Okay. I admit it. In this one instance, the Republicans got something right that the Democrats fucked up.
I refer, of course, to the Democratic institution of "superdelegates." You can read all about it here in Wikipedia, but basically superdelegates were a mechanism to maintain the power of the party leadership. Period. These Democratic leaders decided they didn't like, you know, democracy. So, being all-wise, they decided that their vote should count more than the Democratic electorate. You know...all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. That kind of thing. Orwell would be proud.
There are many ironies here. The first and most obvious is that the Democratic party is un-democratic. The second is that the rules were changed in response to the results of the 1980 election. In the 1984 election, the sage leaders of the party overrode the popular vote to nominate...Walter Mondale. Who, as we all know, went on to great fame and fortune having soundly defeated the re-election attempt of Ronald Reagan.
.....
Right.
And now, it's looking like there's a strong possibility that superdelegate support for Hillary Clinton is going to override popular support for Barack Obama. Yet again, the superdelegate system is going to prop up the entrenched aristocracy of the Democratic party in the form of Clinton party loyalists. The same people, let's remember, who managed to cede Congressional control to the Republicans in 1994 and orchestrate spectacular losses to George W. Bush. Twice.
Allow me to reiterate that because it's important: They lost to the dumbest and most corrupt Republican figure in modern history. Twice.
It was only when Howard Dean took over party leadership that they managed to barely scrape together a majority (with no small amount of help from spectacular Republican implosions).
Now, that system has worked so well that they're going to wave their hands dismissively at the first Democratic figure in my lifetime who has traditionally Republican voters considering supporting him in favor of the one figure in America whose name alone can reliably raise the blood pressure of half the country by at least 30 points.
God, the ineptitude of the modern Democratic party is staggering...
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Yup. Pretty much all there. Again, it would be more amusing if this wasn't the first time I actually cared what the Democratic Party did.
Of course, members of the Republican fringe are doing a painful imitation of the Democrats, flexing their very active vocal cords to oppose not only the presumptive nominee but their only candidate drawing crossover voters (in favor of "none of the above", btw---at least the Democrats can put a name and face to their chosen loser).
Luckily for the Republicans though, party leaders are signing on and the dissent is (so far) staying on the fringe. In the meantime, the Democrats are happily providing air cover with their drama, giving the Republicans plenty of time to circle up.
Bravo.
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