clinton.
But since you are claiming to put pure Democracy above all things why aren't you outraged that Obama did not insist on appointing delegates in Texas that reflected the will of the people of Texas? There is nothing in the rules that prevented him from doing so in the conventions that followed. But I didn't see Clinton supporters threatening riots in Texas over this.
Regarding poor Joe Schmoe his example comes up mostly at delegate selecting conventions, not so much on primary ballots. Look, because I do respect the legitimacy of the Democratic Party rules in play I did not use this Diary to attack the validity of Caucuses in general. I actually stayed away from that, only intellectually challenging them in instances where the results coming out of them directly contradicted actual votes of people in those states.
But caucuses are a HUGE can of worms if you insist on arguing that the current rusults of this exteremely close race for the Democratic nomination not only are legally valid, but also reflect the "will of the people". They are certainly legally valid, but there are a dozen good arguments for why caucuses are a poor way of determining the "will of the people" starting with the usual negation of that most basic of fundemental democratic principles; the secret ballot, moving on to the barriers caucuses create to broad based participation.
I find your arguments appalling. But that doesn't mean I think or have implied that you are a bad person, which would be the definition of a personal attack.
As to extreme hyperbole, no, what your diary exposes, or if you prefer, betrays, is your contemptuous view of voters. It's difficult to not come to that conclusion after you've argued that some voters supposedly abdicated their own voice in the election to a delegate based on who that delegate is. That is precisely the idea behind the electoral college, for example, not exactly a democratic institution.
Your Texas example, meanwhile, is specious. There were two rounds of voting in Texas, one a primary, the other a caucus. Obama finished ahead by 100,000 votes or so in that process. This is the process, whatever one may think of it, chosen by the Texas Democrats, and you don't get to pick and choose which of the two parts of it is valid.
As to caucuses themselves, whatever else one may say about them, they were chosen by the state parties, which under law are entitled to make that choice. It's interesting to me that, while you yourself argue for treating the DNCC as a representative assembly with representatives empowered to vote as they wish without reference to the popular will, you insist that the process for selecting them be far more democratic than the convention itself. There's an essential disconnect in your argument that you're probably unaware of. This also demonstrates that utility, not principle, is the thread that ties your argument together.
As far as I'm concerned, whoever emerges as the winner of the pledged delegate count has earned the nomination. Note that this leaves open a bare window of opportunity for my candidate to lose. You, by contrast, have arranged your argument in a way that does not allow for that possibility.
Coincidentally, here are the Democratic popular vote calculations. As you can see, Obama is ahead by every measure, and given the lay of the land going forward, I do not expect that to change. I know Clinton supporters believe that she is somehow in line or entitled to the nomination, but the question here is not by how much Obama must beat her to be able to overthrow her claim.
The question is, rather, whether or not he beats her, period. And I am confident that he will.
We can quibble over words but in my opinion claiming that a poster on a Democratic message board is anti-Democratic and contemptious of voters is a personal attack.
And your spin isn't even subtle. The fact that I can accurately point out that some established Party figures routinely get awarded delegate slots at Party conventions factoring in who they are as well as who they support does not indicate that I believe some or all voters abdicaet their responsibility. Any voter so chosing does so based on their own internal ranking of reasons to consider regarding who to send to Denver. I know it happens sometimes and you are pretending you don't. I didn't even pass judgment on it but you assert that factual observation was a center piece to all all of my arguments, which is laughable.
My point about Texas, unlike Washington State for example, is that the Texas caucus participants were a literal sub-set of the Primary voters. They were not distinctly seperate events. It was against Party rules for anyone to participate in the Texas causus unless they could prove that they had voalready ted in the Texas Primary. So if the rules were followed every single Texas causus vote was a second vote by that same person, only the pool of primary voters was much larger, much more inclusive, and thereby more representitive of the popular will of Texas Democrats than the caucus.
You talk above about a "representative assembly with representatives empowered to vote as they wish without reference to the popular will" like I am advocating for the Soviet Politiburo. First off you start of claiming certainty about "the popular will" as your foundation when in fact I reject your basis for certainty in determining what "the popular will is".
Your argunment is circular. You claim the Democratic Convnetion must ratify the popular will (which is an abstract construct not defined in any party rules), you claim that a lead in pledged delegates is proof of the popular will, so you claim that the convention must nominate whoever is ahead in pledged delegates. Skipping past the part that you don't have a legal leg to stand on, I don't accept your assertion about how the popular will can be determined. We have what is called a disagreement on that it seems. But it is wrong based on that disagreement to claim that I have disrespect for the popular will. That is another false circular argument. You don't get to arbitrate definitions of the concepts used for both of us. I understand where you are coming from and I don't insult you because of it. Clearly you think whoever is ahead in pledged delegates has the popular will behind them, and I don't find that at all obvious in this instance.
I do not challenge the selection of a single delegate chosen by the approved DNC methods this year, not in Nevada, not in Texas, not anywhere, no matter how inherently undemocratic that process may have been in my opinion. The Democratic Party process also calls for a small minority of Super Delegates to play a preciously designated role in the nomination process. I don't challenge that either this year. We can argue about the pros and cons for all kinds of possible changes in future years, but neither caucuses or Super Delegates were exacly a surpise sprung on candiates last Novemeber.
You throw out slurs left and right but you don't know me. I never have nor will I ever believe that any candidate for any office is automatically in line for and entitled to any office.
I am not using this Diary to debate who is the more likely Democatic Party nominee for President but I have no problem agreeing with you that Obama is more likely than Clinton to win the nomination.
...if you insist on treating a critique of your argument as a personal attack, I can't stop you. But it's not intended as such.
Without bothering to comment on everything you say here, I'll note this:
The fact that I can accurately point out that some established Party figures routinely get awarded delegate slots at Party conventions factoring in who they are as well as who they support does not indicate that I believe some or all voters abdicaet their responsibility.
You're confusing pledged delegates and super-delegates. And yes, your point was exactly as I described it.
Your argunment is circular. You claim the Democratic Convnetion must ratify the popular will (which is an abstract construct not defined in any party rules), you claim that a lead in pledged delegates is proof of the popular will, so you claim that the convention must nominate whoever is ahead in pledged delegates. Skipping past the part that you don't have a legal leg to stand on, I don't accept your assertion about how the popular will can be determined.
No, I don't claim that the convention "must" nominate whomever is ahead by the metric of my choice. There is no such compulsion, as you correctly point out. I say that there is no other politically or morally justifiable course for them to take.
As to the popular will, sure, we can go in circles all day and all night as to what that means. But if someone is ahead in the number of votes cast in DNC-sanctioned elections and the pledged delegates resulting therefrom, it's hard to argue that he is not therefore ahead by that measure. There are only so many ways to measure the popular will, after all.
So if the rules were followed every single Texas causus vote was a second vote by that same person, only the pool of primary voters was much larger, much more inclusive, and thereby more representitive of the popular will of Texas Democrats than the caucus.
That really doesn't matter, given that Texas set its system up in the way it saw fit, as it is empowered to do. Obama got more delegates and more votes under the rules laid out in advance, and had the rules been otherwise, he would have campaigned differently. As it is, however, caucus votes from Texas are not counted in the tabulation I cited above.
You talk above about a "representative assembly with representatives empowered to vote as they wish without reference to the popular will" like I am advocating for the Soviet Politiburo.
Not really, no, in part because that's not the way either the Politburo or the Supreme Soviet, which is what you meant to reference, operated. Rather, my point was and is that you question the legitimacy of delegate elections while saying that delegates should be unbound by the will of the voters that elected a majority of their elected number. Based on that, I think your arguments are fungible, not based on principle.
Your point that the popular will is an undefined criterion is well taken. But your mistake is thinking that "undefined" is equivalent to "meaningless". It is not.
I wasn't confusing Super Delegates and pledged delegates. SD's are predetermined by a set of guidelines before the contests begin, but enough on that for now.
I never suggested that the popular will being "undefined" is equivalent to it being "meaningless". Let me put it to you this way. If Obama came out of the primaries needing a few dozen SD's to put him over the top. If he beats Clinton soundly in OR and NC and if the national polls consistently show him running as strong or stronger than Clinton, I would join with protesters in the streets if it appeared that SD's attempted to give the nomination to Clinton over Obama. Under that scenario I think the "popular will" would be clear enough to act on, on its face.
Until such time, since the popular will is not a DNC sanctioned bench mark for anything it can be argued in the media, to voters in upcoming primaries, and to Super Delegates that the State santioned vote held in Florida for instance is indicitive of the popular will in Florida - that has nothing to do with whether delegates get formally seated from that vote.
There was nothing in the DNC sanctions against the Florida Democratic Party that demanded people not speculate on the popular will of Florida Democrats by whatever tools are available to shed light on that, including but not limited to the popular results of the Florida Primary. Since we are not here arguing over which delegates should get seated, there is no reason to penelize Democrats who live in Florida by not caring about what they actually think. Floridians are as much a component of the intangible "will of the people" as Democrats living anywhere else.
In addition to the results of the Florida primary there is polling data available to shed light on Florida Democrats preferences for the Democratic nominee. It can also be argued that the composit national polling standings of Clinton vs Obama after primary season ends would be indicitive of the popular will of Democratic voters at that time.
My point in this Diary, and it was an intentionally narrow one, is that I do not mechanically accept that under all possible plausible circumstances that a candidate who ends the primaries with a lead in pledged delegates against a close rival can automatically be said to represent the will of the people heading into the convention.
P.S.
While I did say that the "popular will was a meaningless term" I did not by that mean that I thought the popular will itself is a meaningless reality. I meant two things by that. 1) That the Democratic Party has no accepted definition of that concept in the nominating process and 2) that attempts to cite it as evidence for supporting a candidate are empty without some agreed upon basis for defining who has the popular will behind him or her.
We have explored some of our differences regarding the latter. I will just add that I think the concept itself is hollow in a situation where loyalties are divided 51% to 49%. The one with a tad more support measured at a given moment of time in such a case may well be declared the legitimate clear winner, if that measurement was reached through a final vote, but to me the concept of the popular will is a broader and stronger mandate than simply edging out an essentially equally popular opponent on a given day. In such cases the popular will is unsettled and divided, though victors must still be determined even in cases like that, and having a majority of valid votes works for me.
