The big flaw in Tim's argument
by
Vic from Oregon
05/03/2008, 2:14 AM #
Tim suggests - indeed, his whole argument actually requires this premise to be true - that remaining unpledged delegates, the misnamed "superdelegates", are waiting to see what everyone else is going to do before they decide what to do. Why are they waiting? Tim and others offer us possible scenarios. Here are a couple. To fulfill the wishes of the people? Well, then that would leave them split evenly down the middle. Too afraid to vote their own conscience? Yet, nothing has led anyone to believe these particular people are lacking a backbone.
Whatever the reasons, such attempts at electoral divination are all very speculative. With an authority that Tim doesn't actually possess, he suggests that regardless of why they wait, the longer they wait the more likely they will all vote in unison for the same reason. The problem with this argument is that we don't have a previous election like this one to see how undecided delegates actually vote. Usually when we try to predict a behavior, especially of a group of people who could easily behave differently from each other, we try to base it upon past actions and events. In this case, we don't have such a basis to rely upon.
The reality is we don't know who will win. But, that's the great thing about true democracies. You don't declare the winner until the ballots are all counted. Unless, of course, you want to disenfranchise voters. Something of a past time these days.
There are many ways to suppress the vote. One of them is to convince voters their vote won't make a difference so they shouldn't bother. It's an old trick. It's a good thing women and minorities didn't listen to these arguments too often or for too long. Otherwise, we wouldn't be having this historical election.
