Hard positions have been staked out regarding what the Democratic superdelegates should do if they are mathematically able to determine who wins the nomination for President. Obama supporters argue that if the popular will — presumably such a will that supports Obama, and putting aside for now the question of how clearly it can be ascertained — is overturned by superdelegates, they will leave the party forever. More credibly and more importantly, they argue that the large number of new voters who appear to be energized by the Obama candidacy — young Democrats, independents, etc. — will not come out for Hillary. Clinton supporters argue — here, if not as regards Florida and Michigan — that rules is rules, and that the superdelegates’ untrammeled right to choose the President they prefer cannot be taken away at this late date.
Full disclosure: I’ve been an Obama supporter since shortly after Edwards was held to 5% in Nevada. I try to be fair about it when it comes to superdelegate voting ethics, though, and I think that there is some room for agreement between these sides. While many argue that it simply won’t come to this, that superdelegates will not overturn the popular will, it certainly seems possible to me that it might. I expect Clinton to pull back ahead in the delegate count, with the help of Ohio even without the help of Texas, by the time Pennsylvania’s votes are counted on April 22. While I believe that Obama should do well enough in the primaries in May and June to finish with a delegate lead, it’s possible that it won’t happen, or certainly possible that that lead will be slight.
By considering what the different possibilities are, I think that we can at least narrow the debate. We won’t find completely common ground, but we should find more than one would expect after watching this week’s news. More below.
First, if Obama doesn’t lead in pledged delegates going into the convention, it’s probably over. Hillary would then have made enough of a comeback, well beyond just winning on March 4 and April 22, that most of Obama’s argument — that he has shown greater strength and organization and that the consequences if he is not chosen would be horrible for the party — would be gone. It will then come down to arm-twisting and, given the audience of professional politicians at issue; the Clintons will most likely win by far enough of them to lead to an avalanche of undecideds in their direction, for appearance’s sake. I don’t expect this scenario to come about — and if it did I as a superdelegate would still favor Obama until all was clearly lost — but it’s possible. Enough said there; the rest of this discussion assumes an Obama lead.
What is left out of the discussion of the ethics of superdelegate voting is one big lesson from this campaign: size (of victory) matters. Had Obama been ekeing out three-to-five point wins ever since Super Tuesday, he would not be in such a powerful position now. His delegate lead and his momentum would be far less compelling. What has mattered this month is the scope of his victories — winning states by 20 or 30 points gets people’s attention. We should now apply that same lesson to the delegate lead.
Assuming that Clinton continues to campaign and to do well enough to contest the race, we can imagine that Obama’s lead might be anywhere from, say, one to 300 delegates. A one delegate lead would mean that Hillary had scrambled back into the race and fought him largely to a draw in May and June. A 300 delegate lead would mean that her campaign had all but collapsed. And intermediate lead means an intermediate result.
My thesis is that the size of the lead determines the morality of superdelegates using their own best judgment, even if it means “reversing the popular will.” We don’t hear that in many discussions right now, but it should be at the top of the page. Note that I’m ignoring Edwards delegates for the purposes of this analysis.
The case of a big Obama lead
Consider, for example, what happens if Obama comes in with a 300 delegate lead among the roughly 3250 pledged delegates. That means that he has about 1775 pledged delegates and Hillary about 1475. It also means that he ran away with the race in May and June. Under those circumstances, is it legitimate for Hillary to try to argue that the superdelgates should favor her by a margin of roughly 550 to 250, so that she could win the nomination?
No. It’s legal for her to try, but it would be close to obscene, and it would validate all of the criticisms that the Clintons care more for their personal welfare than for the party. For her to succeed in doing so would likely have all of the horrible effects that Obama supporters suggest: young people fleeing the party, etc. What superdelegates themselves have noted, though, is that absent some astonishing scorching scandal on Obama’s part, this simply won’t happen. If you call the superdelgate margin roughly 150 to 250 in Clinton’s favor today, those 400 remaining delegates may well move largely as a block, but in the above example they’d be moving to Obama’s side. They are not stupid, and they would rightly see the trend in May and June as a repudiation of Clinton, one that they would not endorse.
The case of a virtual tie
Let’s say, by contrast, that Obama ends up with a lead of one or two delegates, for example if it’s 1626 for Obama to 1624 for Hillary. Again, this will only happen if Hillary fights him to a draw or better in May and June. Now, under those circumstances, does even Donna Brazile believe that superdelegates have no prerogative to exercise their independent judgment as to who to nominate? Of course they do: Obama himself has pretty much said as much in arguing — rightly, in my opinion — that they should vote for the candidate who can win in November. In other words, if the popular will is very weak, then the role of superdelegates is — and should be, given the rules — stronger. Those of us who support the losing candidate under such a scenario (and unfortunately I think it would probably be Obama) will still grouse that the superdelegates are making a terrible mistake, that they’re choosing the worse candidate with the worse team, but you will not see the same feeling of betrayal that accompanied Bush v. Gore. Obama would not have been robbed, but merely rejected by people who should have known better. Young people still may not come out in November should this happen, etc., but while politically unwise the selection of Clinton by superdelegates would not be ethically illegitimate.
The intermediate cases
If we’ve established, then, that a 300 vote lead in pledged delegates means that the superdelegates are ethically (if not legally) constrained to support Obama, and a 2 vote lead means that they aren’t, then what we’re really arguing about is where the line between these two outcomes ought to be drawn. A 200 pledged delegate lead, Obama by 1725 to 1525? I still think it’s unethical for Clinton even to ask the superdelegates to split 500 to 300 in her direction so that she wins by one vote. A 20 pledged delegate lead, Obama by 1685 to 1665? I still think that it’s legitimate for Clinton to ask the superdelegates to split 405 to 395 in her direction, without our saying that Clinton is stealing the nomination. And we can continue on in that vein.
Conclusion
If Clinton supporters will acknowledge that there is some large pledged delegate margin where Hillary ought to concede for the good of the party, and Obama supporters will concede that there is some small pledged delegate margin where she has no moral obligation to succeed, we can eliminate some of the worst disagreement we’ve seen in the past week. Then it becomes a matter of where we draw the line, or at least where the Clintons’ argument that Hillary is not bound to concede begins rapidly to lose power. Roughly, I’d say that if Obama has a margin of 50-60 pledged delegates or higher, superdelegates ought to vote for him regardless of their preferences, for the sake of party unity. But I can understand people putting the line higher. If Obama has a lead of 120-150 delegates, though, I think that Hillary is ethically constrained to concede. If it falls somewhere in between — and I think it will — then we will have to have this argument, but at least we should be able to recognize that we’ve ended up in a gray area.
That is the sort of discussion Democrats should be having, rather than flinging around absolute principles for the ethics of superdelegate voting when no such absolute principles apply.
