Bidding Opens On Dem Superdelegate Votes

Submitted by tomsyl on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 1:09pm. Tags:

Economics and Business

And hold onto your hats: this will cost you a lot more than that cherry '55 Chevy two-door you had your eyes on at the last Barrett-Jackson auction in Vegas. From CBS's Sacramento affiliate:

In this tight battle for the Democratic nomination we've heard a lot about the candidates courting superdelegates.

But, one superdelegate is courting the candidates. He says he'll sell his vote for a price. A very high price: $20 million.

Steven Ybarra of Sacramento says that eight-figure price is peanuts for the presidency.

When asked whether it was right to offer what is clearly a quid pro quo, he responded, "yeah, absolutely. People do it all the time," answered Ybarra.

But not like this. Not in public and not for such big bucks. It begs the question: Is he crazy?

"Nobody's said I'm crazy," said Ybarra.

Ybarra wants every cent of the $20 million to go towards registering and educating eligible Mexican-American voters, who he calls the key to the White House.

A noble goal, perhaps, but so what? Unless I missed it, no one here has spoken out against the essential flaws in the superdelegate concept that permits, even encourages, spoils-system interest politics like this.
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Rust never sleeps.

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I've spoken out against the SD system (#93398)

by stillnotking on Fri, 05/09/2008 - 11:36am

The superdelegate system is a terrible and brain-dead idea. Its biggest problem, even bigger than potential corruption, is that it is incapable of functioning as intended. Any nominee that was picked by super delegates against the choice of the voters would be seen as illegitimate -- and would have no chance of general-election victory. Since the super delegates know this, the chances of a nominee being chosen in such a way are essentially zero.

However, having the faint hope that it will go down that way can make a loser prolong the race unreasonably, as we're seeing this year.

The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.

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the essential flaws (#93223)

by Timmy on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 1:22pm

overstated rhetoric no doubt, given the history of picking presidential nominees.

“Let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”
John F. Kennedy
January 20, 1961

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