Today's New York Times reported again, as has been known publicly for some time, that the Connecticut Democratic Party has stripped Senator Joe Lieberman of his status as a superdelegate because he is backing John McCain for President. In doing so, he violates the so-called Zell Miller rule, which prevents delegates from backing opposition party candidates.
That got me thinking once more about the superdelegates, and I offer the following somewhat paradoxical prediction: the more the important superdelegates prove to be in selecting a President, the fewer the superdelegates will be in attendance.
A close race dependent on superdelegates will likely lead to the public revelation of an unbelievable number of family crises: illnesses of spouses, children, parents, aunts, and uncles; needs to take children or grandchildren to college, etc.
Superdelegates are often people whose job responsibilities and very nature requires them to get along well with all sides. Casting a vote that they will be hearing about for years to come is not a good way to achieve that goal.
A lot of politicians are conflict adverse. Politicians with flimsy statewide bases are especially conflict adverse. You have probably heard the phrase "tough votes." Voters don't talk about "tough votes" nearly as much as elective officials do. A tough vote is that can end or sharply curtail a political career. Politicians often try very hard to avoid tough votes.
There is no rule requiring any delegate to actually attend a convention. Anyone can resign at any time. If the Clinton/Obama battle is clearly over by the time of the convention, I would guess that there will be a very high attendance of superdelegates. A close race, however, would have many cursing their fate and looking for a way out.
The last time the equivalent of superdelegates--the word had not yet been coined--decided a Presidential nomination was in 1968, when Hubert Humphrey was a given the Presidential nomination without having entered any primaries. The supporters of those candidates who did enter primaries wer far from thrilled or enthusiastic at the rules, preferences, and strategies that produced this result.
Beginning with the 1972 Convention came the creation of the pledged delegates whose Presidential choice was listed with them on the ballot. At one of the countless hearings of the McGovern-Fraser Commission on party reform in 1969-1970, I testified in support of such a change.
The practical political advantage of pledged delegates was that they enabled the voters to make a clear decision. Candidate X was winning because the voters wanted him, not because some politicians wanted him. By placing clear responsibility in the hands of the voters, it got voters off the backs of politicians.
Now the superdelegate controversy threatens to make 2008 into 1968 Revisited. Instead of nominating a President, they will be nominating a sacrificial lamb if the choice of the voters is ignored. Further, in all likelihood the Democratic National Convention will be laying the groundwork for another version of the McGovern-Fraser Commission. The more pressure is applied to them, the more superdelegates will be thinking that there are more urgent things to do with their time than hang around their fellow politicians in the last week of August, 2008.