15, February 2016 Super delegates & media malpractice
The whole democratic process has been
corrupted by dark money and a slewed system of allocating delegates. Consider
the recent election in Iowa and New Hampshire. Bernie Sander’s trounced Hillary
Clinton with a double-digit victory in New Hampshire 60 to 38 percent but they
split the delegates evenly thanks to super delegates who pledged their support
for Clinton. These super delegates, senators, governors and other elected
officials often represent the Democratic Party elite. In early August of last
year, the Clinton campaign claimed a super delegate count of 400 out of a total
of 712.
The Democratic Party implemented the super delegate
system in the early '80s in an effort to produce an electable candidate and
discourage insurgents like Bernie Sanders. Sanders’s supporters complain that
the system is undemocratic because it skews the election in favor of an
establishment candidate and the outcome might be decided in the back room
rather the voting booth.
It is possible for Sanders’s to win the
popular vote but lose the election.
The super delegates make up about 15% of the
4,800 total delegates which could still result in the defeat of a more popular
insurgent.
According to the Tyndall Report which tracks
the flagship nightly news programs on NBC, CBS and ABC there is been an almost
total blackout of the Sanders campaign amounting to media malpractice. In 2015
in the 261 minutes that ABC devoted to the campaign, Trump got 81 minutes,
while Sanders got only 20 seconds.
Notes:
To add to the confusion, each state has its own rules. The Republicans have a
similar system but more benign, only three per state.
It’s
likely that the system was contrived following the defeat of George McGovern
who was roundly defeated by 20 points in the general election.
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