Superdelegates, despite the palaver of the May 19 editorial in the Monitor, have never “earned” the right to overturn the results of the New Hampshire primary.
Disregarding the electorate’s judgment is not only undemocratic but exceedingly arrogant and stupid. There’s no better way to alienate our own supporters than by demonstrating that their votes don’t really count.
New Hampshire’s superdelegates would do well to remember 1984, when the insurgent campaign of Sen. Gary Hart won a surprising victory here by 9 percent over former Vice President Walter Mondale. I am proud to have been a pledged delegate for Mondale, but he represented the party regulars of his day and wouldn’t have won the nomination without the robotic like loyalty of superdelegates. They wrongly cast aside the results of the New Hampshire primary, ignored polls showing Hart matching up much better than Mondale against Ronald Reagan and led us into a disastrous 49-state defeat.
There’s nothing sacrosanct about superdelegates.
It was a matter of Bernie Sanders’s beliefs, his convictions, not for “convenience” sake which led him to first caucus for years with congressional Democratic members before running for the presidency as a Democratic candidate.
Sanders pursued a natural political path and his long record of championing a progressive agenda, often together with Secretary Hillary Clinton, epitomizes Democratic Party values but petty flacks and some of Clinton’s supporters are continually whining that “he’s not a Democrat.” Enough already. Bernie’s the best Democratic candidate in a generation, whether his carping critics like it or not.
John S. Hancock
Concord