Many first-time voters are coming out in record numbers in the Democratic primary to support one of two exciting candidates, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
The supreme irony in this watershed election year is that the closeness of the race may set the stage for the will of the rank and file to be ignored at the Democratic National Convention in August.
The inevitable slim margin of victory for either candidate means neither will have the requisite number of popular votes to secure the nomination without tabulating the votes of so-called superdelegates who are neither super nor true delegates.
Superdelegates are political insiders such as party chairmen, labor leaders and retired politicians who are not elected in primaries or caucuses but selected under arcane party rules because of their standing with the old guard. They comprise approximately 810 of the 4,049 delegates at the Democratic convention.
The raison d’etre for their existence is to ensure that the party establishment can kill the nomination of any “outsider” since superdelegates do not have to follow the choice of the voters. A secondary purpose is to provide unity at the convention.
As expected, both the Clinton and Obama camps are exerting tremendous pressure on the superdelegates to commit to their candidate prior to the voters having their say in the remaining Democratic primaries and caucuses.
In a New York Times op-ed, Tad Devine, chief political consultant to Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign, rightly implores the superdelegates to “resist the impulse and pressure to decide the nomination before the voters have their say.”
Clinton has a huge advantage in reining in the still great number of superdelegates because of the huge political capital accumulated during and after the Bill Clinton White House years.
And the superdelegates who remain uncommitted are being contacted with increased frequency by Clinton and Obama supporters as the march to the Denver convention draws closer.
If the superdelegates do not do the right thing and reflect the choice of the voters, whoever the Democratic candidate for president is could be guaranteed a pyrrhic victory come the general election by heading a bitterly fractured party, especially if women or African- Americans feel alienated by the dashing of their emerging hopes that a new day is dawning in America.
I cannot imagine a more undemocratic process at the Democratic convention than the selection of a candidate who does not reflect the will of the people but comes out of the machinations of tribal leaders in a “smoke-filled room.”
As a lifelong Democrat, this would surprise but not shock me, since I am used to my party snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Ross T. Runfola is an attorney, writer and professor at Medaille College.