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Mar 4, 2008 9:17 pm US/Mountain
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Democratic Convention Could Be Sloppy Business
DENVER (CBS4) ―
With the race for the Democratic nomination still stretching out, there's a greater chance each day that there could be what political experts call a "brokered" convention, when the Democratic National Convention comes to the Pepsi Center in August.
"I hope I'm there to see it," said one woman. "Definitely, that would be something worth watching and worth following," said one man. Another woman said, "I know one sure thing, I know I'm not going down to Denver when that's happening."
It may get pretty hairy.
"Well then it'll be a mess in Denver at the Democratic convention," said CU political science professor Ken Bickers. He even used the word "chaos."
That bad? Well, consider this. There hasn't been a brokered convention in the Democratic Party since 1952.
"A brokered convention means that the state party leaders are delivering a whole set of delegates from that state to a candidate," Bickers said. "I actually don't think that's very likely. For a variety of reasons, including that it's been so long that nobody knows how to do that anymore, and the delegates weren't selected by the party leaders to be there as their rank and file supporters."
It used to be that party leaders delivered blocks of delegates to the candidate they wished to support. People were chosen as delegates for their ability to cooperate with what their state party leaders wanted. Today things are different.
"On the Democratic Party side, pledged delegates are pledged only as a moral obligation, it's not a legal obligation, so there could be efforts to get delegates to switch from one candidate to another," Bickers said.
Also, expect a fight over who gets to vote. There's one building over the delegates from Michigan and Florida. Remember those two states were disciplined by the party for trying to move their primaries up early, violating the near sacred traditions of which primaries come early. Right now their delegates won't count. But that's likely to change in some way at the convention, if the nomination is still up in the air. Those fights will come in votes on rules.
"There can be an awful lot of gamesmanship to attract over delegates over to support one rule or another and obviously the rule that's selected ends up making the difference as to whether Clinton or Obama is the ultimate nominee of the Democratic Party," Bickers said.
Bickers points out that a delegate who supports one candidate might secretly support a rule that benefits the other. No delegate is required to vote in any particular way on rules, even while they're morally obligated to vote for their candidate in the early balloting.
And then there are the superdelegates. Many are still undecided.
"I would think that the superdelegates, it's 20 percent of the total delegates, of the superdelegates, if the convention were held today it's almost certain that the superdelegates would provide the pivot from one candidate to the other," Bickers said.
Many may want help when it comes to their own campaigns.
"So it will not be unlikely to see thousands and thousands, maybe millions of dollars going into campaigns that will help super delegates get re-elected or to run campaigns in their states... it's called old fashioned party politics." And that's how things could get settled.
Additional Resources • For complete coverage of the planning for the 2008 Democratic convention in Denver, as well as information about how to volunteer and for a list of helpful links, visit the
Denver 2008 DNC Convention Section.
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