Screw The Popular Vote, They’re Just A Herd, Anyway
A nasty, right wing thing to say? Not exactly. That is paraphrasing the words of Screamin' Howard Dean, the head of the Democratic National Committee. In an interview with the Financial Times, he expressed those feelings about the rank and file.
The Democratic party’s “superdelegates” have every right to overturn the popular vote and choose the candidate they believe would be best equipped to defeat John McCain in a general election, according to Howard Dean, chairman of the US Democratic National Committee……
….."It is not just the extra campaigning time – although that is an issue,” he said. “It is the healing time that is important. I know this because I went through it myself. [Your supporters] go to Iowa and knock on doors and spend their weekends in Pennsylvania. These are real investments and when your candidate doesn’t win it’s incredibly painful. It takes time to get over that.”
Mr Dean appeared confident that the uncommitted superdelegates would know what to do in early June even if he could not specify which yardstick they would use to select the winner. “Politics is a herd mentality,” he said. “There is a gestalt in politics when suddenly people see things in a synchronous way. Politically there will be some feeling at the end of this process that somebody is better than the other person in terms of taking on John McCain.” (Emphasis added)
Lovely sentiments from the head of the party, no? At this point, it is hard to hide the contempt the Democratic party leaders hold for the rank and file. It practically oozes out. Whether it is Obama and his slams on small town voters or the "people's choice" head of the DNC, the elitism is out there on full display.
You'd better hope your "herd" doesn't stampede right over you, Howie.
Note: I found this FT article via Hot Air who linked it as an "oh, by the way" to another point about Obama's penchant for revisionist history.
By Bob, Sunday, 27 April , 2008 @ 7:15 am
In fact, Dean has got it exactly right. The super delegates are supposed to overturn the primaries if a nonelectable, fringe lunatic is the popular vote getter. This is by design. It is well known that the primaries in both parties, and the caucuses especially, are controlled by each parties lunatic fringe. The primary voters are NOT the rank and file, and they do NOT represent the rank and file. They are utterly antidemocratic. It is the super delegates who preserve whatever democratic element exists in the nominating process. Every bad president we have had in recent years was produced by the primaries. Almost all our great presidents in our whole history came out of back room deals among the professional politicians. The best thing that could happen to our political process would be to outlaw primaries.
If Obama is nominated undemocratically by the lunatic fringe primaries, he will lose 48 states; the democrats will lose both the House and Senate. Karl Rove could not have a better birthday present.
By martian, Sunday, 27 April , 2008 @ 12:21 pm
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!