The Democratic Party is continuing
to at least make token reforms after its 2016 Hillary Clinton debacle. The
Democratic National Committee decided over the weekend that the party would jettison
its longtime system of superdelegate votes in primaries.
In the Democratic primary, 712 superdelegates to the
convention are free to vote for whichever candidate they want, regardless of how
their state votes. The superdelegates, who are typically members
of the party establishment, make up about 15 percent of delegates to the
Democratic convention and could swing a close primary.
Last Saturday, the DNC
voted to eliminate the role of superdelegates in the first round of balloting
at the convention. If no candidate is selected on the first ballot, then
superdelegates would be allowed to vote on subsequent ballots.
The change was pushed through on a voice vote by DNC Chairman
Tom Perez. The measure was largely popular with DNC members, but a vocal minority
argued that it would disenfranchise party elites.
The Democrats have used superdelegates since the early 1980s
as a way to balance the party’s populist and establishment sides. Prior to
1970, party bosses picked the party nominee. In
These Times noted that Hubert Humphrey won that year despite not competing
in a single primary. This outraged supporters of the antiwar Eugene McCarthy
and threatened to split the party. The solution was to rewrite party rules in
favor of primary elections.
After George McGovern and Jimmy Carter lost two of the next
three elections in landslides, Democrats went back to the drawing board. The
creation of superdelegates, which were first used in 1984, was intended to
temper the Democratic voters’ preferences for radicals and unknowns by giving some
control back to party elites.
Fast forward to 2016 when more
than 92 percent of superdelegates supported Hillary Clinton over the populist
sensation, Bernie Sanders. The superdelegate system performed exactly as
intended in preventing a grassroots insurgent
from defeating an establishment favorite, but the contest left the party
divided. Contrary to popular belief, Clinton
would have won even without the superdelegates, but the one-sided nature of the battle for the superdelegates made the system
seem, well, undemocratic. There is also the deep-seated belief among many
Democrats that Bernie Sanders, who did not carry Hillary Clinton’s massive
amounts of baggage, could have beaten
Donald Trump.
Sanders expressed approval
for the change in a statement quoted in The
Hill. “Today's decision by the DNC is an important step forward in making
the Democratic Party more open, democratic and responsive to the input of
ordinary Americans,” Sanders said.
That could be translated to
mean that the change could help Democrats nominate an even more transparently
radical leftist. The party has become more radical and accepting of socialists
since 2016 so the new rules could lead to the nomination of the most radically
left candidate that American politics has ever seen in a mainstream party.
Before Republicans prematurely
celebrate the nomination of an “unelectable” candidate, they should remember that
the last two presidents were both considered unelectable until they were, in
fact, elected. The American electorate has whipsawed between extremes in past
elections and, given Donald Trump’s persistent unpopularity, it is within the
realm of possibility that, if the Democrats nominated a socialist like Bernie
Sanders, America
could elect its first socialist president.
For better or worse, the change
remakes the political landscape for the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. The
election of 2020 is shaping up to be an interesting one to watch, even if the
candidates may be the most unpopular and uninspiring nominees since… 2016.
Originally published on The
Resurgent
