Jenny, your contribution is appreciated. However, the negative campaigning is coming from one side, the Clinton campaign. I don't believe the DNC is being blamed for this. I believe it is the Dem. office holders and party who have tried to rig this nomination process for the Clintons, and intend to still do so. The dynamic that I see is that the Clintons see the party and the presidency as their private property and the party machinery and personnel are willing to tilt the process to ensure that happens. Sadly it looks to me as though the train wreck is coming in slow motion and no party leadership is willing to suggest that the progressive values of the party are not necessarily linked to the personal ambitions of the Clinton Dynasty. Since that is the case it it time for those who hold progressive values to begin thinking about taking their loyalties and their resources elsewhere.

I've heard the DNC and state parties blamed for so much of the primary mess this year. It's not the DNC's fault, it's not completely the state parties' fault, it's not completely the states' fault. It's the process, stupid! This hacked way of conducting the nominating process makes it difficult for the parties or the states to get what they want in the end.

Also, come on, Bill. You can't think of one aspect of negative campaigning coming from the Obama folks? Not one? I'd be happy to help.

The DNC can be blamed for two things:

1. The Nominating Process. It is designed so that superdelegates will make the ultimate decision in a closely fought race or a three-way race. I can understand why party leaders in 1982 might have thought it was a good idea to keep the radicals from taking over, but I find it inexcusable that no one in the last 26 years said "Hey, if we ever really had a close race that was decided by superdelegates, would it bring into question the legitimacy of the nomination?" Obvious answer: Yes.

2. Florida and Michigan. When the DNC made the decision to strip those two states of their delegates, many people immediately questioned whether that was realistic. The party cannot afford to alienate millions of voters in two large states, and in this particular game of chicken, the DNC lost. The reason the DNC refused to seat those delegates was to pander to Iowa and NH, and in retrospect one has to question whether that was worth it. As you say, the DNC cannot control what a state ultimately does, so maybe you shouldn't even try.

OK, I'm 'fessing up. A significant part of the fault is mine. Thirty-six years ago I was one of a group of remarkable young people (present company excepted) who volunteered in a boiler room operation for Common Cause - working under the direction of the semi-legendary David Cohen and a younger but no less curmudgeonly Fred Wertheimer.

Our primary project was to force the Democratic Party, at its Miami convention, to adopt rules reforming how delegates were chosen... including proportional delegate selection, inclusion of representative numbers of women and minorities, and drastic changes in campaign funding, among other things.

When McGovern offered to flush the reforms in order to win the backing of the big unions, the six of us who had primary responsibility for geographic areas of the country were taken to perimeter of the convention floor where we displayed our silly little shoe boxes of 3x5 cards with the names and leanings of every delegate at the convention. Faced with a floor fight, McGovern caved and the reforms went through.

Over the past three+ decades, the party establishment has increasingly undercut the power of those delegates selected and the effects of those reforms (not always without cause). Essentially, they have added one corner after another to the wheels on the wagon that's supposed to carry the party through the 21st century.

At this point, I think the party needs to go back and re-think the whole damned thing. It would be a joy to see the convention, on the 40th anniversary of our reforms, fix what our unforeseen consequences were.

By the way, I believe that one of our reforms also resulted directly in the invention of PACs... mea culpa, mia maxima culpa.

I have two observations:

1.) The DNC did not decide to strip Michigan and Florida of their delegates. Michigan and Florida decided to move their primaries even though the DNC rules clearly stated that any states that did so would have their delegates stripped.

2.) The DNC is not an unaccountable cabal. It is a representative democracy. Individual Democrats elect people who elect people who elect people who vote on DNC rules. And that's a pretty good way to manage an organization of 72,000,000 people.

Kari, I agree with you about FL and MI. To seat the two delegations as they stand would be less legitimate than allowing the Super Delegates to decide the nomination (at least the Super Delegates were known to be part of the rules going into the election). However, I think Miles may have a point about the DNC not handling the situation very well. In retrospect, the Republican's plan of taking only half the delegates, and not preventing candidates from campaign, would have saved us a lot of headaches.

Having a democratic nomination process that is worthy of the name is a good goal. I support that but it doesn't address the current problem. The rules that were set up before this primary were agreed to by the campaigns. So it's wrong for anyone to blame the DNC at this juncture. The dynamic we are seeing is that one campaign has been losing by these rules and wants to change them in order change the outcome. Hillary Clinton signed off on the Michigan and Florida dilemma and their exclusion from the contest if they proceeded in moving up their primaries. Now they want to pillory Howard Dean for standing in their way of changing the rules. Before they were saying small don't matter, then caucus states don't matter. Now Ed Rendell says delegates don't matter, it's the popular vote, as if there could really be a formula for the popular vote that could weight caucus states.So what the Clintonites are doing now is trying to destroy the legitimacy of the rules for this process so they can change the result. They are losing by the present rules and Obama has an insurmountable lead so they want to change the rules. Is that the DNC's fault? I don't think so.

My problem with the superdeleagtes is threefold.

First, there is a conflict of interest because they essentially appoint themselves. That is, (I think I have this right) the Hunt commission recommended superdelagtes in '82 and the DNC, comprise of the officers who are superfelegeates, decided to make themselves delegates and have continued to so since then. That is like a boss hiring his or her spouse or giving her or himself a raise.

Secondly, I have heard way too much about the superdelagates saving voters from ourselves. To create roughly 800 superdelegates, more than CA and TX combined, takes way too much power from voter elected delegates. In '84, Mondale won 38% of the primary vote, compared to 36% for Hart and 20% for Jackson. Yet, the delegate tally was 55% for Mondale, 31% for Hart, and 10% for Jackson. (Part of the reason that year was because of direct election of delegates on primary ballots which favored Mondale). The Super D's did put Mondale over the top, avoiding a second ballot, but Mondale's final was way different than that of the voters.

I would also add that (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) the superdeleagtes tend to be white boys (and some women) who immediately skew the delegate demographic suggestions (technically, they are not quotas, although they can appear that way). For example, the OR delegation should be 10% Latino, but there are no Latinos (or African Americans or Asians) among the superdelegates, and there is only one woman among the congressional delegation- Darlelne Hooley. That automatically put many non superdelegate delegate candidates at a disadvantage.

First, let me clarify that I don't think the FL and MI delegations should be seated without a fair revote. Them's the rules, and the DNC should stick to them.

But they were bad rules because the DNC did not anticipate the problems. The DNC made a calculated bet that the nomination would be decided without MI and FL, and they figured they could seat them once it became clear who the nominee was. Those who said "But what if. . . ?" were dismissed as Cassandras. It was a short-sighted decision that disenfranchised 5 million Democratic voters.

If the DNC caves now, then they will NEVER be able to create rules that anyone will follow.

But Kari, the states didn't follow these rules either. The DNC created rules that were flaunted, and now they're scrambling to fix the problem. Since the DNC cannot control the states, what about just letting them do what they want? Sure, some primaries will end up in November and December, and Iowa and New Hampshire will make fools of themselves by having Halloween-themed contests, but I see that as better than what we have now, which is an absolute disaster. The current debacle has the potential to swing Florida from Obama to McCain. Justified or not, those Florida Democratic voters are really pissed off.

Somehow a closely reasoned extensive comment disappeared into the ether. Reduces enthusiasm for do-over.

Jenny Greenleaf is not only a colleague, but a friend, and I voted for her on the basis of trusting her to well represent me, my County, and my State at DNC and at DNC to well represent the interests of Democrats nationally. I do NOT retract that trust. I will only counsel Jenny to best represent those interests in her best judgment. I may have a preferred outcome, but that does not trump the fact that I've had our say in her selection.

The point in Super Delegates, well beyond "campaign disasters" is to be tie breakers. A Convention with 100-200 delegate differences and locked in battle would have strange and nasty consequences. Proportional apportionment means that place like 2CD have some say, in other systems we might as well stay home - nationally. Proportional apportionment means that small upstart campaigns can have a chance to get their legs under them. If you claim to be progressive and would like to kill that, I'm not too sure about you. But the drawback is that at some point a Convention is going to be very close. The DNC officials have different dynamics than the elected officials segment of Supers about why something is good, but their end view is still what is good. (ok, sure there will be hacks with favors owed)

If this is seen as an anti-democratic method people are forgetting that they've participated in that selection process or were invited to. Jenny is a direct outcome of County Party activity, you've been pleaded with to come play, some of us did. Gov Kulongoski was elected. I agree that the scheduling is a mess, MI&FL proposed to make it a bigger mess, when you're in a hole you stop digging. Jenny is quite right that it is a daunting prospect to make something rational out of it. Maybe it can't be done until the pain of staying in the mess is greater than that of being reasonable.

It is not fantasy to see a delegate difference at the Convention of a handful, in that case nobody would be satisfied with the win of the other side. A difference of say 5 pledged delegates would amount to 5/4000 which is scarcely a mandate and leads to the same kind of questions raised by FL in 2000 and the same stolen arguments. I'm not stating that it is likely that the Convention will be that close, it is possible.

Show your support for your candidate in the election and meanwhile try to make your arguments meaningful not a matter of convenience.

Jenny,

"Those are great ideas, but I don't have any control over the rest of the "supahs." They all get to make their own decision. Many people have decided to throw their support to a candidate; others of us are hanging back. .............I wasn't around for Mondale, so I have no direct experience. But what I see from your numbers is that the superdelegates united around the leader in a close race and gave that candidate legitimacy. "

You are right about independence, and not exactly right about "superdelegates united around the leader ".

Multiply all the heated rhetoric about Merkley vs. Novick by at least 3--if not squared or cubed--and you will have the intensity of Hart vs. Mondale, esp. in Oregon where Hart won the primary overwhelmingly. It was the large number of delegates Hart earned which made it possible for people like me to be convention delegates that year.

Which is why I know that the Fairness Comm. (which our own DNC member Gerry Cogan was appointed to as the Western member or whatever) was created at the 1984 convention to deal with all the complaints.

Legend/reporting has it that because the needed number of delegates was 1968, and between them Hart and Jackson had about 1600---and concerns from delegate selection rules to Platform concerns, esp. Minority Platform Plank #5--, Gary and Jesse paid a call on Fritz Mondale at his convention hotel just before the convention and said "if you want a peaceful convention, we have to discuss the following beforehand and come to an agreement...".

Also, the Mondale campaign wanted to change DNC chairs just prior to the convention (can you imagine someone trying to replace Dean in July or August?) but the rules required any such change to be confirmed by the DNC at their meeting the day after the convention. Our DNC member Larryanne Willis knew the Mondale people well, but was also a friend of Chair Manatt. She polled her friends on the DNC and discovered the votes weren't there to change chairs, regardless of what the Mondale people were saying. So she then contacted the Mondale campaign with a message like "it wouldn't look good if the DNC turned down your change of Chair after the convention!".

So it happened that the first time Chair Manatt, newly strong as DNC chair because the dustup had hit the press just about the time people were leaving to come to the convention and a lot of them were angry, got a HUGE ovation the first time he appeared before the convention.

Which is why I smile whenever anyone says the 1984 convention was uneventful, and just a confirmation of the primary results. The reporting I saw afterwards was as if some of the reporters hadn't been at the same convention we'd been to. Mondale was lucky that everything fell his way---at a certain point, the convention itself controls the process and if delegates decide to vote a certain way, no one can stop them.

Brava, Jenny!

It is true that the majority of elected officials are white guys. However, when we select the pledged delegates to the convention, we take that into consideration. The party will try to balance out the heavily male-dominated white congressional/gubernatorial representation with delegates who are Asians, Latinos, Blacks, gay, etc. There are very strict goals, and believe me, the Democratic Party of Oregon will do everything it can to make sure they're met. Our Community Involvement Committee, headed by Lew Fredrick, has been working on this for months already.

Unintended consequences notwithstanding, it's worth noting that when we were in Miami back in 1972 (four years after Bobby's murder) we were fighting an entrenched establishment that systematically excluded blacks from representation in the south, Asians in the west, Latinos in the southwest, and women (except in the most token sense) everywhere. Gays? Special needs? Other minorities? It was like being a Republican in 2000 - you might see them on the stage but not where the votes were being counted. That has changed for the better and I'm proud of the party for doing that.

The system the party accepted in '72 did need tinkering and corrections, no doubt, but it has been amended in a patchwork, haphazard manner. What happens during this convention, for good or ill, will have a major impact on the party for the next decade at least.

My point is that as progressives we should begin now to campaign not only for the candidates we individually endorse but also for a logical and comprehensive restructuring of the primary process... almost certainly beginning with, as Jenny suggests, regional primaries rotating either by calendar or by luck of the draw.

I've genuinely enjoyed this thread and I hope it leads to some interest in genuine reform.

Thanks again, Jenny.

Chuck writes: The point of Super Delegates, well beyond "campaign disasters" is to be tie breakers. A Convention with 100-200 delegate differences and locked in battle would have strange and nasty consequences.

Actually, if all of the delegates are pledged there could be no battle, even if it was within a few dozen delegates. In a two-person race, one candidate is guaranteed to get a majority. In a close three-person race, all delegates could be released after the first ballot if no one gets a majority.

The reason superdelegates are seen as potential tiebreakers this year is because the system is designed to make it difficult to win without superdelegates. If my math is right, you have to win over 62% of all pledged delegates to reach the 2,024 threshold without using any superdelegates.

You're right that a win by just a few delegates would not be seen as legitimate, but that can happen in the current system as well. There's no mathematical disadvantage of going to a fully-pledged delegate process. What is does, though, is take away significant power from party leaders. That's what this debate is about: should party leaders have the power to overrule primary/caucus voters, or not? I don't think they should have that power, and I suspect most of my peers agree with me.

Miles, the DNC did not make up the rules on their own -- they did so with the states & the campaigns. should they have foreseen that states might cheat? well, they did -- hence the proviso to strip cheating delegations.

T.A., I'm talking about what happened when FL and MI called the DNC's bluff. The DNC puffed out its chest and said "We really mean it" without thinking through the consequences or realizing their own lack of power over the states. At the time, a number of people wrote about this exact scenario and it was dismissed as "unrealistic."

Let's be frank. The reason these rules exist is to pander to IA and NH and protect their "first in the nation" status. I'm suggesting that it's not worth sacrificing Florida to the Republicans -- which is what we're on the verge of doing -- to protect the egos of Democratic voters in IA and NH. The DNC and the party would have been better off folding to FL and MI up front, before the campaigning really got underway.

Had they caved into Florida and Michigan, you would have seen a whole host of additional states moving up their date.

Yes. And is that so bad? It's certainly better than ceding Florida to McCain, isn't it? A couple of weeks ago polls had Obama losing Florida to McCain, but Clinton beating McCain. Given that was the opposite result of almost everywhere else in the country, one has to chalk it up to Floridians anger at Obama for dissing them. Totally unjustified, sure, but real nontheless.

But if you make rules and then never enforce them, people see no reason to follow your rules.

But they didn't follow the rules, did they? So last fall, what did the DNC's principled stand get us? I'm all about rules, but I'm not willing to sacrifice the White House just to prove a point. The DNC needed to solve this problem when it occurred, not let it fester until now, when it's much harder to solve.

The battle would simply shift to the courts.

Why would the courts be any more involved if all the delegates were pledged? The party would still have its rules committees, and those committee would still seat delegations, make rules, etc. I'm not against party leaders deciding how the party operates. I'm against party leaders having the power to nominate someone other than the candidate who has won the most delegates through a primary/caucus system.

Did you want Hillary to sew up up the nomination right at the start?

Given how this year has turned out, I'm surprised at your willingness to make hypothetical predictions about counter-historical schedules. But even if we accept that having small states go first is optimal, how exactly do you plan to enforce that since the DNC has proven impotent against obstinate states? Are we going to put the party in jeopardy every election just to prove a point?

If we don't have the cards, we should fold instead of bluff. Letting states engage in a calendar scheduling war isn't the end of the world.

Jenny-

Thanks for your response, and I just want to clarify a couple of points.

I realize that DNC members are elected by the state central committees. However, the DNC members in the early '80s decided to make themselves automatic delegates (or superdeleagtes) not obligated to follow primary and caucus results. This continues, thus the DNC members effectively appoint themselves to be delegates. I know you all work hard for the party and I don't have a huge problem with you being automatic delegates, but the potential lack of accountability to voters which we saw in '84 troubles me. I suppose it's true that regular elected delegates can switch their vote (at least in some years it's been true) but nearly all of them keep the faith with the voters and support the candidate whom they pledged to support.

The problem with superdelegates in '84 is that most were pledged to Mondale before any votes had been cast, just like a clear majority of those who endorsed before Iowa were for Hillary. Hart won a huge victory in OR, but I don’t think Congressmen Wyden, Weaver, or AuCoin supported him.

When you say- "The party will try to balance out the heavily male-dominated white congressional/gubernatorial representation "- my problem is that will be at the expense of rank and file white men who are running for delegates, because all of these white male congressmen are already automatic delegates.

Hillary threw the "kitchen sink" at Obama. He didn't respond negatively and was hurt by not doing so in Texas and Oregon; the press questioned that he wasn't enough of a "fighter." Now that he's fighting back, we hear people say that the bickering "on both sides" should stop. B.S.

The Superdelegates need to rally around the guy whose pledged-delegate lead is insurmountable. Otherwise, they might as well as campaign overtly for McCain, because that's who they're electing.

By the way, the job of the Supers SHOULD be to rally around the guy who has the insurmountable lead so that we don't have intra-party bloodshed going on indefinitely. It's NOT to subvert the will of the people, as reflected by pledged delegates. For some reason, however, the Supers don't appear willing to do their job. They continue to sit back, as if on Mt. Olympus and wait ... much like the party establishment has waited to do anything about the Iraq War.

This Party is a complete mess.

Two diferent issues two different solutions needed. 1) What to do this year to avoid the perception of the "evil superdelegates" overturning the "will of the voters"? 2) What kind of nominating process will select a nominee that will be good for the country, good for the party, and win the election?

I. First suggestion - if the super delagates split 50-50 they effectively nulify themselves. Problem is that getting hundreds of "cats" herded in the right direction might be a tad difficult. [Bias disclaimer - yes I know that favors one of the candidates] Second suggestion - significant numbers of superdelegates should refrain from endorsing a candidate until after SD and MT primaries. That is, let every state get the party building bonus this season has been. [Yes, I know it's inevitable, but there is still a chance and hope is a very powerful force] Third suggestion - one thing that superdelagates can do is be the chaperoning "adults" and follow Peter Defasio's example of telling the campaigns to chill it, if things start to get out of hand.

II. First suggestion - give up on "fairness". There must be rules and any set of rules is going to favor some candidates over others. That doesn't mean make rules that are unfair, just don't expect that every candidate will have an equal shot at winning, because life just doesn't work that way (although if we keep winning elections maybe it life will get less unfair).
Second suggestion - transparency is the soul of democracy. If every one knows the rules. Every one can compeate,OR work to change rules that don't work or are unfair.
Third suggestion - think about the objectives: good for the country, good for the party, win election. Test ideas against those objectives. Note that the idea of super Tuesday was targeted at only one of those objectives: decide a nominee fast (and cheap) so that there is longer to prepare for the general election. It remains to be seen, but I suspect that the contested primary will turn out be a fantastic party building program.

Ideas - national primary - not likely to to meet any of the objects completely spread out primaries, i.e. no two states on same date - would allow campaigning in every state, each state would have a chance at media coverage (builds excitment for party), gets candidates known, builds "ground game", etc. front loading delgates, e.g. super Tuesday - early nominee selected (usually), low primary excitement in late states back loading delegates - increased risk of campaigns tearing each other down and weakening chances in GE rotation of order - everyone ( except NH and IA ) probably wants this. The trick is how to set up incentives that states will follow.

And finaly - Thank you Jenny G.

"When you say- "The party will try to balance out the heavily male-dominated white congressional/gubernatorial representation "- my problem is that will be at the expense of rank and file white men who are running for delegates, because all of these white male congressmen are already automatic delegates."

Grant, as I recall, that is only partly right. Suppose there is a cong. district delegate selection convention and in the Obama caucus there are 60 people. As I recall (unless the system has changed) if Joe got 20 votes, Sue got 18 votes and Sam got 17 votes, the first delegate slot would go to Joe, the second to Sue, the third to Sam--and if there were only 2 delegate slots being filled, then Sam would become an alternate. Where it gets tricky is if Sue and Sam each get 17 votes---as the rules are written, the gender of the second delegate needs to be different than the gender of the first delegate---what makes life so interesting for the folks who count the ballots (secret paper ballot, as I recall).

As much as anything, those rules are there to eliminate "vote for me because I am a man/woman".

At this state of the nomination race there has been some self correction in the super-delegate system. The supers have shifted toward Obama, reflecting his winning position. Clinton's lead has now among supers is now down to 37. I am hoping that trend will continue so that the supers are neutralized as a factor in this.

That said, Clinton has made her case now to her supporters that she intends to go to the mat to win this thing through the supers by destroying the legitimacy of the process. Delegates don't matter, caucuses don't matter, only big states and their popular vote matters. This is clearly a smash-face strategy designed for internecine conflict.

Having spit on the rules Fl and MI contests were invalidated and rightfully so. It looks like the campaigns may find a compromise to allow either a do-over or a method of seating delegates. In either case it isn't going to change the outcome. It still comes down to the supers and the party elders and whether they want to commit party suicide.

For the future I am hoping a rational system that has some kind of participatory legitimacy is worked out.

Here's what the Dem. Speaker of the House said today about the nomination process:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/03/pelosis-delegat.html

Key quote: "'If the votes of the superdelegates overturn what's happened in the elections,' said Pelosi, 'it would be harmful to the Democratic Party'...'But what if one candidate has won the popular vote and the other candidate has won the delegates?' asked Stephanopoulos. 'But it's a delegate race,' Pelosi replied. 'The way the system works is that the delegates choose the nominee.'"