Thank you for visiting our website

Featuring breaking political news and commentary on local, state, and national issues.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Should Super Delegates be Allowed to Choose Democratic Nominee?

This is the question asked by our new poll this week on the site.
Super delegates make up 797 of the 4049 delegates up for grabs by the
Democratic Party candidates for President. The nominee must win 2025
of these delegates to receive the nomination.


As we have written and others have reported, the super delegates are
not won by the vote of the people. Rather, they are made up of the
party elite in each state comprised of Governors, congressmen, various
elected officials, party staff and activists. The candidate and
their staff secure their support.

To see a list of the super delegates from your state, click here: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/19/dem.delegates/index.html

Both www.MoveOn.org and www.DemocracyForAmerica.com have begun petition drives opposing the ability of super delegates to negate who the voters choose as their Democratic Party nominee for President.

Here is a story about campaign contributions received by super delegates from both the Clinton and Obama campaigns: http://www.capitaleye.org/inside.asp?ID=336 and another interesting read is " A Super Sized Contoversy" by Joan Walsh in Salon.com http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/?last_story=/opinion/walsh/election_2008/2008/02/18/superdelegates/

We want to know how you feel about this, so make sure you vote in the
poll! The poll closes at 7:00 PM EST Sunday February 24, 2008.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am voting undecided on this issue because a simple expression doesn't solve the matter. The current design of primaries is for voters to select Convention Delegates with a preference for the First Ballot. Until that aspect is changed in a public manner, all the other ringing of hands and gnashing of teeth serve no useful purpose. No doubt there are some voters who think they are choosing presidential candidates because the media lead them in that direction. When I first started voting, the ballots were designed correctly. I am puzzled as to how they became changed.

Anonymous said...

I say leave it alone. Let things work themselves out. Then let the DNC retool things before the next presidential election cycle. There has been just too much media attention given to this topic, way before it really matters.

Fred in MN