Democrats and Their Superdelegates

Susan Estrich and Ruth Marcus were players in the creation of the Democratic Party's creation of the superdelegate. Their columns shed light on the process and the problems now facing the party.

Estrich: 

Beware What You Wish For

Of course, the Democratic National Committee then made things better, or worse, depending upon your perspective: They added themselves to the deal as superdelegates. While the DNC is indeed equally divided, hack is a proud term for many of its long-term members, of whom I was one. When you're talking about the DNC, you're talking about Capital-D Democrat, not small-d democracy. These are people who get picked, not elected.

And now we finally face the point of the exercise. Most years, being a superdelegate has just meant having a shortcut to a credential and some party invites. Mondale needed the superdelegates to win in '84, but that was because it was a three-man race and a plurality wouldn't do it. This is the first time the race on the ground has taken on the appearance of a tie, and the superdelegates look to actually be, potentially, decisive. That was, of course, the whole purpose.

Marcus:

The Democrat's Undemocratic System 

But the inherent flaws in the Democrats' system are exacerbated by the inadequately democratic institution of superdelegates, the elected officials, members of the Democratic National Committee and other party luminaries who can choose according to their own preference.

It's not unreasonable to carve out a special role for party leaders. The idea of superdelegates, introduced in 1982, was to invest elected officials in the eventual nominee and prevent the party from veering too far off course in its selection (see: George McGovern in 1972).

But the number of superdelegates -- 796, or 19 percent of all delegates -- combined with proportional representation creates a potentially toxic interaction.

As Devine and Corrado explained in 1991, "the primary consequences of the move to proportional representation is that the superdelegates now stand as the only bloc of delegates in which it may be possible to build an extraordinary delegate margin."

As intended, superdelegates gave a boost to Walter Mondale over Gary Hart in 1984; they helped cement Dukakis's lead in 1988. But there is a difference between bringing closure and determining outcomes. Once the nominee is selected, whenever that may be, the party needs to reassess rules that are shaping up to be bad for both Democrats and democracy.