Dan Gerstein, a Democratic strategist supporting Barack Obama for president, submits a bizzare column to the Politico:
Over the last few weeks, the euphoria Democrats felt over the embarrassment of riches we have for presidential candidates has given way to befuddlement over the embarrassment of a process we have for nominating one of them. Can’t tell the difference between (or the rationales for) a caucus and a primary? No worries: Just go to Texas on March 4  they have both!ÂÂ
Now an even more disturbing realization is beginning to set in: If the Clinton firewall holds in Texas and Ohio, there may well not be a clean/just way out of the delegate stalemate that this cockamamie system is on track to produce.
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Assuming neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Rodham Clinton can clinch a decisive advantage in pledged delegates once the voting is done in June, let’s convene a special summit of superdelegates around July 4 in Philadelphia (a little obvious symbolism is in order here). Get them off the phone and out of the proverbial smoke-filled rooms  and into full public view for the rest of the party.
Aside from the PR damage that would be done by putting the Democrat superdelegates on display as a group — let alone in a setting intended to liken them to the Founders of this nation – a “superconvention” would solve neither the Florida/Michigan problem nor change the essentially anti-democratic function superdelegates are designed to serve.
Perhaps Gerstein — as an Obama supporter — thinks putting that show on C-SPAN would exert pressure on the superdelegates to annoit the leader in pledged delegates, presumably Obama. But if the race really was to come down to the superdelegates, the more visible superdelegates — i.e., the elected officials — are more likely going to vote in their self-interest, per usual.
Fortunately for Gerstein, absent a major shift in the dynamic of the campaign, Clinton’s firewall will not hold in Texas and the underlying issue will be moot, even if Clinton soldiers on to Pennsylvania.
Oh. That was Dan eleven months ago. My bad.
Did anyone think any of the white guys had a shot at the Dem nomination a year ago? Edwards, Biden, Dodd, Gravel, Kucinich, Richardson? Who, that was realistic, thought it would be anything but the black guy and the white woman?
“Over the last few weeks, the euphoria Democrats felt over the embarrassment of riches we have for presidential candidates”
I don’t care who you are. That there is just plain funny.
Isn’t the national convention supposed to be where these issues are settled? oh, but then we wouldn’t have enough time for a “national campaign”. blech. sorry, I’ve still got a week and a few days until primaries and I’m tired of the ads.
The superdelegates were supposed to prevent a repeat of radical-base ascendency, a-la-McGovern. It was a structure designed to prevent leftward jerks by lefty jerks, engineered by party insiders to ensure moderation of candidates. It can function just as designed except for one problem: the lefty populist to thwart is black. What was a safeguard against extremism is now a complex disaster.
Libs. Heh.
More embarrassment for the Dem’s nominating process.
That link at 6 is friggin’ hilarious.
That link at 6 is hilarious.
Okay, it wasn’t that funny.
I dunno Moe. It had Al Franken, a guy named Clapsaddle, and a guy named Gene who had no balls, and apparently a cast organizers from a third world dictatorship. And us with no video.