The 2008 Democratic nomination: In search of "the Popular Will".

[Tom Rinaldo]

Few Buzz terms get thrown about so often or so wildly during this primary season than the noble sounding democratic phrase; "the popular will". Mostly it seems it’s coupled with earnest exaltations that it must be honored, plus dire warnings of the ruin that lies in store for the Democratic Party if "the Popular Will" is "overturned" by Super Delegates at the 2008 Democratic Convention.

When rhetoric is removed from substance however, what remains is a simple assertion, namely a claim that whichever Democratic candidate enters the 2008 Democratic Convention holding a lead in pledged delegates embodies "the popular will", and with that an inherent implicit democratic right to become the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee. Flowing from that assumption come dark warnings voiced by some about efforts to "steal" the nomination from its otherwise rightful heir through some sort of Super Delegate engineered "coup".

To face this assertion at the most basic level; "the popular will" is not referred to anywhere in the Democratic National Committee rules governing the 2008 Democratic Party Convention, nor is it a term with any formal standing in any of the previously agreed upon delegate selection and certification rules governing the current contest. It is an ideal, a noble ideal yes, but not one defined in the rules of the Democratic Party. The criterion for winning the Democratic nomination however is clearly defined, and that involves gaining the support of the majority of the delegates credentialed to vote at the Democratic Convention. People certainly can and do make claims about who possesses "the popular will", but that is subject to debate. It does not automatically equate with a lead in pledged delegates. It is something far less tangible.

The rules of the Democratic National Party, in some regard similar to the United States Constitution, do not provide for our leader to be chosen by a strict one person/one vote criteria. Thanks to the Electoral College (and the Supreme Court) George W. Bush is currently President of the United States, not Al Gore, although no one disputes that more Americans voted for Al Gore than voted for George W. Bush. In turning to the Democratic Party nominating process, Texas is a good case in point. More Texans voted for Hillary Clinton than voted for Barack Obama, but more delegates emerged from Texas pledged to Barack Obama than pledged to Hillary Clinton. What was "the popular will" of America in November 2000? What was "the popular will" of Texan Democrats in March 2008?

Winning the Democratic nomination for President means winning the majority of credentialed delegates to the Democratic Convention. Winning a majority of pledged delegates to that Convention means winning a debate point useful to winning over non pledged delegates toward your side. What it does NOT mean is "winning the popular will". A quantifiable case could be made for determining the "popular will" by adding up all the votes actually cast during the nominating process, if we could ever agree on what votes should be counted, and what to do about caucuses. Leading in "popular votes" of course is another valuable talking point. Though it has no official standing toward determining who wins the Democratic presidential nomination NEITHER DOES LEADERSHIP IN PLEDGED DELEGATES.

There are numerous quirks in how the final pool of pledged national convention delegates gets determined, starting with the horse trading at early caucuses where candidate viability thresholds lend themselves to wheeling and dealing, with some attendees lining up behind candidates who they don't actually support due to tactical considerations. The weight assigned to the votes of caucus goers in some states varies within those states also, with each vote NOT getting counted equally. That is done for any number of supposedly worthwhile reasons, such as encouraging rural participation in the process. That is how Obama got more delegates from Nevada this year than Clinton did although Clinton got more literal votes in Nevada.

Then there are the delegates for the National convention who get chosen by State Democratic Party Convention attendees, sometimes because of the power base and popularity of those individuals, and not necessarily because of the popularity of the candidate that they chose to stand for. All of this is fair and proper, all in accordance with the rules. Even primary votes are not always straight forward, if one is searching for the “popular will” of that state, when a delegate gets assigned for winning a political district by a squeaker in one case and by a mile in another. There is no internal consistency, winner take all can be rejected at the state level but embraced at the district level.

The net result of the myriad of means by which pledged delegates are selected for the Democratic National Convention is the bottom line math indicating who leads in pledged delegates entering that Convention. If the nomination contest isn't close the candidate ahead in pledged delegates will also have the nomination clinched, and will lead in "popular votes" by any criteria chosen to count them. He or she could then claim the moral mandate of "the popular will" and it is unlikely anyone would argue against that.

The purpose of the Obama campaign’s claim that a pledged delegate lead equates "the popular will" is to influence undecided Super Delegates. The same purpose holds for claiming to win the popular vote tally once the primaries end. Both claims are debate points, nothing more nothing less. If one candidate can persuasively argue that he or she holds both the pledged delegate lead and the popular vote lead, that candidate has the much stronger case to claim his or her candidacy represents "the popular will”, as unofficial a standing as that actually is.

There are no official criteria for claiming “the popular will”, and no delegates are awarded for winning it even if we could agree on what it actually is and/or who possesses it. But if someone wants to try using it for a talking point, I personally think a popular vote count comes closest to reflecting our elusive collective popular will. Neither the popular vote nor the popular will is anything official, which to my mind gives the pairing a certain curious logic on top of the apparent one.

There were political as well as principled considerations at work in both the Clinton and Obama campaigns regarding revotes for Florida and Michigan, both sides pondered the politics, no doubt in my mind about it. Without revotes Hillary Clinton will make her case that she won the only popular votes that actually were cast in both those states, Obama of course will make a counter case. Both cases are debate points deployed toward winning that elusive mantle called "the popular will", which in turn will be deployed toward winning the very real but also elusive votes of undeclared Super Delegates.

Arguments over the popular vote in Florida and Michigan are related to but also separate from legal issues about the actual seating of those state's delegates. It’s no wonder to me that the Obama camp was warmer to considering a new caucus than a new primary for Michigan or that the Clinton camp was firm on seeking a new primary. It is harder to rack up popular votes in a caucus than in a primary, and Obama benefits by the status quo math if Michigan isn’t included.

Jay Cost over at Real Clear Politics put together a great interactive spread sheet to spec out which Democratic candidate will be in a better position to claim “winning the popular vote” under a multitude of scenarios. Note that under various plausible and arguably logical ways of approaching it, either Obama or Clinton could come out on top:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/chooseyourown.html

We have a system for electing the President of the United States of America and it is not directly based on determining the “popular will”. We also have a system for nominating the Democratic candidate for President and it too is not based on mathmatically determining “the popular will”. Who the hell knows now what the overall Democratic “popular will” would actually reflect in June if it could then magically be measured, factoring in whatever unknowable unknown revelations may yet await us about our candidates and their campaigns?

The bottom line though is simple. If a Democratic candidate for president can marshal enough support during the primary season to win a majority of ALL Democratic delegates, we know our nominee ahead of time. That is what happens in all but our tightest races. The fact that we may not know that this time just indicates that this time we have one of our tightest races. Rules have been established to determine our nominee, and they remain in effect. There will be no coups, just potentially a lot more politics.

[kwenu]

1. Saying that there will only be "potentially a lot more politcs" is a bit of an understatement.

[Tom Rinaldo]

2. Yup. That at least is easy for most folks to agree on, lol n/t

[tritsofme]

3. Great piece. Thanks.

nt

[Texas Hill Country]

4. fantastic article. thank you

[Auntie Bush]

5. If that were NOT true...why do we even have such a thing as a super delegate?

[Tom Rinaldo]

6. Of course, but sometimes it seems this needs to be spelled out

I have always been bothered by the double standard of some Obama supporters who celebrate "victories" in States like Nevada and Texas where Obama got more delegates and Clinton got more votes, while at the same time proclaiming that "the popular will" must be respected at the Democratic Convention. Never saw much outrage expressed toward those Obama caucus selected delegates, in States where Hillary got the most votes, who don't see a problemto overturning "the popular will" expressed by the voters of their states.

[Auntie Bush]

7. I wonder how many would be upset if Kerry, Kennedy and any other delegates in MA

were to vote for Hillary? Thanks for explaining this troubling misnomer. I hope they read your post.

[tgnyc]

19. Excellent point. Hence the silence of the Obama people here.

[mohc]

8. While in general I agree with you, I think you de-emphasize the pledged delegate lead too much.

In the end, each individual superdelegate gets to decide what criteria they will use to decide who they will support. This is however a delegate race, not a popular or electoral vote race. Having won more pledged delegates is not just one of many possible methods to judge the race. If nothing else, the pledged delegate lead sets the margins by which the superdelegate counts play out in. Although it would not have been a very realistic scenario, Obama could very well have run up larger margins in the caucus states which could have dramatically shifted the pledged delegate counts without fundamentally changing "popular vote" margins. If in that scenario Obama only needed a few more superdelegates to take the majority, while Clinton would have needed to take almost all of them, trying to argue to the superdelegates the merits of the popular vote lead would be quite futile. With the assumption that FL and MI delegates to not come into play until after the nominee is chosen, by the time all the pledged delegates are allocated Obama will most likely need slightly less than 100 more superdelegates to give him a majority. Clinton meanwhile will most likely need more than 250 additional superdelegates than she has now. If these remaining superdelegates voted as a block, the arguments for what constitutes the "popular will" might be more important. In the end this determination would decide the winner as the block would have the votes to put either over the top. But as we all know, they do not vote in a block, and each superdelegate will make their own determinations. Few are arguing that no superdelegate is going to go against the pledged delegate leader, instead what people are saying is that to expect an overwhelming majority to do so is just foolish. Obama leads by about 6% in pledged delegates, Clinton leads the already endorsed superdelegates by about 5% and that lead is slipping, and the various "popular vote" counts show a gap of less than 1% up to 3%. After all that, expecting a lead of over 50% for Clinton among the uncommitted superdelegates, while possible, is just unrealistic. At this point the most likely scenario that leads to a Clinton win is one where some event or issue arises that forces Obama to drop out of the race despite his lead.

[Tom Rinaldo]

9. I don't really disagree with your points

I may tweak the numbers differently than you, but obviously the larger the pledged delegate lead Obama has, realistically the more impractical it becomes for Clinton to rally enough Super Delegates to her side to off set that lead. And were Obama to lead by enough pledged delegates that he only was shy a few dozen votes of the majority he needed to win the nomination outright, no matter what the popular vote count was the chance of the remaining unpledged Super Delegates turning to Clinton in numbers large enough to offset that would essentially be nil. But essentially none of that has anything to do about arguing about the popular will. It more is handicapping how difficult it becomes for a candidate trailing in pledged delegates to overcome the advantage of the leading candidate the greater that lead is heading into the convention. I was responding to various comments I frequently read and hear about the need for Super Delegates to respect the sanctity of "popular will", which seemingly it is argued can mechanically be determined by counting which candidate has the most pledged delegates entering the convention.

[mohc]

10. Wow...this almost seems to be a constructive discussion

The only part I am really taking issue with is viewing the "popular will" as some sort of absolute. Those that argue that it is will say that if a candidate is ahead at all in pledged delegates and has the "popular will" then they must be nominated, because otherwise the superdelegates are overriding the popular will. For those that use pledged delegates, they would therefore see any lead in pledged delegates as an automatic win. But that would also mean if neither candidate had an outright majority based solely on pledged delegates that those that believe popular vote totals represent the popular will would think a candidate well behind in pledged delegates should still win if they lead at all in popular votes. Once again they would view the superdelegates of overriding the popular will. This thinking views the superdelegates as subservient to whatever the popular will is to whomever is making their case to the superdelegates. In an odd sort of way, the reason I do not believe the superdelegates will override a pledged delegate leader that has a decent margin is because I believe the superdelegates ARE NOT bound to arbitrary notions of the popular will. If superdelegates choose their own criteria, they will most likely pick in proportions not all that different from these various measures of popular will. In my view, if superdelegates were to vote disproportionately to pledged delegates, I would not be upset because they were overturning the popular will per se, but because their doing so would seem to imply some sort corruption. I would be suspect of results if the pledged delegate count was almost even and the superdelegates overwhelmingly supporter EITHER candidate, even the leader. Basically my premise is that the superdelegate preferences should be largely similar to those of the public at large. With the lead Obama currently has in pledged delegates, it would take such a large break for Clinton that it would be completely out of line with any measure of popular will.

[Tom Rinaldo]

11. An interesting argument, and a good discussion

Again, in many ways I agree with you. In my OP I think I made it clear that I think both a pledged delegate lead AND a claim of winning the popular vote are essentially just talking points that can be used in an attempt to sway undecided SD's toward the camp making the argument that their candidate has "the popular will" behind him or her.

Currently the camp that seems most infatuated with defining "the popular will" in their favor is Obama's - using an argument based on a pledged delegate lead, though I suppose that could change if the Clinton camp ends up feeling they have a good case to make that Clinton won the popular vote when all is said and done.

I don't think appealing to the "popular will" argument can or should be a slam dunk proposition for either side in this contest, if nothing else because all the variables determining what that is and who has it are murky at best if the contest stays this close. But I do want to point out that some supporters of Obama continually make claims that anything other than SD's "ratifying" a pledged delegate lead by throwing their support behind whoever has it at the end of the primaries means the nomination has been stolen from their guy - with the most extreme among them throwing out threats of massive demonstations and potentially riots resulting under that scenario.

Meanwhile regarding your actual point, I think that would be true if this race just see sawed it's way to the finish line with no real message being conveyed to SD's from here on out that hasn't already been conveyed by the results to date. If Clinton just wins the states she is supposed to win, and Obama keeps picking up roughly the same share of various demographic groups as he has been all along, I agree that it would be hard to see why remaining unpledged SD's should break strongly toward Clinton disproportionate to all that has gone before.

But I think it is still possible that this may not be the case, even if many find it unlikely for Clinton to still surprise significantly to the upside from here on out. Leaving that debate aside for some other thread, should Clinton say win 8 of the remaining 10 contests in a manner that also convincingly shows her increasing strength and Obama's increasing weakness, I would argue that there is no inherent mandate of "the popular will" that morally would bind SD's to reward Obama with the nomination anyway just because he finished the contest with a lead in SD's. If Obama was somehow convincingly exposed to be the weaker candidate for Democrats to run based on some set of events yet to play out, an appeal to nominate him anyway based on some supposed expression of "the popular will" would be hollow.

[mohc]

13. I am probably one of the few Obama supporters to admit this...

When it comes to "popular will", I believe if there is such a thing that in fact BOTH candidates have it. Looking at past nominations, there have been cases where the winner had less than 30% of the popular vote. Clinton is somewhat of a tough spot, previous runner-ups have not have anywhere near the support she has. Those previous candidates had to drop out because in the event that the leader had to drop out they really did not have any more of a claim over the nomination than some drafted candidate at the convention. That is not the case this year, despite what many in the "draft a candidate" movements may want, unless both Obama and Clinton had to drop out, an extremely unlikely outcome, one of the two will be the nominee. For that reason I do not believe Clinton will be able to bring herself to drop out, even when at some point Obama crosses the 2024 mark in delegates. Anything that could cause Obama to drop out could just as likely occur between now and the final contests as it could between the contests and the convention. Again, its not that there is no way that Clinton could take the lead without Obama dropping out, I just believe it is far more likely that if Clinton wins it is through an Obama drop due to some scandal than it is she is able to take the lead through the remaining contests.

[Tom Rinaldo]

14. We're having a good conversation anyway, lol

Those are good insights. If Hillary clearly started coming up short now, for instance if she lost the PA primary, I suspect she might technically "suspend" her campaign and announce that barring any very unexpected developments she fully expected Obama to become our nominee. That would be a step short of actually releasing her delegates.

I'm sure Obama would do the same if gets 25% of the vote in PA, lol.

[Tom Rinaldo]

12. Yeah I know this is dense, but I'm kicking it because

I'm tired of hearing "the popular will" cited as an arguement for why Super Delegates have no ethical choice but to back Obama should he end up the primary season short of an overall delegate majority but leading in pledged delegates. Especially when there are those who call for mass protests and/ predict riots if "the popular will" is "overturned".

[SeaLyons]

15. Great Post...

Thanks, Tom.

[Tom Rinaldo]

16. Thanks. Though it may not exactly be "hot reading"...

I wanted to get this all down in one place and entered into my DU Journal so at least I can refer people to this discussion when these arguments come up in the future, which I have no doubt they will.

[SeaLyons]

17. K&R

[tgnyc]

18. The Obama folks won't cheer this analysis, but it is RIGHT ON POINT!