The Superdelegate Solution

Hand wringing is rampant. Where did the Democratic Party's super delegates come from? What will they do? What should they do? For all of these questions, some party candidate nomination history is in order. The long view shows a steady march in the direction of democratizing the process. In the earliest days, fledgling political parties used a caucus system which was limited to party adherents in Congress, but it was apparent that those districts held by the opposition party had no voice. Soon, a "mixed caucus" was devised, permitting the inclusion of participants from those districts as well. By the 1820s, the caucus arrangement was discredited and Andy Jackson successfully helped to orchestrate a reform movement which culminated in the convention system--a portion of which still remains at the national level.

It wasn't long before the local, state, and national conventions also succumbed to "smoke-filled, back room" political control during the heyday of machine politics and party bosses. Beginning in 1910, states began to experiment with the use of direct primaries, and again the effort was driven by the desire to make the process more open, more accessible, more democratic. Although primaries became very popular for selecting candidates at the state and local levels, inertia set in with regard to selecting presidential candidates, and caucuses/conventions remained in place in most states. Indeed, in 1968, a tumultuous year in the Democratic Party, only 15 states and the District of Columbia held presidential primaries, thus enabling Hubert Humphrey to capture the nomination without winning a single primary contest.

That year witnessed a divisive struggle among Democrats, exacerbated by the tragic death of Bobby Kennedy who embodied the hopes of many anti-war activists. In an effort to repair the Party's division, the McGovern-Frazier Commission was formed for the purpose of examining the candidate selection process. That group proposed eighteen reforms of which four were critical to the selection cycle in 1972 and beyond: 1) no delegates to be chosen prior to January 1st of the election year; 2) eliminate the "winner-take-all" or unit rule (still practiced by the Republican Party) and replace it with proportional selection; 3) guarantee diversity within each state delegation--including 50% women and a proportion of young people, minorities, and the poor; 4) widely publicize each state's delegate selection process.

The impact of these democratizing efforts cannot be exaggerated. They resulted in three substantial changes. First, the number of states holding primaries rather than caucuses/conventions doubled between 1968 and 1972. Second, the composition of the 1972 convention was starkly different from that of 1968. It was estimated that whereas in 1968 some 55% of all delegates were "professionals" (e.g., public officials or party officials--those who made their living from party engagement) only 10% fit that category in 1972. Emblematic of the change was the fact that in 1968, Richard Daley, the legendary mayor of Chicago who was instrumental in orchestrating Humphrey's success at the convention in his city, shunned the 1972 event and was not a delegate. In his place, there might have been a twenty-three year old African American woman, who would have satisfied several of the "diversity" requirements of the Illinois delegation. That symbolic change would have dramatic repercussions. In his capacity as a big-city machine mayor, Daley could order his legions of party workers to hit the streets in Chicago and generate a large voter turnout for Humphrey on election day, but the young black woman might have convinced only a few family members and her close friends to support George McGovern four years later. In short, the conversion of the convention make-ups from professionals to amateurs was a costly one. The third change was largely the result of the second. It was a shift from a middle-of-the-road, balanced delegate make up to one which was more ideologically driven. Put simply, producing the "right" candidate became more important than producing the "winning" one.

Having been blown away in the 1972 presidential election and then producing a weak candidate/president in Jimmy Carter, many party members became convinced that efforts to democratize the candidate selection process had gone too far. That conviction led to the creation of the Hunt Commission in 1980 which proposed a new category of "super delegates" who would compose about 14% of each state delegation (now about 20%). That group would include major elected officials, prominent party members and a small number of hand-picked party loyalists. It would represent a modest return to professionalism and would redress the balance between those delegates who were ideologically committed and those who sought candidates who could win.

So, what should this year's super delegates do? The simple answer is they should support the most electable candidate. Since there are no distinguishing idealogical differences between Clinton and Obama, the answer seems even easier. But that simple solution can become complicated. It may not be just a matter of seeing which candidate runs strongest against McCain in the national polls. It may also be a matter of assessing which group of Clinton/Obama supporters will be most offended and most difficult to retrieve if their champion is denied the nomination. That level of damage is not assessed in the national polls, but it could be the critical determinant in November.