Posted on Mon, May. 05, 2008

Delegate system not super for all

By Ryan Alessi

HERALD-LEADER POLITICAL WRITER

Most prominent Democrats claim, at least publicly, that they don't mind this protracted presidential primary that could wind its way through all 50 states, the District of Columbia and four territories over five months.

Other observers describe it a little differently.

The Democrats' nomination process "is ridiculously dumb," said Scott Jennings, a former deputy political director for President Bush who now works for Peritus Public Relations in Louisville.

"It's like a European soccer game: there's a lot of running around for almost an endless amount of time and it almost always ends with a tie," he said at the Lexington Forum meeting last week.

The close contest between U.S. Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has been rattling around the national electoral soccer field largely because of the way the party's delegate system is set up.

It's not a winner-take-all system as most state Republican primaries are. Instead, the so-called pledged delegates in each state are divvied up proportionally to the candidates based on how each fares in the state's primary as well as how they do in the congressional districts.

Then there are the free radicals of the selection process: the 795 national superdelegates, who can vote at the Democratic National Convention for whichever candidate they choose regardless of the state's primary results.

Kentucky has 51 pledged delegates and nine superdelegates.

Eight superdelegates are party leaders -- three Democratic National Committee members, the governor, both Democratic congressmen and the state party chairman and vice chairman. The ninth will be decided at the state's June 7 convention.

And so Obama and Clinton have been waging two simultaneous campaigns that are nearing their ends.

One has been to capture the hearts and minds of the party's voters in hopes of generating more pledged-delegate support.

The other has been to persuade superdelegates to jump on board.

Last week, Joe Andrew, a former Democratic National Committee chairman during the end of President Bill Clinton's second term and a sought-after superdelegate, switched his support from Hillary Clinton to Obama.

"Neither candidate will be the nominee without the support of superdelegates," Andrew, an Indiana native, said on a conference call with reporters. "I have been a longtime critic of the process that results in superdelegates" getting the final say.

But those are the rules of this strange game.

Obama supporters say last week's switch by Andrew and endorsements by two slightly conservative congressmen who represent districts likely to vote for Clinton -- Reps. Ben Chandler of Versailles and Baron Hill of Indiana -- could be the beginning of a tide of undecided superdelegates breaking his way.

For instance, U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth of Louisville said he knows an undecided congressman from Pennsylvania, whom he wouldn't identify, who wants to endorse Obama even though Clinton won the state and his district.

"He has to wait until it looks like he can say, 'Well, the pledged delegates are really going to be for Barack,'" Yarmuth said.

Clinton backers, meanwhile, are making the case to superdelegates that she is best suited to win in November because she has received more votes than Obama in large, key states, such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

"I think electability is going to become a primary issue," said Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Clinton supporter. "Looking at how the candidates stand in national public opinion polls, looking at which of the two of them garner the greatest number of votes will lead to which of them garner the greatest number of the remaining uncommitted superdelegates."

Jennifer Moore, the Kentucky Democratic Party chairwoman who spent part of the Kentucky Derby with Chelsea Clinton, said she will remain undecided at least through Kentucky's May 20 election.

"I think at this point, we have to wait and see what happens in the other primaries. A lot can happen in between the primary on Tuesday and the primaries in June. I think it's too early," she said.

So the Democrats have no choice now but to wait until the end of this regulation soccer game that is the Democratic primary, she said.

"We'll get to the end of the 90 minutes," she said, "and we'll all come together and focus on John McCain."

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