Fair Reflection: "A History of 'Super-Delegates'

[mia]

in the Democratic Party"

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18072/history_of_superdelegates_in_the_democratic_party.ht

(This rule exists today, in 2008, as Rule 12 (J) of the delegate selection rules and has not changed since.)

Yet the exorcism of Rule 11 (H) was not sufficient to solve the deep doubts about the nominating system that had arisen as the result of the bitter rules and platform fights at the 1980 Convention. Congressmen, stung by the lack of impact they had been able to have on the 1980 process, and fearing that 1984 would be a repeat, banded together to ask that 2/3 of the Democratic Members of the House be elected by the House Caucus as uncommitted voting delegates to the 1984 Convention. Led by Congressman Gillis Long, Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Members asserted that they had a special role to play in the nomination process and in the platform process. In his testimony before the Hunt Commission, Long put the views of the Democratic Caucus as follows:

“We in the House, as the last vestige of Democratic Control at the national level, believe we have a special responsibility to develop new innovative approaches that respond to our Party’s constituencies." (Testimony before the Hunt Commission, November 6, 1981)

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Why is this so important to the Clinton campaign?