Brokered Democratic Convention?

In a very interesting article today at OpenLeft.com, Chris Bowers outlines how the Democratic nominee for the presidency could very likely be chosen at a brokered party convention. The pledged delegate count, the number of "open" so-called super delegates, and the rules currently governing how this political soup will finally be mixed all indicate that the Democratic party may be in line for a brokered convention. This would likely undermine the eventual nominee and hurt the party -- perhaps significantly -- in the general election.

Bowers indicates that the two main options for the Democrats to avoid such a fate are:

1. To have one of the candidates drop out of the race prior to the convention. (At this point in time, this seems unlikely.)

2. To have all -- or a significant majority -- of the super delegates pledge themselves to whomever has the majority of pledged delegates after the primary season. This would have to be true no matter how slim this majority might be.

All in all, it is an ugly system that the Decocratic party has created for itself and this system may come back and bite the party in the ass.

4 February 2008