Hillary Backers Lecture Pelosi On Superdelegates

20 major Hillary Clinton backers have shot off a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about some views she expressed during a recent interview on ABC’s This Week. Pelosi said she believed the superdelgates should vote for the candidate with the most pledged delegates after the primaries are over. In the letter they urged Pelosi to “clarify your position on super-delegates and reflect in your comments a more open view to the optional independent actions of each of the delegates at the National Convention in August.” “Superdelegates, like all delegates, have an obligation to make an informed, individual decision about whom to support and who would be the party’s strongest nominee,” the backers wrote. “Both campaigns agree that at the end of the primary contests neither will have enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination,” they also said. “In that situation, superdelegates must look to not one criterion but to the full panoply of factors that will help them assess who will be the party’s strongest nominee in the general election.” This reflects Clinton’s recent announcements that she thought the superdelegates can change their votes, and exercise independent judgment about who would be the best for the party and the country. They have become important in this election since neither candidate will likely have enough pledged delegates when this is all over, and the superdelegates will have to pick our candidate. The Obama campaign has responded by saying, “this letter is inappropriate and we hope the Clinton campaign will reject the insinuation contained in it.” The Clinton camp has responded to their response with, “few have done more to build the Democratic Party than Bill and Hillary Clinton. The last thing they need is a lecture from the Obama campaign.”
Alan Cosgrove