Super Delegates…to the Rescue (of Hillary Clinton)!
With great power comes great...electability (tough luck, Bernie Sanders).
In the Great Hall of Democracy, there are assembled the Democratic Party's greatest heroes, created from the establishment elite.
Party leaders! Fundraisers! Lobbyists! And…Jimmy Carter!?!?
They are the Super Delegates, 700 electors chosen by party leaders who can vote at the national convention for whichever Democratic candidate they choose, regardless of whom primary and caucus voters actually selected.
Their mission? To fight grassroots candidates that might represent the party's base, to right that which is wrong (according to privileged insiders), and to serve all mankind! Well, no, just Hillary Clinton in the current election season, OK?
Borne out of frustration with the rise of outsider candidates and catastrophic general-election losses for Democrats, according to The New York Times, the superdelegate system "seemed infused with a desire to deny future nominations to political reincarnations of the Jimmy Carter of 1976."
Currently, Clinton has 467 superdelegates pledged to her, while Bernie Sanders has just 26 on his side. Carter, whose disastrous presidency and loss in 1980 helped give rise to the current system, remains uncommitted, although last year he called Clinton the "inevitable" candidate for his party and said he'd "be glad to support her when she gets the nomination."
More recently, the 91-year-old one-termer told CBS News that when it came to Republicans, he would "choose Trump." The billioniare developer "has proven already that he's completely malleable. I don't think he has any fixed opinions that he would really go to the White House and fight for."
About 1 minute.
Written, produced, and edited by Austin Bragg. Animation by Bragg and Jason Keisling.
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