This could be a disaster for the Dems. The nearly 800 superdelegates are party heavies — including a lot of state-party leaders and elected officials. Essentially, superdelegates are free agents; they can vote for whomever they want, and the candidates can and will do anything in their power to get them on their side. With the stakes so high, Maine’s eight superdelegates are no exceptions.
All along, Clinton has led in superdelegates, with the latest count giving her 247 to Obama’s 211, according to the AP. But the AP reports that Obama has gained 53 superdelegates, including six defectors from the Clinton camp, since Super Tuesday. Despite her strong ties to the party establishment, Clinton shows a net loss of one in that same timeframe.
But there are still more than 300 undecided superdelegates, and even those who have already committed to a candidate can switch teams at any point.
While the candidates are scrambling for superdelegates' votes, most progressives, and, really, any Democrats with a sense of history, are telling superdelegates to wait until the primaries and caucuses are over, and then throw their weight behind the candidate who wins at the polls.
If party bigwigs trump the will of the people on this one, the fallout will be huge — in immediate terms, it could send enough disgruntled Dems into arms of independent Ralph Nader or GOP nominee John McCain to give the Republicans the election. Even more importantly, it could turn a generation of voters away from the Democratic Party, or even electoral politics, for good.
In the mix are Maine’s eight superdelegates (see sidebar, "The King (Or Queen) Makers"). So far, two of Maine’s superdelegates, John Knutson and Marianne Stevens, chairman and vice-chairman of the state Democratic Party, have said they’ll vote for Obama because he won Maine’s popular vote. Knutson will nominate one more superdelegate later this month, which almost certainly means another Obama vote. Governor John Baldacci has said he’ll vote for Clinton, while three superdelegates, congressmen Tom Allen and Mike Michaud and Democratic National Committee member Sam Spencer, are undecided.
That leaves one Maine superdelegate, Rita Moran, who was elected as the state’s female representative to the Democratic National Committee in January. She takes the place of Jennifer DeChant, of Bath, who was ousted because she missed three consecutive state committee meetings.
But DeChant’s supporters are disputing Moran’s election, on the basis that DeChant was suffering from a pregnancy-related illness and that the vote to replace her was called with insufficient notice. The dispute will likely be resolved at the next state committee meeting on March 16. Neither Moran nor DeChant has endorsed either candidate.
Undemocratic by Design
The ironic thing about the superdelegate system is that it’s meant to be undemocratic. Superdelegates were created in 1980, to limit the power of the Democratic Party’s rank-and-file members, the common people whom the party says it represents.
Defenders of the superdelegate system call it a safeguard that gives experienced party members a way to intervene if the Democratic primary and caucus voters pick someone who is too far “out there” to compete in a general election.
