I'm not that familiar with the Dem delegate and convention rules, but based on visible facts...

As you say, "She has no intention of denying American citizens of their right to choose their preferred candidate."  But you leave some concerns unanswered by this sentence.

I'm sure Jenny Greenleaf is a terrific person and many other superdelegates are too.

But the fact is their vote counts for a hell of a lot more than my vote by many orders of magnitude.  And apparently she is not bound or obligated in any way to vote other than according to her own opinion.

Next time, can you elaborate a little on this common concern?

The concern I have is that the superdelegates are not selected by the people of the state to be delegates to the convention.  They seem to me to represent the entrenched hierarchy of the party.  We are a long way in this country of being a true representaive democracy.  Of course most people only care about what is on tv tonight.

It's a historic concern. Ranks up there with allowing independents and even GOPers to vote in Democratic primaries (almost 20 states have no party registration and even those that do sometimes allow others to participate).  Is the party an entity, or nothing more than a mechanism for ballot access? Is the party only about electing the president or are there broader electoral interests involved- including Mayors, Legislatures, Governors? Should a possible fleeting one time tide sweep away the nomination at the top -impacting everyone else on the ballot or do we hear from them as well. I think we are better served by both keeping open our process and recruiting new blood constantly, as well as hearing from the other interests of the party through the super delegate process. cheers.

No offence to Jenny but the very existence of super-delegates is undemocratic.

I've campaigned shoulder-to-shoulder with Jenny here in Portland in 2004 and 2006. I couldn't be prouder that she's representing us at the DNC. It is of no moment to me whether she endorses now or a day before the convention. What matters is that she, and so many of her fellow superdelegates, are tremendously hard workers for our party and our cause. Jenny fought in 2004 to take the Democratic Party back from fat-cat irrelevance. Now she is fighting to take the country back.

The Superdelegate issue is only positive when at the convention they vote for your candidate. And isn't that the problem. If they vote for my candidate, the system is okay. If not, then it stinks. The best way to resolve the problem is to get rid of it, because it is obviously subject to bias and is a long way from being a true democratic representation of what all Democrats might wish.

And this appeal to superdelgates being people too is just to repeat the nature the problem. People are biased and so are superdelegates. Get rid of them.

I have no doubt that most of the superdelegates are fine people.  It's really beside the issue however.  It's an elitist process designed to control the membership to preserve a given status quo.  The whole purpose was to deny party members the right to vote for someone like McGovern.  While that was obviously not the best choice, it was the choice of the party membership - ie. those who registered Democrat in 1972.

If the Superdelegates ever frustrate the selection of a candidate by choosing someone who would otherwise win the nomination, I will not vote for the candidate that year.  And that will be true even if I support their choice.

By the way, for those people who whined about the media not counting superdelegates yet, there is a good reason why. Most of their votes are not set in stone. You do not include advance polling in estimate delegate counts in future primaries. Well, the analogy to superdelegates is not quite accurate, but close enough to make my point.

Hey all,

Sorry to get on so late. I had to take my son to the doctor this morning.

I am not undemocratic. I work really hard to make sure the Party is transparent. I got involved because I thought the Party needed to change. I personally find the processes we use to elect our leaders to be Byzantine, to say the least. I'm not going to defend it, but I do believe you have to understand how it works to try to change it. I've been on a mission to do that since I got started in 2002.

Let me see if I can clear up some misconceptions about the superdelegates. For the most part, they are elected in one fashion or another. The congress members and governors were elected by the people in their states. Most of the DNC members are elected by their parties. Others are elected by organizations, such as the Democratic Secretaries of State. A few were appointed by Governor Dean.

I worked my tail off in the 2002 and 2004 campaigns. That's how I got on the DNC....it certainly wasn't decided in a smoke-filled room. The people who elected me to the DNC were elected to the state party from their county parties. Our county parties contain the most progressive activists in our state, and it's those folks who elect the DNC members.

While campaigns do call us with requests for endorsement, nobody has tried to twist my arm or offer me an ambassadorship to New Zealand. Nobody has been anything but polite. I have received no calls from any dark, shadowy bodies informing me that they've chosen the candidate. It's all quite above board.

Some of you have said that a superdelegate vote counts more than yours. Again, not defending the status quo, it is true that the superdelegates could make a difference if they vote in a monolithic bloc. I don't know the congresspeople real well, but I do know that DNC members have a widely varied set of backgrounds, allegiances, and preferences. I expect their votes will be as varied.

Oh, I guess I should mention that the chairs and vice-chairs of the state parties are automatic DNC members as well. They are elected by the same state party folks that elect the DNC members.

Now, I come from Oregon, which I think has one of the cleaner political systems in the country. I have heard of cases in other states where governors and congresspeople can and do affect who is elected to lead the state party or to be on the DNC. All I can say is that it doesn't happen in Oregon.

I consider Jenny a friend as well as a colleague.  She is exactly as she has represented herself to you.  You are well served by someone who has gone way beyond even exraordinary expectations of a Democrat, that is why she is a super-delegate.