Tulsi Gabbard's petition to end Democratic Party superdelegate process (HRC GP)

[Her Sister]

Last edited Sun Jun 12, 2016, 06:22 AM - Edit history (1)

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard encouraged her followers on Saturday to sign a petition ending the Democratic Party’s use of superdelegates.
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“Whether you are a Bernie Sanders supporter or a Hillary Clinton supporter, we should all agree that unelected party officials and lobbyists should not have a say in who the presidential nominee of our party is,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “That should be left up to the voters.”
Gabbard resigned as a vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee in February to publicly endorse the Vermont senator’s campaign.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/tulsi-gabbard-superdelegate-petition-224220

HRC Group: Discuss the life, career, and accomplishments of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Supporters only.

[Her Sister]

1. I like the Superdelegates! Maybe a smaller percentage!

I like the idea of taking some cues from insiders who know the candidates! I find this helpful and very relevant!


I don't want Tulsi Gabbard as Chair of the DNC! Please NOOOOOOOO!!!!

Don't trust this person at all!

[Cha]

7. Doesn't the President have a hand in choosing the Chair of the DNC? gabbard hates President

Obama and she hates Hillary.. why the hell would she be DNC chair?

[Her Sister]

8. Yeah, they're going to choose a Fox Favorite to chair the DNC!!!

BS' campaign just too obvious! It's all about revenge! and going against the Democratic Party!

[Cha]

10. Yeah, no more stupid trojan horses, burnie.

[LiberalFighter]

20. I think the percentage is fine. Much better than it was in the past.

It will fluctuate based on how many Governors, Senators, Representatives and whether we have a President and Vice President in office. Right now there are 261. If every state had just a Democratic Governor and Democratic Senators and Representatives there could be 588. But, that might also mean there would be more pledged delegates. Pledged delegates are allocated to each state based on past voter turnouts for the Democratic Presidential candidate.

15 percent is low enough without resulting in that group controlling the process. When it reaches about 30 percent then it might be an issue.

The only part of unpledged delegates that remains constant are the state party leaders from each state. It is the chair and vice chair. The vice chair must be of the opposite gender of the chair also.

The state party DNC members are proportionally allocated.

[still_one]

24. I agree with you Her Sister. Super Delegates are a safety valve, and reduce the

likely hood of chaos at the convention.

Super delegates have always supported the candidate who has won the most pledged delegates. They reduce the possibility where someone is just short of the requisite delegate count, to allow the convention become a free for all.

I don't want to get rid of Super Delegates

[caquillo]

2. After Trump infiltrated the GOP to great success (but to their horror)

And Sanders almost having equal success on the DNC side, I doubt they will get rid of unpledged delegates. Their job is to prevent such a takeover. We don't need the left version of the Tea Party bringing us down, too.

[DemonGoddess]

3. ^^^This!!!

[BlueMTexpat]

12. +1! eom

[Thinkingabout]

16. After watching the GOP squirm this year, the super delegates is a great idea.

After seeing petitions with attempts for a few to make hostile takeover of our Democratic party with an oligarchy portion of the party we have to preserve our party by whatever means.

[NYC Liberal]

22. Yes, and I suspect the GOP might create their own superdelegates

after Trump.

[caquillo]

23. If they survive...

[72DejaVu]

4. Did Tulsi renounce her own super delegate position?

No? Then she can go pound sand.

[Raissa]

5. I am interested in a revision of the system.

I've been thinking about it a lot and while I fully understand the reasoning behind the creation of the superdelegates, I think that now that we are all so connected to the media any actual use of them to override the voters would be as much a death sentence in November as the wrong candidate. It always would have been a situation creating chaos and rage, but how we consume media and intersct with the world has changed so much this past decade that I don't see their stated reason for existence as something that would be beneficial to the party.

I do think the DNC needs to look at other ideas and approaches to help weed out unviable candidates early into the process. I just dont know what that is at the moment.

[LiberalFighter]

19. I disagree. It is in my opinion set up the right way.

Unless, circumstances occur the unpledged delegates will not alter the outcome of the nomination. It should remain the way it is so when those circumstance do occur there is a way to correct it.

Primary History

“We must also give our convention more flexibility to respond to changing circumstances and, in cases where the voters’ mandate is less than clear, to make a reasoned choice. One step in this direction would be to loosen the much-disputed “binding” Rule 11 (H) as it applies to all delegates. An equally important step would be to permit a substantial number of party leader and elected official delegates to be selected without requiring a prior declaration of preference. We would then return a measure of decision-making power and discretion to the organized party and increase the incentive it has to offer elected officials for serious involvement.” (Remarks of Governor Jim Hunt, Institute of Politics, JFK School of Government, December 15, 1981)

Keep in mind that the primary period lasts nearly 6 months. Not including the campaigning period. A lot can happen in 6 months or even less. Party leaders and elected officials need to be part of the process or the party suffers.

As for unviable candidates I don't believe there is much more that can be done. They already require any candidate needs to receive 15% of the vote at each level to accumulate any delegates. There is also a threshold that candidates must meet in the polls before they get on the stage for any debate.

[BobbyDrake]

6. Sore loser. That's all this is. No mention of caucuses, just bitterly

continuing to fight a primary that is already over. I almost feel sorry for Gabbard, who thought she was hitching her wagon to a rocketship and instead found out it was a dud firecracker. Now she's just an angry embarrassment, her and Nina Turner both. They burned their bridges with the DNC and now want to pretend like they should have influence? Any form of control? What a joke they've become.

Stunts like these are just to keep her name in the newspapers. Wait and see, all of the Bernie surrogates are going to adopt the same Trump-like allergy to facts and addiction to attention. Say/Do whatever it takes to keep the cameras focused on them, in other words. Gabbard, Turner, Weaver, Uygur, all of these "progressives" care more about their own profiles and brands than building a coalition. Makes me wish real life had an Ignore feature.

[Cha]

9. gabbard is just flapping her jaw to get attention.. just like sanders. Hey stupid, it "WAS left to

the voters". Hillary beat BS. Period. End of story.

She's my Rep and I loathe her.

She pisses me off.. can you tell?

Haha she backed the LOSER.

[geek tragedy]

11. If getting superdelegates banned persuades Sanders supporters that they're stakeholders

in Hillary's candidacy and the party, I'm fine with this.

[Princess Turandot]

13. Does she admit that the outcome would have been the same w/o them?

Or does she think that the 2,383-to-win threshold would be the same without the unpledged delegates in the mix, as several of Sanders' supporters seem to believe?

Caucuses represent a far greater diminution of democracy than super-delegates do. Let her get on that in HI, before she dictates to the DNC.

[LiberalFighter]

21. I don't recall Hawaii trying to get rid of caucuses there.

So yes, before trying to change anything she should focus with her own state.

[Ashish]

30. Yes, she acknowledged that in her email on the topic

"Many superdelegate defenders are quick to remind us that their elimination would not have changed the outcome of the presidential election. That is not the point.

The current system is designed to stand against grassroots activists and the will of the voters. Whether you are a Bernie Sanders supporter or a Hillary Clinton supporter, we should all agree that unelected party officials and lobbyists should not have a say in who the presidential nominee of our party is.

That should be left up to the voters."

[jmowreader]

34. Then she has no idea who the superdelegates are

Almost all of them are elected officials.

[BlueMTexpat]

14. If this petition came from someone

who hadn't spent the past several months bashing the DNC, Dems generally and Hillary supporters in particular, it might have some meaningful.

As it is - meh! Tulsi Gabbard has NO credibility whatsoever with me.

[Cha]

15. No, SuperDs Stay! That's a damn bogus request. SuperDs save us from a Mondale.. they're

a good safety net.

BS didn't lose because of SuperDs.. he LOST because Hillary got more Votes and MORE Pledged Delegates.

Don't give into those propaganda pushers.

[caquillo]

17. "SuperDs save us from a Mondale.."

Mondale won the Democratic nomination the same year they introduced the superdelegates (1984). In fact, Mondale was only slightly ahead of Gary Hart in the total number of votes cast but won the support of almost all superdelegates and became the nominee.

[Cha]

18. Oh really! I thought I had read they were introduced to save us

from a candidate like Mondale.

It was McGovern.. sorry, my bad!

A Brief History of Superdelegates

To understand the origin of superdelegates, you have to understand one thing: George McGovern and the 1972 election. But let's first step back and frame things a little bit.

The superdelegate system was instituted over the spring and summer of 1982 by the Commission on Presidential Nominations (CPN), a special committee of the DNC that was chaired by then North Carolina governor James B. Hunt. Superdelegates were the most important of several such changes approved by the CPN; others included shortening the primary season, and loosening the rules for pledged delegates (such that it became easier to be a 'faithless' delegate).

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/2/15/457181/-

Gracias, caquillo

[still_one]

25. You are absolutely right Cha.

[stopbush]

26. Unless and until all D contests are closed primaries,

there is no reason to change the way super delegates currently exist and operate.

As long as the presidential primary process allows non-Ds to have a say in who gets nominated, the supers must exist to act as a safety valve to counter decisions by non-Ds that would hurt the Party.

If we could eliminate caucuses and open primaries and go to closed primaries for all D contests, then, yes, there would be no need for the supers, as the will of Democrats nationwide would be the reason a candidate won the nomination, not because some outside-the-party influence skewed the selection.

[dubyadiprecession]

27. The republicans wish they had superdelegates to avoid the mess they are in with trump...

So i say NO to signing her petition.

[wisteria]

28. The Supers are not why Betnie lost.

I think the SD serve a good purpose, and I would prefer they addressed open conventions and caucuses instead.

[AJ.Akia]

29. The DNC Chair rumor is old -- and untrue.

Tulsi has been the target of Hillary and Brock's paid trolls ever since she backed Bernie and the vilification is unjustified.

The rumor that 'some people' wanted her to chair the National Convention (not DNC) is false and was denied by her directly.

Tulsi disagrees with interventionist/adventurist Clinton's Foreign Policy record and current positions, and has had some disagreement with Obama's Foreign Policy. She's always been respectful to them both.

Tulsi's primary objection is the policy of interventionist, regime-change wars that are responsible for the deaths of thousands, costs trillions of dollars, and that escalate the humanitarian crisis of refugees.

In calling for the end of these wars, she's been speaking out to the American people, not to one particular party.

Speaking truth to power no matter when and where is laudable; Tulsi is not afraid to do that. No one should ever be afraid to stand up for what's right.

Now let's focus on defeating Trump, ok?

[Her Sister]

31. You sound impressed with TG! ~Glad for her.

BTW this is the HRC Group, as I posted in the OP along with the Group's purpose. Here for supporters of HRC. I know you're new.

Glad you recognize Trump for what he is. Perhaps a better use of your time would be in the GDP and or Bernie Group where some could benefit from your take.

If you really want to defeat Trump, why don't you make your case with Trump apologists!

[AJ.Akia]

32. Thanks for the welcome.

I voted for Hillary in 2008 and am not interested in GOP threads, so please don't misunderstand my reason for posting.

Too often a bandwagon is jumped upon without actually examining the integrity of the vehicle and its drivers.

Tulsi's my Representative in Hawaii and it pains me to see the disinformation and vitriol. She's a strong progressive Democrat (as we all are) who wants to see the end of disastrous regime-change wars (as most people in America do regardless of party), so I thought posting this knowledge would benefit the others here.

[Her Sister]

35. Ok. Your opinion, but not everyone from Hawaii has the same take on TG.

Personally I did a lot of research on TG and she is not my cup of tea, and glad to hear that the idea of becoming DNC Chair is a no go. Awesome!!!


I am a Vet myself and am for HRC since 2008. Come to this group because want to be around HRC supporters. Don't come to this group to hear what a war monger HRC is. Am tired to see the disinformation and vitriol.

As you said:

Too often a bandwagon is jumped upon without actually examining the integrity of the vehicle and its drivers.

[misterhighwasted]

33. Tulsi's Cult connections should be enough to dismiss her current rantings against the Dem Party

as nefarious & self serving.
Trust none of her ideology.
America doesn't need another cultist.
Run as far & as fast from Ms Gabbard as you can.
She is not a Dem. Like BS. And the Great Dem Party doesn't need people like them, re-making the Party in their image.
She creeps me out!

[oasis]

36. Dump Gabbard, not super delegates. nt