Democrats aren’t very good at democracy.
Consider the party’s presidential contest, as I did yesterday at Townhall.
As an appetizer, I noted the Democratic National Committee policy of hiding their debates from viewers by placing them on weekend evenings pitted against major sporting events.
For meat and potatoes, ponder my warning of the very ugly scenario of Sen. Bernie Sanders capturing as much as 58 percent of the primary and caucus vote and resulting delegates, but still losing to Hillary Clinton.
How could that possibly happen?
Because of folks designated as “superdelegates” — those awarded voting delegate status for holding a party office or being an elected or former elected official.
Democrats brag that they’ve reduced these insiders’ impact. Democratically-unaccountable superdelegates once accounted for 30 percent of Democratic Party convention delegates; now it’s only 15 percent of the total. Still, Clinton leads Sanders 380 to eleven among superdelegates.
At that rate, she could lose the actual state elections and still win the party’s presidential nomination.
The Democrats’ dereliction of democratic duty doesn’t end there, either.
The process by which various powerful party “interests” endorsed either Sanders or Clinton is quite telling. Journalist Zaid Jilani reports in The Intercept that, “Every major union or progressive organization that let its members have a vote endorsed Bernie Sanders.”
“Meanwhile,” Jilani found, “all of Hillary Clinton’s major group endorsements come from organizations where the leaders decide. And several of those endorsements were accompanied by criticisms from members about the lack of a democratic process.”
Seems the insiders have decided Mrs. Clinton will be on the Democratic Party presidential menu, whether Democrats like it or not.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
5 replies on “The Anti-Democratic Party Establishment”
Then there are the Crook County gravestones that vote!
What a mess„,but the Repubs play games also.
Yes the Repubs are just as bad, but it’s the Demos who brag about taking the high ground on this issue.
Seems to me the RINOs have learned to manipulate their convention just the same and steal a candidacy from one who wins the states and that’s what they will do to Trump.
So RINOs don’t know what a democracy nor a republic is.
You do a disservice to the Democratic party base.
First — the issue of ‘hiding’ debates on weekends. Anyone who cared coulld watch. If they had something else to do that night, they could always watch it on a DVR. Given the number of Democrats I hear calling C‑SPAN programs, even those who are out on Saturday night have access to the replays on C‑SPAN and on its website.
As for endorsements, the people have the power to cancel out those endorsements, with their vote. I submit that the Democratic Party is following the wishes of its constituents. Otherwise, they wouldn’t keep winning. Democratic primary voters might wish they could nominate Bernie Sanders but that won’t stop most of them from voting for Hillary Clinton.