Much has been made of the so-called Democratic Superdelegates and I don’t know about you, but this year was the first time I’ve heard of the term. Same goes for the phrase “apportioning the delegates”, a practice in some states that awards a percentage of delegates to each candidate that runs in that primary. Personally, I’m a fan of the “winner take all” tradition and as I tried to track down what all this means and how it came about, I found some interesting websites devoted to stalking the superdelgates and dispelling some of the myths surrounding the process.

Thank goodness for the internet and the Superdelegate Transparency Project. Courtesy of Congresspedia, the Superdelegate Transparency Project is a joint venture of LiteraryOutpost.com, OpenLeft,and DemConWatch. Approximately ¼ of all delegates to the Democratic Convention this summer are “superdelegates” and just like Paris Hilton in Vegas, they can pretty much do whatever they want when they get to the big show. If you want to view a list of the superdelegates, DemConWatch is continuously updating their endorsements and tracking their every move and it’s an eye-opening group of who’s who in Democratic politics. I did not even know some of these guys were still alive.

So, I guess you think your primary vote counts, right? Ha. Think again.

When you vote in a presidential primary or caucus, you are REALLY assigning your vote to a delegate that you expect will vote for your candidate at the appropriate conventions. It’s a reasonable expectation. But it’s not grounded in political reality.

Many states do not bind delegates to follow the results of the popular vote. In the case of a contested convention, the rules get very fuzzy. If no single candidate gets a majority of the delegates on the first vote, the deal-making starts up in earnest. After the second ballot, most delegates are free to nominate anybody they feel like. Theoretically, there could be a ground swell of support for Howard Stern, if they so choose. The last down and dirty floor fight at a convention occurred in 1984, when Gary Hart and Jesse Jackson initially refused to yield to Walter Mondale. And we all know how well THAT one turned out for the Democrats. Who needs those stinking TV writers now that we have a prime time comedy show looming this summer?

Still clinging desperately to the notion that your primary vote will count?

Consider this: the national parties do not apportion delegates to states simply on the basis of overall population or even the partisan numbers. The formula for apportioning delegates is complex and inconsistent across the two parties. Even if states have almost equivalent populations, one state might get more electoral votes than the other. The Democrat’s formula is based on some archaic mathematical calculation loosely tied to the creaky and outdated Electoral College system.

Did you know that Hubert Humphrey became the Democratic candidate for President in 1968 without ever winning a primary? Maybe this primary business is getting too much coverage and we should go back to the good old days. By the way, I’m thinking of staging my own protest at the Democratic Convention this summer, a la Chicago 1968. The DNC has disenfranchised my state, Florida, by refusing to recognize the results of our “early” primary. Our delegates won’t be seated because a few influential crybabies in New Hampshire and Iowa don’t cotton to us Dixie Democrats stealing their liberal thunder. FREE FLORIDA! BOYCOTT THE DNC!

I’m getting very turned off by the whole thing and I am thinking about supporting Christopher Walken for President. Yes, that’s not a typo. Really. Christopher Walken, the guy from all those B movies. It was a toss-up between supporting him or Eric Roberts and Walken has the better website.

And finally, if you are fed up with ABC, NBC and CBS and you’ve had a belly full of Fox and CNN, I heartily recommend The Onion for your news source. None of anything they publish is true, of course, but unlike the serious new reporting organizations, they TELL YOU upfront that it’s a fictionalized version of the day’s events. Which is more than can be said about the fairy tales coming out of the “legitimate” news reporting outlets.

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