Hillary Clinton claims that her nomination is a foregone conclusion, because the “superdelegates” have pledged to support her at the convention. This contradicts the rationale for superdelegates, that they have greater wisdom and political savvy than we simple peasant folk who actually vote in the primaries, and they are better able to pick the strongest candidate.
If we concede that is true, how can the superdelegates possibly fulfill their function if they choose to support someone two years before the election, well before any primaries or other open electoral activity has begun? In the current Democratic primary, the strongest candidate against Donald Trump is Bernie Sanders. I am sure not one of the superdelegates wants Donald Trump to be elected. I’m sure that no superdelegate thought in January 2015 that Bernie Sanders would be in the race, never mind running better against the Republicans than Hillary Clinton. But that is reality today.
I do not support the idea of superdelegates. I have never seen any “elite” group make better decisions than the voters. But, even if we concede the supposed purpose of superdelegates, they will not fulfill that purpose unless they make their judgment based on today’s information, rather than what they thought two years ago. They should not cling to old choices in the face of today’s reality. That’s not, by their own terms, what they are about.
Emmanuel Krasner
Farmington