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To: Carling
The truth is that the voters have no real say in the process...

1) The super delegates themselves are elected officials, elected by those very same voters you say have no say in the process.

2) There are 3253 pledged delegates awarded through the primaries, and 794 super delegates. 80% of the delegates are awarded through the primaries, and only 20% are super delegates.

Rather than the voters not having any say, most of the time a candidate wins enough of the pledged delegates to become the nominee. The super delegates only really come into play in a really close race.

Michigan and Florida are cut out of the nominating process, but they did it to themselves, or more specifically their elected officials did it.

Why did they do it? Because primaries aren't normally anywhere near this close, so they felt it was more important to get the attention that their early primary would generate than to have the votes actually count. They thought it was more important to have the candidates fawn all over them to get the boost that a win in those states might give even if the vote doesn't count.

The DNC tried to further dissuade such actions by asking the candidates not to campaign in those states. Both pledged not to. Clinton pretty much made a mockery of that pledge, and Obama kind of followed suit to keep Hillary from dominating more than she did.

It's quite a spectacle, but it's not remotely true to say that the voters don't have a say in the process. They have the overwhelming majority of the say in the process, they just didn't reach a clear enough consensus that the relatively small say the officials that they elected have can't push it one way or the other.

35 posted on 05/01/2008 2:19:19 PM PDT by untrained skeptic
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To: untrained skeptic
1) The super delegates themselves are elected officials, elected by those very same voters you say have no say in the process.

False. Not all superdelegates are elected officials, and even some of those that were elected have since been voted out of office or retired. I suggest you get your facts straight prior to lecturing me again.

40 posted on 05/01/2008 4:18:08 PM PDT by Carling (It's Danny, Sir)
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