It could turn out that Barack Obama wins a majority of the votes in the primaries and ends up not winning the nomination. That is because a group of party hacks have been given the status of 'superdelegate'. And they can support whomever they want. This means that a handful of well-connected individuals would horse trade in the proverbial smoke-filled room as to who represent the Democratic (most likely) and Republican parties in the general election. The most likely beneficiary of a brokered convention would be the establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton. The people's will would be thwarted, again. Just another reason to oppose the two-party and support something that comes from the people:
National party rules give special status to a select political group, including members of Congress, governors, members of the Democratic National Committee, past party officials, and former elected leaders like Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and their vice presidents, Al Gore and Walter F. Mondale.
Officially designated unpledged party leader and elected official delegates, members of this high-powered group are usually known by a catchier term: superdelegates.
If the primary season does not settle the nomination fight and it turns into a hunt for individual delegates, it is conceivable that this group of politicians and party insiders could hold the balance in awarding the nomination.
[...]Superdelegates were created after the 1980 election and were intended to restore some of the power over the nomination process to party insiders, keeping a lid on the zeal of party activists. They immediately came in handy for Mr. Mondale in his 1984 presidential bid, when they gave him a cushion over the upstart campaign of Gary Hart.
Since 1984, they have constituted 15 to 20 percent of the delegates at Democratic conventions, where they have historically supported the front-runner.
According to a recent telephone survey of superdelegates by The New York Times and CBS News, about one-third have expressed no preference in the 2008 race, about 25 percent support Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and about 10 percent favor Senator Barack Obama. The remainder did not return calls or refused to comment.
But nothing in the rules binds any of the superdelegates, and they are free to shift positions, unlike pledged delegates who are committed to support a particular candidate at least through an initial convention vote. That creates a situation that political aficionados dream about: a deadlocked convention up for grabs until a bloc of superdelegates comes together and anoints a nominee.
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