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2 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? e-edition | subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW President candidate says SOU must be enterprising ... Lake Shasta college party routinely turns wild ... Scuba trip to Belize nearly fatal for Rogue River man ... President candidate says SOU must be enterprising ... Lake Shasta college party routinely turns wild ... Scuba trip to Belize nearly fatal for Rogue River man ... OUR VIEW Our View: Superdelegates are not super democratic Comment MailTribune.com Writer Posted May. 22, 2016 at 12:01 AM Posted May. 22, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Social News The Democratic Party has a problem — one it needs to fix before the next presidential election rolls around. The problem is that the capital-D Democrats are less than small-d democratic when it comes to allocating delegates to their nominating convention. Hillary Clinton still leads Sen. Bernie Sanders in the delegate count, with five more states left to hold primaries. In all likelihood, she will have enough delegates after the June 7 contests in California, Montana, New Jersey and the Dakotas to clinch the nomination. But Clinton's safety net — the so-called "superdelegates" — has Sanders supporters fuming, and for good reason. Most delegates are allocated to candidates based on the number of votes they receive in primaries. Superdelegates are different. They are the Democratic governors, U.S. senators and House members and party officials. They are not bound to support any candidate, regardless of the vote in their home states. Up to and including the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, nominees were chosen by the party elite. Vice President Hubert Humphrey was declared the nominee that year without entering a single primary (There were only 17). Sen. Eugene McCarthy, who won more primaries than any other candidate, was denied the nomination. The outrage of McCarthy's anti-war supporters led the party to change its procedure to allow voters to determine the nominee, and the number of states holding primaries increased dramatically. Then came the crushing defeat of Sen. George McGovern in 1972 and the failure of President Jimmy Carter to win re-election in 1980. Party leaders decided something must be done to prevent an "insurgent" candidate from becoming the nominee only to lose the general election. The answer, hammered out by a select commission before the 1984 election, was superdelegates. The philosophy behind the new category of delegate was summed up succinctly by Oregon superdelegate Karen Packer, who told The Associated Press she is backing Clinton because "We are charged with supporting the candidate that we feel is best prepared and best qualified to win the presidency in November and run the country," and "There's no question in my mind that she fills that description far better than her opponent." Oregon Democratic voters, who chose Sanders over Clinton 54 percent to 46 percent, clearly disagreed. But apparently, Packer and other superdelegates are better qualified to make that choice than ordinary voters. If the only purpose of the nominating process is to win elections, the Democrats should dispense with voters altogether and go back to the smoke-filled rooms of yesteryear — minus the smoke, of course. However, if it matters to party leaders what voters think, they should get rid of superdelegates. It's too late to change the rules at this stage in the process, so it is likely Clinton will emerge as the nominee. We're not taking sides in this nomination race, nor predicting which candidate would do better against Donald Trump in November. We are saying that, if voters are going to participate in the primary system, it would behoove the Democratic Party to listen to what they have to say. MailTribune.com Writer Posted May. 22, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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