FORGET WHAT YOU READ, SUPER-DELEGATES WILL DECIDE THE NOMINEE

Every day we hear either a Democratic official or a super-delegate crying that “the super-delegates should not decide who the nominee is.”

This rhetoric is simply a way for certain party officials (e.g., Pelosi) and nervous super-delegates to avoid taking responsibility for the inevitable: The Democratic Party rules require that if no candidate has enough pledged delegates to cinch it, the supers must.

Make no mistake, whether the supers are voting their best independent judgment or announce in advance that they are going to adhere to some arbitrary formula—such as a bare majority in pledged delegates, the most popular votes, the most states won, or the candidate that carried their state primary or their district in the primary election—they are still deciding who the nominee will be.

The fact that there are so many arbitrary ways to assess the so called “will of the people” that Nancy Pelosi (and others) are so anxious to not “overturn” points out the specious nature of any arbitrary formula as (lets face it) an excuse they hope will avoid pissing off 50% of the Democratic electorate.

Perhaps the most accurate way to gauge the “will of the people” is to count the popular vote. But what about the fact that the so called caucus states did not hold a popular vote at all, but instead had a relative handful in each precinct talk it over some and then decide together who would get the nod? And what about Michigan and Florida—what about the will of the voters there? Think Florida should not count because voters there violated the party rules? Think again, because the Republican controlled Florida legislature and its Republican governor made that decision—not Floridians who are registered Democrats.

And what of the “will” of the voters from, say, California, where Senator Clinton won the popular vote—carrying the state by 10 points?

Moreover, what if Hillary Clinton leads Obama by substantial margins in the national polls by convention day? “What is the “will of the people” at that point?

Now consider this: The only reason that Hillary Clinton is not the presumptive nominee today is that the DNC adopted a complex, Byzantine, system of awarding each candidate a percentage of each state's delegates—not by popular vote mind you but according to a highly complex formula in each state. On the other hand, if each state’s delegates were awarded on a “winner take all” basis as the Republicans do, as the Democrats did in the past, and as how electoral votes are awarded in the general election—Clinton would enjoy a commanding lead in the delegate count.

Make no mistake, the DNC rules require the supers to decide the outcome under the circumstances we now find ourselves in. And the “will of the people” cannot be precisely ascertained, and is not why the DNC enacted the rule in the first place.

If the intent was to simply rubber stamp the nominee based on which candidate held a bare majority of pledged delegates or in the popular vote then the rule would say that but does not.

Rather, the intent behind the rule is that the super-delegates must exercise their independent judgment as to which candidate best represents the values of the party and is the more electable in the general election. Indeed, we are in this position precisely because the "people" failed to select a nominee by the required 2008 delegates under the convoluted and arcane party rules under which those delegates were allocated. There has been no nominee selected, by the "will of the people" or otherwise, to "overturn".

The super-delegates should step up to the plate and perform their responsibility under the DNC rules, and not cop out with excuses like "we cannot overturn the will of the people” (whatever that means). If the relevant committee meetings and delegate votes are completely transparent (i.e. televised) that will avoid any taint the process might otherwise have as a ‘backroom deal”.

Moreover, if the Democratic nominee is decided in a cliffhanger at a televised convention that will be the most watched TV show in the history in the United States. What a promotional opportunity for the party!

We see no downside here.