Tags for This Article:

Delegates (226)  Colorado (215)  Undemocratic (75)  Superdelegate (71)  Local Politics (23) 

Populum Tag Cloud
       Control Panel
Fine tune your search to access content
Articles
Diaries Products
Events All
All time
Last 6 mos
Last month
Last week
Last 24 hrs
From:
Month  Day   Year

To:
Month  Day   Year
Alphabet
Popularity
Count ON
Count OFF
This Level
Sub-levels

 

 

 

Tag(s): ; ; ; ;
Add to My Group
February 10, 2008 at 13:23:24

Local Pressure Builds On Superdelegates

by David Sirota     Page 1 of 2 page(s)

www.opednews.com

 
Tell A Friend

View Ratings | Rate It  

Please check out this local TV story that led the news last night here in Colorado - a local news story that is likely coming to your state as the Democratic National Convention approaches:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjwLfxgoe64



What we have on our hands is a potential back room effort to use undemocratic "superdelegates" to anoint a Democratic presidential nominee - with many superdelegates potentially using their power in defiance of how their states and communities voted.

As a good example of what I'm talking about, consider what's going on here in Colorado. On February 5th, voters overwhelmingly voted for Barack Obama in the caucuses. However, as Channel 2 News reports in the story attached at bottom, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) has already endorsed Hillary Clinton and is refusing to say whether she will cast her superdelegate convention vote with Colorado voters, or for Hillary Clinton. DeGette refused to comment for Channel 2's story.

The question is whether politicians and party officials with superdelegate votes will be loyal to a fellow politician or loyal to small-d democracy. The history of the superdelegates, which I trace in my upcoming book The Uprising, is one that designed the superdelegates to thwart democracy. In order to stop that this year, I have previously written that we need to start pressuring superdelegates to do what the Maine Democratic Party chairman did: pledge their superdelegate vote to whomever their voters support in primaries and caucuses.

This story about superdelegates led the Channel 2 news tonight. I was interviewed echoing what I have written before: namely, that the only way for "superdelegates" to really respect democracy is for them to follow the lead of the Maine Democratic Party chairman and simply vote the way their states' voters voted. You can bet this kind of story will be reported throughout the country - with the same kinds of issues popping up lots of places.

http://cw2.trb.com/news/kwgn-delegates-caucuses-democrats,0,5691695.story

DeGette could be caught in cross-hairs of superdelegate scenario

Some Dems wonder if Clinton-backer will be loyal to politics or principle

By Eli Stokols, News2

February 9, 2008

DENVER (KWGN) — Much has been made of the record turnout of Democratic voters in the presidential primaries and caucuses that have been held thus far. And many of those voters are growing increasingly concerned about a scenario in which their votes don't really matter.

"It really takes the power back out of our hands," said Margit Henderson, who was a precinct captain for Barack Obama on Super Tuesday and is now focusing on the superdelegates, the party elites who account for 20 percent of the total delegates available and, as a whole, 40 percent of the total needed to secure the party's nomination.

"The electoral participation is amazing," Henderson said. "And to have elected officials moving in a direction that isn't consistent with their constituents is disconcerting."

As both Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, separated by fewer than 100 delegates, begin to lobby superdelegates for their support, Henderson, and many other Colorado Democrats, are intensely focused on one superdelagate in particular: Rep. Diana DeGette.

"She's endorsed Hillary Clinton and her state went overwhelmingly for Barack Obama," said David Sirota, a Denver-based columnist and author. "I think that puts her, and people like her, in a very difficult position."

 1  |  2

 


David Sirota is a full-time political journalist, best-selling author and
nationally syndicated newspaper columnist living in Denver, Colorado. He blogs for Working Assets and the Denver Post's PoliticsWest website. He is a Senior Editor at In These Times magazine, which in 2006 received the Utne Independent Press Award for political coverage. His 2006 book, Hostile Takeover, was a New York Times bestseller, and is now out in paperback. He has been a guest on, among others, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and NPR. His writing, which draws on his extensive experience as a progressive political strategist, has appeared in, among others, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Baltimore Sun, the Nation magazine, the Washington Monthly and the American Prospect. Sirota was a twice-a-week guest on the Al Franken Show. He currently serves in a volunteer capacity as the co-chairperson of the Progressive States Network - a 501c3 nonpartisan organization.

In the years before becoming a full-time writer, Sirota worked as the press secretary for Vermont Independent Congressman Bernard Sanders, the chief spokesman for Democrats on the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, the Director of Strategic Communications for the Center for American Progress, a campaign consultant for Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and a media strategist for Connecticut Senate candidate Ned Lamont. He also previously contributed writing to the website of the California Democratic Party. For more on Sirota, see these profiles of him in Newsweek or the Rocky Mountain News. Feel free to email him at lists [at] davidsirota.com Note: this online publication represents Sirota's personal views, and not the official views of the organizations he works with.


 

Bookmark this page: (what's this?)

NETSCAPE      DIGG THIS      Add This Page to Mr Wong!           NEWSVINE      DEl.ICIO.US      Looksmart Furl      My Web      Tag!RawSugar      Blink List     (More...)
Comments: Expand   Shrink   Hide  
No comments

 

Tell A Friend

 


Copyright © OpEdNews, 2002-2008

Blog Ads

 

 

 

 

Most Popular Articles
in the Last 2 Days
(by Recommend Emails)

NEW IDEAS ON RESTORING U. S. ECONOMY, for the Next Secretary of Commerce, William Blaine Richardson III by Stephen Fox

End of the Road to Moronity by Rand Clifford

Saving the Big 3 for You and Me ...a message from Michael Moore by Michael Moore

THE LEGACY; Dubya's Musings in the Halls of Never-Never Land by Braun McAsh

Credit Card Crisis Is Here / Derivatives Next by Allen L Roland

Obama: Join the Conversation by Richmond Shreve

How to end our addiction to Mideast oil, save the Big Three in Detroit and the economy too by Richard Clark

Vampires in America by Rob Kall

A Tale of Two Terror Attacks by Dave Lindorff

SO SAY THE BANKERS: Learn to Love the 'AMERO' by Patrick Henningsen

Go To Top 50 Most Popular