Democratic Party Eliminating Role Of Superdelegates

Dems Move To Sack Superdelegates


Democrats are moving to eliminate from the party's national convention the Superdelegates, the elected officials and party leaders whose role in the presidential nominating process came under intense scrutiny in last year’s closely-contested primary.

Those Superdelegates provided, for a time, a lifeline to then-Sen. Hillary Clinton's flagging campaign, and the effective end of their independent role would be a major step toward reshaping the Democratic Party — and its internal politics — in President Barack Obama's image.

A group created by the Democratic National Committee to examine the role of the superdelegates, the Democratic Change Commission — steered by the Obama campaign's top delegate counter, Jeff Berman — held a conference call Wednesday to recommend that these unpledged delegates cast their votes based upon the electoral results of their states rather than on personal preference.

The recommendations of the commission, co-chaired by House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, will now go before the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee.

While the elimination of Superdelegates isn’t likely to have any impact in 2012, when the party is all but certain to renominate President Obama, commission members say it will help democratize future presidential primaries.

"I think the goal here was to get away from what felt like almost a disenfranchisement at some point in time to the voters and to the caucus members in the various states,” McCaskill said.

The move follows an epic 2008 Democratic primary process in which all 50 states and the territories cast votes in a race that was effectively deadlocked between Obama and Clinton. For a time, there was grave worry among some in the party that the superdelegates, who were not bound by their states’ votes, could decide the nomination in favor of a candidate who received fewer elected delegates from primary voters and caucus-goers.



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Sources: Politico, MSNBC, Donkey Dish, About.com, Youtube, Google Maps