The word of the month has clearly been “super,” from the Super Bowl to Super Tuesday, from Dwight Howard's Superman dunk to now super delegates. As the race for the Democratic nomination for president grows ever tighter, the political arena has been dominated by debates over the role of super delegates. There is a growing consensus among the Democratic Party that a primary battle this tight may well be decided by super delegates. There is adamant support as well as adamant opposition to the super delegate scenario by both campaigns and within the party.
Super delegates are former and current Democratic officeholders as well as influential party officials who are free to support either Senator Barack Obama or Senator Hillary Clinton independent of any primary election result. Rep. Patrick Murphy, a King's alumnus, is a super delegate. He has expressed his support for Barack Obama. Despite the fact that most of the electorate has never heard of super delegates, they are not a novel concept. Super delegates were instituted after the 1980 election, but have never before played an integral role in the nomination process because a candidate has always secured a plurality of pledged delegates by this time in the election calendar. This is where the bitter dispute begins.
Hillary Clinton currently holds a 234-161 lead in super delegates over Barack Obama according to CNN.com. Obama has a slim lead in pledged delegates. The Obama camp fears that Hillary Clinton will use the super delegates to secure the nomination and usurp the will of the people. That is not to say that if Obama held the super delegate lead, he would act any differently. The fact remains that if Obama or Clinton wins the nomination based solely on super delegates it would damage the party heading into November, which could prove to be fatal in the general election.
Super delegates do not have to pledge their support to a candidate until the convention in Denver at the end of August, and any super delegate is free to switch their allegiance at any point in time. When the primaries have ended and all the pledged delegates have been apportioned, if Obama and Clinton still are short of the 2,025 magic number the decision will shift to the super delegates. If either candidate has a clear majority of pledged delegates and has won the popular vote, it would be disastrous for the super delegates to send the nomination the other way; however, a statistical tie among pledged delegates and a close popular vote would open the door to the super delegates to settle the contest. Whoever carries the momentum by nailing down Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania will win the nomination, and will surely be ratified by the super delegates. We shall see.
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