I take it that a certain ambivalence and distrust towards
full blown democracy is consistent with, if not a core tenet of, conservatism. And
yet in the aftermath of Hillary Clinton losing the New Hampshire primary by 22
percentage points to Bernie Sanders but still being awarded the same number of
delegates, you’d get a different impression. On social media and in numerous
columns conservative pundits and supporters have been either mocking or highly
critical.
The reason for the New Hampshire result is the Democratic
Party’s use of super delegates. Of the total 4,763 delegates and 2,382 needed
to win, 712 are super delegates whose voting is not constrained by the voting
in primaries. So super delegates constitute 14.9% of the total. If my math is
correct a pure insurgent candidate would need to win 58.8% of the voting
determined delegates to gain the nomination [2,382/(4,763 – 712) = .588].If you
hang out with Vox, Salon, MSNBC this an abomination, but for conservatives? If
Aaron Burr having dispensed with Alexander Hamilton seeks the Federalist Party
nomination is an 8.8 percentage point higher bar in the popular will beyond the
pale?
This same week, John Yoo wrote an interesting piece titled Trump and Sanders, The Founders Worst
Nightmare on the founder’s view towards selecting a president. Yoo notes:
“To prevent mindless populism from seizing the
White House, the Founders rejected nationwide election of the president.
Instead, they created the Electoral College. States choose electors (equal to
the number of their members of the House and Senate), who meet and send their
votes to Congress. If there is no majority, then the House votes by state
delegation to choose the chief executive.
While the Electoral College today seems Rube
Goldberg-esque, it served the important purpose of weeding out emotional passions
and popular, but poor, candidates.”
I suspect the real issue here for conservatives is a) the
progressive tendency to overplay the idea of their being the true voice of the
people, and b) disdain for Hillary Clinton. A better avenue of criticism would
be Hillary’s call to abolish the Electoral College in the aftermath of the 2000
election. On that occasion Hillary stated:
“We
are a very different country than we were 200 years ago,…I believe strongly
that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that
means it’s time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular
election of our president.”
In light of recent events, an enterprising reporter or
debate moderator might ask her about this.
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