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Comment by eli | Hacker News Reader

I honestly don't understand why this is surprising or problematic. Working to get Democrats elected is the purpose of the DNC. They aren't some disinterested third party. Of course they have memos on how to help Hillary Clinton run for office. And I'm sure they go further back than 2015 too. I'd hope they'd do that for many Democrats, but I'd be shocked if they didn't do tons of work to help someone as prominent as HRC.

> favoritism in a party primary

Do the documents show that or are you inferring it based on what hasn't been leaked?

Even if we grant that the DNC leadership thinks Hillary is the best... so what? It's a political party that takes public input from voters as one factor in deciding a nominee. The DNC shouldn't stuff ballot boxes and should try it's best to make the primaries as fair as possible, but to pretend they don't have like some candidates more than others strikes me as unrealistic.

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Working to get Democrats elected: okay

Party preferences in a Democrats-against-Democrat competition while publicly declaring the party infrastructure neutral: not okay

That is, the DNC is supposed to be about promoting the chosen candidate to the American people, not actively picking one.

Nobody doubts that official favoritism isn't theoretically _allowed_ in a party primary, it just goes against the theory that it is a truly wide-open contest where the American people decide the direction of their government.

Remember superdelegates? The system is explicitly designed to not be a 100% democratic process.

(It used to be wholly decided by party elders in secret. I'm glad we mostly use primaries now, but I can see the merit of that approach. I bet the Republican leadership wishes that's still how it worked right now. )

1) superdelegates are not the DNC.

2) The Democratic party's official position is not that superdelegates are a complement to a 100% democratic process but instead that they exist _solely_ to ensure that party leaders are properly seated at the convention and do not have to compete with grassroots activists for participation at the national convention.

I don't personally believe that (2) is a good-faith defense of what superdelegates are, but that is the DNC's position. And it's worth mentioning that there are valid reasons for superdelegates: how do you deal with a potential nominee like John Edwards, what if the convention is truly contested (with 3+ candidates and no 1st-ballot victory?).

The Republican primary went largely as it should have been, and arguably Trump should have received an even larger share of the final delegates. Voters expressed their preference and that person became the nominee (whatever I think of their preference is irrelevant).

> they exist _solely_ to ensure that party leaders are properly seated at the convention

Who said that? I've never heard that before. Of course the superdelegates are intended to have a say in the nominee.

The Chair of the Democratic party (google for any number of sources):

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Well, let me just make sure that I can clarify exactly what was available during the primaries in Iowa and in New Hampshire. The unpledged delegates are a separate category. The only thing available on the ballot in a primary and a caucus is the pledged delegates, those that are tied to the candidate that they are pledged to support. And they receive a proportional number of delegates going into the — going into our convention.

Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists. We are, as a Democratic Party, really highlight and emphasize inclusiveness and diversity at our convention, and so we want to give every opportunity to grass-roots activists and diverse committed Democrats to be able to participate, attend and be a delegate at the convention. And so we separate out those unpledged delegates to make sure that there isn’t competition between them.

Since I must assume that you are not stupid, I have no choice but to be insulted that you think so little of the HN audience that you expect we would become convinced of your assertion after reading that statement.

Thank you for the substantive reply. Cheers!

Actually my read on Wasserman's quote (reproduced in another comment) is that superdelegates exist to promote the seating of grassroots delegates, the implied logic being that if the superdelegates weren't delegates, they would simply be elected in place of grassroots delegates with the result being a decrease in their representation (If I were the type to try and be a delegate, I really wouldn't want to run against Obama, Clinton, or Carter in their home districts)

Right, the two ways of looking at superdelegates that you and I describe are essentially dual. The point is that the purported intent of superdelegates is not to change the outcome (i.e. make the process not 100% democratic), as was claimed above. Now, if that's not true, then the superdelegate system is much more difficult for me to defend, as a party member. I'd be inclined to join a different party, like the Greens.

Why a system that encourages interparty infighting is not a good thing for democracy.

Just switch to OMOV and have each state democratic party vote on a leader and have them run for president would save a vast amount of cash being wasted.

That is, the DNC is supposed to be about promoting the chosen candidate to the American people, not actively picking one.

Neither the DNC or any other political party is obligated to hold elections at all. They're perfectly free to nominate a candidate by fiat if they want to. Clearly, as a matter of marketing, they want to be as inclusive as possible and not appear to be picking favorites. But that's purely a PR consideration, not a moral one. As a practical matter, one of the intermediate goals for anyone running for high office is to make sure they have a lot of supporters in the party infrastructure. Only in the general elections do "the American people decide the direction of their government." The parties are free to do as they wish, democratically or not.

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