Full Disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign

Cross posted from the Courage Campaign blog and at DailyKos

The final results are in for Los Angeles County, with nearly 80% of the double bubble ballots ultimately being counted towards the final total.  As the Whittier Daily News reports:

The count, completed Sunday, had no effect on the outcome of the primary.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton received 51 percent of the 47,153 votes that were counted. Barack Obama gained 42percent of those same ballots.

Just over 12,000 votes could not be interpreted, said Dean Logan, the acting registrar-recorder/county clerk.

Of course, as the article goes on to say, Logan began the process not expecting any of the ballots to be counted:

Logan initially believed none of the “double bubble” votes could be counted in cases where non-partisan voters had failed to fill in a bubble specifying in which party’s presidential race they were casting a “crossover” ballot.

This is a huge victory for functional elections, and a tremendous testimony to what people power can accomplish when focused on the system threatening to fail voters.  This was never about the candidates involved, and the results ultimately mirrored rather closely the overall numbers.  But what we do get is voices being heard.  Rick Jacobs said that “Today, due to people-powered politics, a petition signed by 32,802 people, and the persistent attention of our lawyers and the media, the votes have been counted,” and echoed the focus on election integrity, noting

“This was not about Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. It was about counting as many votes as possible in this historic high-turnout election and increasing the faith of the public in the system.” said Jacobs. “The Courage Campaign is proud to have played a significant role in ensuring the integrity of this election as well as finally junking these infamous ‘double-bubble’ ballots in future elections.”

In addition to the final vote count being announced, the double bubble issue and all the other reported election day trouble has prompted discussion about how to improve the LA County help-desk system.  A revamped system would move away from a paper-based operation and guide operators through helping voters resolve concerns.  But as Rick explains, it may not be quite so simple:

There were people who called in to us to complain, and people testing the system for us were quite shocked,” Jacobs said. “Anything they can do to get people the right information and to help them understand how to vote when they show up is vital.

So even as the double bubble issue’s resolution is still fresh, the business of reforming and improving elections in Los Angeles and beyond continues.  We’ve proven our ability to win these fights, and there will be plenty more to come.

Indeed, the double-bubble issue has already spurring action that goes beyond just this single incident.  In a rare joint hearing, three legislative committees that address election policy will meet in Los Angeles on Friday, March 7, to address the double-bubble issue and other problems faced by California voters on Feb. 5.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen, Acting Registrar Dean Logan and his predecessor, Registrar Conny McCormack, will appear. Election law lawyer Steven Reyes, of Kaufman Downing LLP, will be speaking at the hearing on behalf of the Courage Campaign.

Friday’s joint hearing is set for Friday at 1 p.m. in the auditorium of the Ronald Reagan State Building at 300 S. Spring St. in downtown Los Angeles.

You can see the pdf of the full LA County Registrar report here

Hillary Clinton closed with her town hall, which was pretty similar to the previous one. It was a friendly crowd with friendly questions, and Hillary did a pretty good job of staying on message. I’m not sure if they are going to archive it on the website, but it’s quite a long broadcast. So, perhaps we’ll see some clips on youtube coming up soon.

Barack Obama has produced a 2 minute long ad that will be airing across the states in play tomorrow. I’ve posted that over the flip. Tomorrow, I’ll be banning the “boiler room” for election protection in the Austin Obama Headquarters. I’ll try to get some info posted tomorrow during the slow times.

I don’t watch much in the way of TV ads when I’m at home. My replayTV cuts those out of my life. I occasionally go searching political ads out on YouTube or catch them on websites, but I’m definitely a bit hard to reach with regular TV ads. But here in Texas, even with a TiVo, I can’t avoid them. That’s because pretty much every ad is for some political candidate or another.

Obama definitely has more of them, but Clinton definitely has a strong presence on the air. To the right you’ve got SEIU’s 527 pro-Obama ad. To the left you’ve got one of Clinton’s ads that she’s running here in Texas. It seems to be a slightly modified version of an Ohio ad, with less union shoutouts and more Texas flags.  And Hillary’s Latino song seems to be everywhere too, and, wow, that catches in your mind pretty quickly.

I suppose I really couldn’t say if the presidential candidates advertised a whole lot more in Texas than in California, but I think what makes it so much more noticeable are all the other campaigns at the same time. You have the primary for the Senate campaign, where Rick Noriega is running against a perennial candidate and some random Republican-turned-Democrat. By the by, Noriega was at yKos last year, where I had a chance to meet him. He was quite an interesting, and impressive man. But far more visible are all the ads for the state House and judgeships. Man, there must be hundreds of ads for all the different state court judgeships.  It must be like Christmas in March for the ad sales folks.

And then there are the signs, oh, the signs. At well-trafficked corners you have dozens of massive signs competing for your attention. Like for Dawnna Dukes, the Democrat who votes for Republican Speakers of the House every single time, yet keeps getting reelected in a heavily Democratic district. The reason I bring up Dukes, well check out the ad over the flip where her real Democratic challenger name drops the presidential candidates.  

And I could go on for much, much longer with all these ads. As I said, they are pretty much every ad on TV here in Texas these days. I’m not sure what Bud Light is going to do to make Texans consider drinking that stuff with the ad time all taken up.

Clinton has a big town hall airing live on Fox Sports (interesting choice) and at HillaryClinton.com on Monday night. I’m going to try to get a ticket for that, should be an interesting event, even if only for the crowd interaction.

So, another day and another diary.  I’ve been pondering the Obama experience issue, especially since my husband is running for State Senate in California.  Yes, this is going to be a big topic for me because it’s so close to home.

How does having a PhD in music and holding no prior office qualify Gary for the Senate or for any office for that matter? Just wondering.

Posted by: Curious at February 21, 2008 03:52

http://www.californiaprogressr…

Or for any office for that matter?  Hm, this was a shocking sight since Gary has just started running and so far we’ve been told he doesn’t have much of a chance.  

But the main issue is, experience is relative, isn’t it?  This argument is being used again and again against Obama and I find it to be one of the weakest.  How do you get experience being President anyway?  You become one.  No one can ever be fully prepared for one of the hardest jobs in the world, so who is to say what experience would qualify someone to lead the free world?

Gary, my husband, is just running for State Senate and it used to be that serving your community in this manner wasn’t a one way ticket to a new career.  And we feel that the thing that qualifies him the most is the fact that he’s had quite a bit of life experience in his 37 years.  Gary has been through almost every form of the California public school system and he’s put himself through that system without help except for loans.  

Gary was born in California and he’s attended k-12, two different community colleges and two UC’s.  He teaches at a community college and has also taught at UCI as a guest lecturer and a summer school instructor.  Gary has direct contact with those who are in the California school system and understands the challenges many of his students face.  And seeing as though our daughter Charlotte will be entering this school system this September, we have a vested interest in it’s ability to form the characters and the minds of our children.  

No Child Left Behind has been a categorical failure and this administration has also failed to deal with the immigration issues that are facing not just the state of California but the entire Country.  What good has their experience done for us?  What good has it done for you?

Obama does not lack the experience and he will surround himself with advisers in order to help him through this uncharted territory.  It’s what every President does, they don’t run the Country so much as set the tone.  For me, the tone of Obama is much more appealing than that of Clinton.  As much as she deserves to be the nominee I don’t believe she is our best chance to win.  What does ready on day one mean?

And I should know the power of “Yes we can”, because it’s the only way to take on any challenge, the only way.  Why even bother if you start off chanting, “No we can’t”.  Why?  And so that alone sets the right tone.  It doesn’t mean it won’t be difficult and it doesn’t mean everything put forth by Obama as President will go through, but I do believe in the power of “Yes we can”.

Gary is running for California State Senate because no other “D” had stepped forward to do so.  I already outlined this in my first diary about his run entitled, ‘Choosing to be inspired, a candidate’s wife and a grassroots campaign’, but I don’t think I will ever be able to say this phrase enough,  “If a Democrat doesn’t run then how can a Democrat win?”.

So who represents the experience candidate in this race?  Mimi Walters is currently in the California State Assembly and she recently voted with the party line to keep intact a loophole that allows yacht owners to avoid certain taxes.  That’s right, yacht owners.

It might not seem like such a big deal if it weren’t for the fact that California is facing a 16 billion dollar shortfall and is threatening to cut funding to the states already hurting school system.

School districts across California have begun trimming services and preparing to lay off teachers in response to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget, which could cut about $4.8 billion in education funding this year and next year. Educators say it’s the worst financial crisis they can remember.

…

“There isn’t a whole lot of fat left to squeeze. You squeeze now by cutting jobs and teachers,” said Bill Hedrick, president of the Rialto Education Assn. “We expect some of our members not to have jobs next fall. That’s the reality of the situation.”

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the state’s largest, could have a $560-million deficit next year, an amount that would affect classroom programs. The district already had agreed to trim almost $100 million from next year’s budget to comply with county guidelines before Schwarzenegger’s announcement in January of his fiscal plan, which includes $460 million more in potential.

Now the closure of this loophole (or sloophole as they call it around here) for yacht owners would not help much in the long run, but doesn’t it seem rather odd that someone with so much “experience” (10 plus years in public service according to her website) would want to protect yacht owners rather than public schools?

So you see, this experience argument is used at many levels of Government from State Senators to Presidential candidates and to me it holds very little water.  Over and over again, experience politicians have put the interests those who need little help over the interests of those who need the most help.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that Obama is without his own baggage and it baffles me when people completely exclude the fact that he served in a state senate for years before moving on to the US Senate.  But I also don’t believe that he lacks the experience needed and as I said, it’s the tone that matters.

“Yes we can”.  See, this is something that has won me over, because why even bother running if you don’t think you can win, right?  “No we can’t” isn’t the best way to start any fight and both Gary and I have decided to go the same route, “Yes we can”.  

And sadly, people don’t vote on issues as much as they used, it’s just a fact.  But then again, I don’t believe Obama is lacking on substance either, I’m impressed with his proposals for transparency in Government and the lack of mandate is not a deal breaker for me.  “Progress not perfection” is another favorite saying of mine and if Obama can take us from 47 million uninsured to 15 million uninsured, I see that as a first step.  Anyone who argues for a system that is anything other than single payer cannot say they are for Universal Health Care, it’s just a phrase that’s been thrown around rather lightly (Remember Hillary was calling all of their plans UHC?  Yes, she left out Kucnich too).

And, I’m happy with his education plan as well, he does have a plan, such as all this.  Does it mean every element is perfect?  NO.  But he does have substance and he does ideas.  OH yes and he does have “words”.  Those are important to me too, “Yes we can” does matter to me.

Early Childhood Education

   * Zero to Five Plan: Obama’s comprehensive “Zero to Five” plan will provide critical support to young children and their parents. Unlike other early childhood education plans, Obama’s plan places key emphasis at early care and education for infants, which is essential for children to be ready to enter kindergarten. Obama will create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state “zero to five” efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school.

   * Expand Early Head Start and Head Start: Obama will quadruple Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding and improve quality for both.

   * Affordable, High-Quality Child Care: Obama will also provide affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families.

     K-12

         o Reform No Child Left Behind: Obama will reform NCLB, which starts by funding the law. Obama believes teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests. He will improve the assessments used to track student progress to measure readiness for college and the workplace and improve student learning in a timely, individualized manner. Obama will also improve NCLB’s accountability system so that we are supporting schools that need improvement, rather than punishing them.

         o Make Math and Science Education a National Priority: Obama will recruit math and science degree graduates to the teaching profession and will support efforts to help these teachers learn from professionals in the field. He will also work to ensure that all children have access to a strong science curriculum at all grade levels.

         o Address the Dropout Crisis: Obama will address the dropout crisis by passing his legislation to provide funding to school districts to invest in intervention strategies in middle school – strategies such as personal academic plans, teaching teams, parent involvement, mentoring, intensive reading and math instruction, and extended learning time.

         o Expand High-Quality Afterschool Opportunities: Obama will double funding for the main federal support for afterschool programs, the 21st Century Learning Centers program, to serve one million more children.

         o Expand Summer Learning Opportunities: Obama’s “STEP UP” plan addresses the achievement gap by supporting summer learning opportunities for disadvantaged children through partnerships between local schools and community organizations.

         o Support College Outreach Programs: Obama supports outreach programs like GEAR UP, TRIO and Upward Bound to encourage more young people from low-income families to consider and prepare for college.

         o Support English Language Learners: Obama supports transitional bilingual education and will help Limited English Proficient students get ahead by holding schools accountable for making sure these students complete school.

     Recruit, Prepare, Retain, and Reward America’s Teachers

         o Recruit Teachers: Obama will create new Teacher Service Scholarships that will cover four years of undergraduate or two years of graduate teacher education, including high-quality alternative programs for mid-career recruits in exchange for teaching for at least four years in a high-need field or location.

         o Prepare Teachers: Obama will require all schools of education to be accredited. He will also create a voluntary national performance assessment so we can be sure that every new educator is trained and ready to walk into the classroom and start teaching effectively. Obama will also create Teacher Residency Programs that will supply 30,000 exceptionally well-prepared recruits to high-need schools.

         o Retain Teachers: To support our teachers, Obama’s plan will expand mentoring programs that pair experienced teachers with new recruits. He will also provide incentives to give teachers paid common planning time so they can collaborate to share best practices.

         o Reward Teachers: Obama will promote new and innovative ways to increase teacher pay that are developed with teachers, not imposed on them. Districts will be able to design programs that reward accomplished educators who serve as a mentor to new teachers with a salary increase. Districts can reward teachers who work in underserved places like rural areas and inner cities. And if teachers consistently excel in the classroom, that work can be valued and rewarded as well.

     Higher Education

         o Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit: Obama will make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. This universal and fully refundable credit will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students. Obama will also ensure that the tax credit is available to families at the time of enrollment by using prior year’s tax data to deliver the credit when tuition is due.

         o Simplify the Application Process for Financial Aid: Obama will streamline the financial aid process by eliminating the current federal financial aid application and enabling families to apply simply by checking a box on their tax form, authorizing their tax information to be used, and eliminating the need for a separate application.

And, this is something I want to teach to my daughter, “Yes she can”.  So many times girls are told that there are things they just can’t do, not happening here.  She can do almost anything she wants if she puts her mind to it.  So shouldn’t we all be saying, “Yes we can”?

So, experience matters, it just depends on what kind of experience you are talking about and tone matters too.  Yes, we have our work cut out for us, not just in this very red district in a very blue state, but Democrats across in the country in every district need to be saying, “Yes we can”.  

You can earn your ‘A’ is a post by the California Democratic Party at Calitics and they gave a shout out to Gary for choosing to run.  It made our day!

Many of you probably remember when Gov. Howard Dean issued his now-famous citizens’ report card:

       * If you vote you get a “D”

       * If you donate money to your candidate you get a “C”

       * If you do all of that and volunteer you get a “B”

       * But if you do all that and run for office, then and only then do you get an “A.”

Well, we’d like to start out by saying that our hat is off to all Democrats running for office, like Gary Pritchard for his “A” performance in California’s SD-33.  

But Gary doesn’t have to be the only Calitician to earn an “A” this year. We are in the midst of another electoral race, one that not very many people know about, but one which is of utmost importance to California Democrats.  

Before I get to the debate, I’d like to send my condolences to the family of the motorcycle officer killed in a traffic accident en route to a campaign event in Dallas.

The debate itself was quite the lovefest that we saw here in California at the Kodak theater. (You can watch the debate at cnn.com or through the numerous clips the two campaigns have posted on youtube.) There were a few jabs in there (“that’s change you can xerox“), but I don’t think anything was landed. The crowd booed the Xerox jab, and Clinton really didn’t come off too well.

Where Clinton did come off well was when she emphasized party unity and the fact that she could, in fact, lose the race. She does humble really well, and after an outright cocky presidency for the last seven+ years, perhaps Americans are craving a bit of humbleness in their next leader.

The Texas polls are now within the margin of error.  An ABCNews poll released yesterday has a Clinton 48-47 lead, and Ralph Brodie at IVR polls has Clinton at 50-45 using a new (untested) turnout model. Doing the Texas two-step will require turnout at both the election and the precinct caucuses. Delegate count will likely be very, very close due to the proportionality and that most of the state Senate districts are even delegates. Obama might be able to pick up some delegates in the delegate rich districts of Austin, Dallas, and Houston, but many of the Latino districts in South Texas are 4-delegates. And these 4 delegate districts require the 62% threshold to break the tie. It’s tough to imagine many of those districts doing anything but 2-2.

More over the flip

Yesterday I was contacted by the Obama campaign to volunteer in Texas. I’ll probably do some work on the campaign, but, of course, I’ll do my best to cover any events in the Austin area for both Clinton and Obama.  I must say, I’m pretty excited to head to Texas for the first election that I can remember that had an effect on the presidency.

Roger Salazar has been firing back about the shaky legal ground the Pro-Hillary 527 he is working for is treading on, or will be treading on when they ask for money and pay to air ads.

There isn’t anything in our efforts that would warrant such a barefaced attempt to quell free-speech with this kind of unsupported legal bullying.

The American Leadership Project was organized in strict adherence to all new federal rules and regulations as a result of a recent Supreme Court decision. It was established to highlight issues of importance to middle-class families. The type of 527 we have organized does not intend to engage in express advocacy or the functional equivalent of express advocacy and so will not qualify as a political committee under the Federal Election Commission rules, but it will, however, fund “electioneering communications” – ads that feature a candidate and run within the 30 days before the election – and so will have reporting requirements with the FEC as well as the IRS. We intend to be open, transparent and to make all full and appropriate disclosures as required by the law.

I am no lawyer, but what they are arguing is that this organization is not actually working to help Hillary Clinton win the Democratic primary.  It means that they cannot ask people for money to help Hillary.  Someone else can sort all of that out.  

What I am concerned with is the messaging Salazar is using.  I’m sorry, but questioning the legality of this organization has not approached anything close to bullying.  There is no big powerful entity trying to shut up the little guy.  Not to mention the fact that they are twisting themselves into pretzels to be able to claim that this is legal with phrases like “functional equivalent of express advocacy”.  

This is a bunch of really rich people trying to evade campaign contribution limits.  Those of us raising concern about this are not trying to take away their free speech.  We just don’t want them to have a bigger megaphone than the rest of us and have disproportionate impact on the outcome of this race.  The use of “free speech” to talk about campaign finance law is a right wing frame.  It is extremely distressing to see it used by a Democrat in the context of campaign where one candidate is outspending the other on the basis of an unprecedented amount of small donors.

(more on the flip)

This to me is the perfect example of the impact of BCRA (McCain-Feingold) on campaign financing.  BCRA both raised the hard dollar contribution limit and attempted to eliminate the use of soft money.  Democrats were expected to be hit the hardest due to our over-reliance on large donors and the Republican’s success at creating a large small donor base, mostly through direct mail.  The goal was to reduce the ability of people to spend large chunks of money on elections.  The Supreme Court upheld these restrictions due to the inherent corrosive influence of money on politics and impact of the appearance of corruption.

Now 6 years later we have a race where one candidate relied on large checks from a small pool of donors and the other raised more money from what is now nearly one million people who have given small contributions.  Hillary Clinton now has a group of donors who want to go back to the days of soft money.  It is a full-fledged attack on BCRA.  Barack Obama’s fundraising is the dream of campaign finance reformers coming to life before their eyes.  

If you go to the Barack Obama home page right now you will see a big flash graphic that reads “The Goal ONE Million People Who Own This Campaign”.  Those now 951,887 (and growing) people who have donate to the campaign have bought the candidate.  In contrast, you have the major donors to Clinton who own her campaign crowing about “free speech” and cutting six figure checks to try and make sure Clinton is not drowned out by nearly one million people.

Look at the messaging Hillary Clinton is using.  This is from a campaign fundraising email she sent out yesterday.

If we want to win in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont, we’ve got to even the odds. We can’t let the Obama campaign overwhelm us financially. Today, I am calling on you and other online supporters to act together, making sure we have the resources to create a fair, level playing field on March 4.

The hundreds of thousands of small Obama donors are in Clinton’s mind and those of her big donors creating an unfair, unlevel playing field.  So they are crowing about “free speech” and saying it isn’t fair when people tell us that we aren’t legally allowed to run a stealth campaign mirroring the messaging of the official campaign.

It is dispiriting to me to see fellow Democrats bemoaning the influence of small donors.  We should be celebrating it and figuring out how we can free our own state and politicians from the corrosive influence of big donors who want something in return for their money.  We shouldn’t have the spokesman for the California Democratic Party, which should be working on their own small donor program accusing us of bullying.

This seems like a very clear contrast between the old way of doing things and the new school approach.  Democrats will go much further by running campaigns and candidates that rely on small donors and volunteers and not simply top down organizing and big media buys.

(And here’s AdamB’s post on this at the Big Orange. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

In the wake of Feburary 5th some of Hillary’s major bundlers started floating the idea of financing a Pro-Clinton 527 to try and make up ground on Obama’s phenomenal small donor fundraising.  Today they are launching it and Roger Salazar, who has served as a spokeman for many a campaign here in California will be running it.

The new pro-Clinton 527, the American Leadership Project, incorporated with the IRS on February 15, and lists as its chief a former Clinton White House deputy press secretary and former Gray Davis aide, Roger Salazar, according to its federal filing.

They are targeting white women under 50 and are running tv, radio and sending mailers.  More details here.

The AIP may have some serious FEC problems establishing itself as a 527.  MoveOn and other orgs payed huge fines after the 2004 cycle for incorporating that way and doing express advocacy in the presidential election.  This is from the press release on the fines from the FEC.

If an organization receives contributions or make expenditures in excess of $1,000, and its major purpose is involvement in campaign activity, it must register with the Commission and abide by the contribution restrictions and reporting requirements of the Federal Election Campaign Act.  Each of these entities registered with the Internal Revenue Service as “Section 527” organizations – tax exempt groups whose function is to influence the selection, nomination, election, or appointment of any individual to Federal, State, or local public office or office in a political organization, or the election of Presidential electors.

I imagine we will see an Adam B post on this over at the big orange later today.

[UPDATE] Roger just called.  He noted that they have not actually done any campaign work, thus they have not filed with the FEC and therefore could not have broken any laws yet.  Indeed this is true.  He did confirm to me that they will be operating as a 527.  Thus I believe they may have a legal issue once they do start working.  Now they may just proceed and deal with any fines afterwards.  This is huge soft money and the whole organization is an attempt to get around contribution limits and BCRA.

Here and across my series of 872 blogs, I’ve been pretty vocal about the superdelegate situation, about how it’s a media creation designed to set Democrats against themselves and damage the party’s credibility as we move into the fall.  I’m not the only one, either.  Today comes a thinly sourced story about how the Clinton campaign is vowing to go after pledged delegates who represent the distribution in the various state primaries and caucuses, a charge that the campaign summarily denied.  The truth is that the Democratic Party’s somewhat convoluted system practically demands that some pledged delegates will be up for grabs, but this Politico/Drudge effort doesn’t pass any kind of smell test.  Essentially, my feeling is that the Democratic Party put together a system they never thought they would have to use.  For decades now both parties have created a calendar designed to nominate a candidate as early as humanly possible.  They never considered the implications of having two equally strong candidates and a campaign that would grind on (although let’s get some perspective on that; it’s only February 19 here, and the scenarios being games out may be inoperative in a matter of weeks).  Now that the system is being trotted out, pretty much for the first time ever (arguably, 1984 brought these rules into play), it’s showing a little rust.  OK, a lot of rust.  They’re trying to patch it up and have a bunch of elder statesmen manage this situation.  I think this is a freak-out that is far too premature.

over..

However, I have to continue to call B.S. on this idea that superdelegates will somehow subvert the popular will and act to destroy the Democratic Party from within.  I understand there’s not a lot of belief from those who have seen the party screw over their base time and time again in recent years.  While I agree that the concept of superdelegates should come as a surprise to many, and they almost certainly should be fixed so this doesn’t happen again, there’s a ton of misinformation out there about who these superdelegates actually are.

I talked with Garry Shay, a superdelegate from here in California, a DNC member and the Chair of the Rules Committee for the California Democratic Party.  He is a party activist who has a day job and was concerned by all the media attention taking him away from his work.  He was an antiwar activist who worked hard for George McGovern.  He was elected by the executive board of the CDP to his DNC post and essentially is a representative of the state party rank and file.  That includes someone like me, who ran and won a seat on the Democratic State Central Committee in this state.  The barriers to entry, then, are very low, and the likelihood that these superdelegates are not “party bosses,” whatever that means, but committed activists, is very high.  Shay surmised it was about 1/2 of all superdelegates.  These are in large part, the people who elected Howard Dean to the chairmanship of the party, against the will of much of the elected leadership.  A good summary of who these delegates are is here.

Why are there superdelegates at all?  Basically, before 1972 the process for choosing a nominee was far less small-d democratic.  The McGovern reforms regarding primaries, and the 1974 charter added some structure to the process.  Shay didn’t agree with me totally that this created rules that were essentially designed to not come into play, but he did say that superdelegates were created to “give members more of a connection to the nominee,” almost a psychological basis, rather than a concerted effort to impose their will on the party.  In fact, superdelegates have never sought to choose the nominee in a way that didn’t reflect the popular will.  Even in 1984, when Walter Mondale had a plurality but not a majority of delegates, the superdelegates did not step in and anoint Gary Hart.  

The either/or of whether a political figure has a responsibility to his own conscience or a responsibility to his own constituents is an age-old argument, and I don’t think any side of this debate, with their own partisan reasoning, is going to advance it in any meaningful way.  But clearly, there are outside pressures that would have come to bear on them with or without the overwatch by progressive organizations like MoveOn and DFA.  The candidate with the most votes is going to get the majority of the superdelegates (probably by a similar proportion), and all of these machinations are going to amount to nothing.

Of far more concern to Shay, and myself, is what to do with these delegates in Michigan and Florida.  It’s an issue with few or no winning moves.  Shay suggested a couple possibilities, like seating Florida with delegates halved, or holding new elections.  But there are pitfalls with every scenario and clearly the rules were enforced with an eye to a clear winner emerging.  This was a mistake, but the bigger mistake is exacerbating this by assuming all kinds of bad motives on the superdelegates and the party itself.  The party gave out a bunch of votes to make everybody feel like they were participating and happy about the process.  They never expected it to be decisive.  And it still might not be.  This is a failure of forward thinking, perhaps even incompetence, but not an attempt to hijack the democratic process.

That is safe, but the reputation of the Party may not be.  Several developments over the last few days have given me pangs of concern about the Presidential race – the teflon coating being placed on McCain, the continued implementation in progressive political circles of right-wing smears on Obama and Clinton, and now this furor over superdelegates, which makes the process look very suspect.  This is a narrative that can easily be fed to swing voters across the country, that the Democratic Party is some sort of top-down monolith that will ignore your votes.  It’s actually not true; the superdelegate effort was designed to create inclusion instead of exclusion.  But exposing the underside of the primary process, between caucuses that are inherently disenfranchising and superdelegates that have a bigger say in the process than previously known and delegate distributions that don’t reflect the popular vote, is giving the electorate something of a foul taste.  Come the fall, much of that is likely to be forgotten.  But it could be effectively implemented to really harm efforts both in retaking the White House and downticket.  This is pretty bad news.

By the way, my perfect solution for the superdelegate problem in the future is to only have their votes count on the SECOND ballot, not the first.  That way, they don’t have a say in the initial process, and a percentage of the elected delegates can be established as a bar that can be scaled by a nominee on the first ballot.  This won’t piss off those party officials and will reassure the public, and most important won’t give the media an excuse to include superdelegates in their counts.

Representative Chet Edwards wasn’t supposed to carry that title anymore. He was supposed to be redistricted out of his seat by the Delay redistricting measures. The problem? He beats all comers. His seat is about R+20, yet he keeps winning elections in his Waco, TX based district.

I bring this up because I’ll be heading to Texas next week, so I thought I should bring up some of the information about the race before I get there. Rep. Edwards endorsed Obama at the semi-famous Waco suspension bridge. (Not that I’d knock Waco or anything, but it’s about 1/10th the size of the GG bridge) From his speech:

“As the father of two young sons, I care deeply about the future of our nation, and that is why I am endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president of the United States,” Edwards said. “I believe Sen. Obama can bring about real change in Washington – change that will make a positive difference for average working Americans struggling to keep up with the high costs of health care, gasoline and education.”…

“As someone who has spent most of my adult life fighting for veterans and for military troops and their families, I am convinced that Sen. Obama will be a champion for better health care, housing and quality of life for those who have sacrificed so much for the American family,” Edwards said. “He knows that standing up for our troops, our veterans and their families is the right thing to do – for them and for our nation’s security.”(Waco Trib 2/18/08)

On the Clinton endorsement front, she’s got the popular African-American leader and Congresswoman Shiela Jackson-Lee. Check out a good review of the superdelegates here.

Finally, check out BOR’s review of the Texas system of doling out delegates. Apparently, Senator Clinton’s staff isn’t a huge fan.

UPDATE (Bob): There’s a new CNN poll inside the margin of error. Following a Town Hall in San Antonio tomorrow afternoon, Obama will be traveling to Houston’s Toyota Center (capacity: 19,300) for his Wisconsin night speech with George Lopez. Early voting begins tomorrow.