The headline quote is from The Intercept, starting:
How Lobbyists and Insiders Could Override Voters to Choose the Democratic Presidential Nominee
By, Lee Fang - June 30 2019, 12:00 p.m.
The era of smoky backroom deals and political power brokers in charge of the Democratic Party could come roaring back in Milwaukee next year, when thousands of party faithful convene to formally select the party’s presidential nominee at the Democratic National Convention.
The party’s delegate allocation rules, combined with the large number of candidates and an early election calendar for key states, have laid the groundwork for a small group of lobbyists and party officials to potentially play a deciding role in choosing the nominee.
If no single candidate receives a majority of pledged delegates in the initial vote of the convention, called the first ballot, the nomination goes to what is known as a brokered convention, in which so-called superdelegates participate in subsequent rounds of nomination votes.
Given that there are more than 25 candidates, including four to five with significant support in the polls, it’s possible that there will be no clear frontrunner by the convention in July next year. In that scenario, around 764 superdelegates — a group comprised of elected officials, party elders, and prominent consultants unbound by the will of voters — could dramatically remake the path to the nomination.
The superdelegates were added to the Democratic Party in the early 1980s as a sort of insurance policy, giving establishment figures a permanent share of delegates to guard against nominating a candidate they viewed as a political liability. The superdelegates include elected officials; former “distinguished party leaders,” including Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt; prominent party consultants; and state party officials, most of whom are chosen by the Democratic National Committee or the state parties.
Last year, after superdelegates fueled controversy over the party tilting the scales during the 2016 presidential primary, the Democratic National Committee shot down a proposal to remove superdelegates. Instead, the DNC moved to allow superdelegates to continue to hold power, but only vote in the case of a brokered convention.
In preserving the role of superdelegates, the Democratic Party is allowing conflicts of interest to proliferate — conflicts that could let outside interests influence the nomination process. Many superdelegates also work as professional influence peddlers seeking to shape policy debates around heated issues such as taxation, finance, technology, health care, and defense contracting.
The Intercept has reviewed lobbying records and identified at least eight superdelegates who are currently working with health care clients lobbying against Medicare for All. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase each have lobbyists who double as superdelegates.
And a growing number of superdelegates are currently employed by presidential candidates, an arrangement that means some will enter the convention with less than neutral standing.
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[link in original] The Intercept names names, and unlike Gephardt or Dean, they're unknown functionaries, faceless scavengers feeding off the campaigning system as it stands today. (Doing so, instead of getting real jobs. And they infest both parties - a "bipartisan" leech infestation.)
Many call today "Independence Day" but with a populace enslaved by the two-party governing stranglehold there's only the name "Independence" and the July date; while money calls all the political shots to where only the rich are truly independent.
Biden, John Roberts, and the Clintons may like it, but they're not independent by anybody's real measure. Toadies and trolls run things, and it's a war to have them give up even one iota of actual power to the people. Oligarchy is one thing, democracy is something else. And what we've got is oligarchy. Don't doubt that for a second.
Bernie would have won. Bernie can win in 2020. He only needs the nomination. Warren is an honorable option, if she ends up nominee. And she could win in 2020. Instead, expect some schmuck?
