BlackPerspective.net
Discussing the Diaspora as seen through an internal Black lens
Democratic Party Machine Poised To Steal Primary Election
February 12th, 2008
If you’ve been following the news for the last week, by now you should know about “superdelegates”. I first wrote about them back in early January after the New Hampshire primary, and how in that case they gave Obama an actual win when he and Clinton tied in voter delegates.
But let’s recap so that everyone understands what we’re talking about. Determining the party’s nominee is not decided by the overall popular vote from the primaries. State by state delegates are assigned to each candidate depending on percentage of votes, and this is decided based on congressional district for the democrats as far as I understand it.
To become the Democratic nominee you have to win 2025 delegates. But, on top of the delegates that are earned from voting in the primaries and caucuses, there is this group of people called super delegates. Super delegates are simply individuals who are party officials who are handed a delegate that is equal to the delegates earned in the voting. These folks include Congressmen, ex-presidents, some governors and mayors, and simple state party officials.
For example, in New Hampshire, 8 out of the 30 delegates were super delegates. That means 8 individual people made up 26% of the total vote by themselves. That’s right, it’s rigged.
Right now Hillary Clinton has a total delegate count of 1,148, with Obama closing fast, up to 1,121 after sweeping 4 primaries and caucuses this weekend. Clinton receives 924 from primary and caucus votes or what are called “pledged delegates”, and the other 224 are from super delegates. Obama takes 986 of his votes from pledged delegates and 135 from super delegates. So Barack Obama has to date actually won the voting and earned more delegates from the voters; yet, Hillary Clinton is in the lead!
THEY’RE STEALING THE ELECTION Y’ALL, PLAIN AND SIMPLE.
Hillary is receiving support from 63 percent of the super delegates to Barack’s 37 percent. That’s an almost 2 to 1 split. If you take away the super delegates Barack would lead by 62 delegates, but because of the entrenched party machine folks favoring Hillary, she instead leads by 27. That’s an almost 90 point turn around.
It’s really simple here. Hillary Clinton is the entrenched party candidate. She’s worked for the democratic Congress and the Democratic National Committee since the 1970s; her husband was head of the Democratic Leadership Council; then they were in the white house for 8 years; now she’s been a Senator for 8 years.
The whole apparatus of the Democratic Party has loyalties to them. The Clintions ahve raised money for these folks to win, campaigned for them successfully; made back room deals with them for years, even decades. And the Clinton business interest can be a luring attraction to these folks who want to make big money on the side. Plus the Clintons are known for selling ambassadorships, cabinet positions, and even the Lincoln bedroom in the White House to their allies and friends. And these slick ass politicians who are the super delegates, these party bosses want part of that action.
The political bosses have the fix in. This is how it’s going to go. Obama is going to win the majority of delegates tonight, and may even sweep like he did this weekend, catapulting him further ahead in the pledged delegate count of the voters. Obama will win the voter delegates and be right on the cusp of the nomination; except, the party bosses will support Hillary, putting her over the top. The Democratic political machine will hand the election to Clinton in defiance of the voters and will of the party rank and file. They will steal this election from the voters the same way these same people complain about republicans stealing elections.
And if some how that doesn’t quite work, the folks that run the party will then seat the Florida and Michigan delegates that Clinton won overwhelming because Obama didn’t campaign there as agreed, due to those two states violating the Democratic National Committee rules on when they hold their primaries. That will give Clinton a net gain to put her over the top if it is close.
Either way, the Democratic Party Machine has politricks to make sure their patron gets elected.
The voters of the democratic primary and party members must demand that super delegates suspend their role, and not cast votes at the convention; letting the will of the people stand. For the voters to vote one way, then to have the party machine come behind them and hand the nomination to someone else is undemocratic. The people should not stand for this. Call the DNC and call on the Super Delegates to pledge to refrain from stealing this election!
If you still need help understanding the whole delegate thing, CNN has a graphic and more explanation.
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11 Responses to “Democratic Party Machine Poised To Steal Primary Election”
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Yobachi Boswell is creator and publisher of BlackPerspecitve.net. I’m a writer, activist and political watcher based in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve also been know to do some spoken word and MCing in my day.
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You are correct about the process of using the Super Delegates. This is all a part of this corrupt political structure. If we are not careful, there will be another Republican in office. Since the people are lending their voices to the voting process, they must demand that they coninue to be heard until the candidate of their choice is in the White House. Most of us who are watching these primary results already know that the Republicans want Hillary to win the Democratic nomination, because they are positive their candidate can beat Hillary. Once again, the American voter gets caught up in this corrupt political machine, when all that he/she is trying to do is exercise his/her right to vote as a U.S. citizen.
People for the most part want to do better in this country. With the mortgage crisis, health care costs, substandard educational systems, lack of employment, the Iraqi war which is draining this country’s economy, we cannot afford for these politicians to continue playing games with our lives. You better believe, this is a game to them, and the sad thing is that they are not recognizing that the American people no longer want to play, nor does this political machine care.
Most of these Super Delegates are our elected or formally elected officials and they should be representative of the people they supposdly serve. I think what needs to be done at this point is warn the American people, and each state’s constituents should voice their concern about the Super Delegates being the decidng factor in this Presidential race. This is too important for us to ignore now. I had no idea that Hillary had such a large percentage of the Super Delegates. I, for one would like my vote to count for something.
Barbara, I hope you’ll contact the delegates from your state, and the DNC as well about this. It’ll take each of us to raise our voice and let them no that the back room dealing will not be accepted.
Excellent analysis. Thank you for sharing this information. Personally, I’m looking to Barack Obama to simply bring on board enough pledged delegates to overcome any entrenched Clinton support from super delegates. To do so, he needs to win Ohio or Texas…
peace, Villager
Well Villager, get out there in the streets and hustle us up some Buckeye votes, lol.
Hey, if he keeps winning like this weekend and can pick up more and more momentum, it’s possible.
But it’s unlikely even if he wins large states that he’ll have a big enough delegate margin, because delegates are partioned out proportionately. He could win Ohio by so many thousands of votes and still only get 4 or 5 more delegates out of that than Clinton. Winning a few more delegates per state is probably not going to get him over her 89 super delegate lead. There will have to be overwhelming victories.
You know what Villager, I looked at it again; if he wins like he’s winning in the small states, a big victory in a large state or two may well over come the Super delegates.
Down with the party machine!
This is the illusion of democracy and the superdelegates could cause an implosion of the Democratic Party. Based on CNN’s analysis of the potential delegate count, neither Obama or linton will realize the 2,025 votes needed to secure the nomination before the Democratic Convention in Denver. The Democratic nominee will be determined by the superdelegates.
Yeah, and if they choose wrong they’re going to disaffect many of their own voters. The last two times they did this, they lost big in the general election.
For the 3rd presidential election in a row, the Democrats might find away to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.
I agree with this process that says they will steal the election and hand it to Clinton.One of the reasons that this will happen is that she has a lot of connections out there that go back to the years in the White House as well as her career in the Senate not to mention Bill’s connections and his need to make up for his affair.Another thing,I imagine Democratic Party officials are saying that if they do in fact do this,what are blacks going to do?…..vote for McCain??? So,they still get our vote int he general election!!!!
Which is why Black America needs to stop whoring itself to the Democratic party: www.blackperspective.net/index.php/black-america-goes-independent/
and check
www.blackperspective.net/index.php/if-hillary-wins-the-nomination-blacks-must-send-a-decisive-message/
It’s all so convoluted… it’s like the whole process was designed to go over the head of the common man. If you don’t educate yourself, it would be so easy to get lost.
It is like an illusion of democracy… every illusion it seems to be like this. People are edged out of getting their real vote because of loop holes and political preferences (superdelegates, electoral college)
Thanks for this post, Yobachi!
Your welcome Tayo.
And yes, there are a lot of illusion of democracy going on in America, and not much of the real thing.
I think the Dems are just more interested in having the primaries for the purpose of marketing their eventual nominee; but not for necessisarily letting the people choose him/her.