So much has been made of the “independence” of the so-called Superdelegates to the Democratic National Convention — particularly by Sen. Hillary Clinton and her supporters, who have continued to insist that the number of Pledge Delegates garnered by any candidate is irrelevant…it is who the Superdelegates think is the most viable candidate that should be given the Democratic Nomination.
But ABC News Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper made an interesting observation on his blog Political Punch the other day. He noted that months ago, when it looked at though Sen. Clinton was going to “wrap it all up” on Super Tuesday (the Clinton campaign wildly underestimated Barack Obama’s strength with that assessment) — many top Democrats, including several highly visible Clinton supporters — said that the number of Pledged Delegates won by any particular candidate actually should be the deciding factor in who gets the nomination.

It is true that, technically, Superdelegates can vote for whomever they choose, and pay no attention at all to how the primary elections and caucuses turned out, but these Clinton supporters — when they felt absolutely sure that Hillary Clinton was going to win the majority of those delegates — were very clear in their opinion about this.
ABC Correspondent Tapper quotes Clinton-backing Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash, who told the Columbian newspaper, “‘I definitely don’t want the superdelegates to be the deciding factor…If we have a candidate who has the most delegates and the most states,’ the Democratic party should come together around that candidate, Cantwell said. The pledged delegate count will be the most important factor, she said, because that is the basis of the nominating process.”
Tapper then points to comments from Clinton-backing Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-NY in February at a New York State Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators conference. Said Rangel: “It’s the people [who are] going to govern who selects our next candidate and not super-delegates. The people’s will is what’s going to prevail at the convention and not people who decide what the people’s will is.”
Mr. Tapper’s blog is filled is more and more comments from highly placed Democrats, many of them Clinton supporters, backing up and emphasizing the exact same points as the two above. You may want to check out Jake Tapper’s blog for May 20 (or any day, for that matter — it is one of the most interesting political blogs that I have found anywhere on the Internet).Just go to…
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/
…and scroll down to the May 20 weblog.
Now that Barack Obama has a majority of the Pledged Delegates, the “rules of the game” are supposed to be changed, according to Clinton supporters and campaign staffers. This is exactly what is going on with the Florida and Michigan debacle. Sen. Clinton absolutely, positively agreed that the primaries held in those two states against party rules would not count — that the votes would not count. She joined Barack Obama in refusing to campaign in either state and said out loud, “Those votes won’t count.”
Obama even declined to have his name on the Michigan ballot, in order to honor the ruling of the National Party that the state was out of bounds and had broken the rules by scheduling its primary when it did. Now — as usual when there’s no other way for her desperate candidacy to succeed — Sen. Clinton and her supporters want the “rules of the game” changed again. She wants to claim victory in those two states, and claim that because of it she has garnered more popular votes nationwide than Obama.
Could Obama had won more votes in Florida if he had campaigned there against a far-better-known Hillary Clinton? Would more of his supporters have come out if Hillary and Barack not both said that the votes won’t count? Is a win in a state where Obama’s name was not even on the ballot a legitimate “win” for Clinton? The New York senator’s campaign does not want to answer these questions. They don’t care. Forget about fairness. Forget about logic. It’s about winning, stupid.
At any cost.
I think the Superdelegates should heed the words of CNN contributor Paul Begala, an avowed and openly enthusiastic Clinton supporter, who Tapper in his May 20th blog quoted as saying in January: “These superdelegates are super-ratifiers. That’s all they’re going to be, that’s all they should be, by the way, because I think they are an abomination against democracy. Because most of them are either elected officials like Congressman Bacerra or they’re, you know, party leaders. They ought to respect the will of the people, because otherwise what do you do?”
Boy, I bet all those Clinton supporters hate it when their own words are read back to them. Hmmmm…
The New Spirituality is about fairness in politics, not victory-at-any-price politics. I hope we can see at least a little of that in the rest of this election season. Like, for instance, people not trying to change the rules of the game after it looks like they’ve lost under the original rules.
Hmmm…think that’s too much to ask…?
And now, hats off to Dara, a contributor to the Comments Section below, who wote…

“Instead of disenfranchising the Michigan and Florida voters by not counting their votes–split them between the two candidates. Each gets half. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it. The voters should not be penalized because of decisions that were made on their behalf. If they had chosen by referendum it would be different. Their votes should be recognized.”

Yes, yes…now some common sense.
And as to the comment below about not arguing with life…who’s arguing? We’re discussing this here… ;o)
(And we’ll have more on all this tomorrow, when we learn what Hillary Clinton herself said about this, and what her own campaign chairman and campaign manager had to say….but not this week or last…rather, we’ll see what they were saying several months ago (when they thought their candidate was a shoo-in). Ah, yes, it will be interesting to read their own words, once again these many weeks later. Tune in tomorrow here…)

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