It’s that simple.
Superdelegates do not exist so that the establishment can stop a winning candidate they don’t like.
Superdelegates were created and implemented to prevent a losing candidate from trying to steal a close election. Superdelegates are supposed to widen the margin of victory and remove uncertainty about who the nominee will be.
That’s according to Tad Devine, chief strategist for the Sanders campaign and the guy who created superdelegates:
Democrats created these superdelegates after the 1980 election with several purposes in mind.
Party leaders had been underrepresented on the floor of the 1980 convention, which was the culmination of a bitter contest for the nomination between President Jimmy Carter and Senator Ted Kennedy that left our party deeply divided and contributed to the party’s loss of the presidency that year.
Many party leaders felt that the delegates would actually be more representative of all Democratic voters if we had more elected officials on the convention floor to offset the more liberal impulses of party activists.
But the superdelegates were also created to provide unity at the nominating convention.
They are a critical mass of uncommitted convention voters who can move in large numbers toward the candidate who receives the most votes in the party’s primaries and caucuses. Their votes can provide a margin of comfort and even victory to a nominee who wins a narrow race.
2016 isn’t really a narrow race, but superdelegates are about to do exactly what they always do. Exactly what they did for Obama in 2008 when the primaries ended. On Tuesday, June 7, the superdelegates will formally acclaim their support for the candidate who earned the majority of pledged delegates: Hillary Rodham Clinton. At that point we’ll have our presumptive nominee.
I don’t really blame Bernie Sanders and his team for claiming some fictional role for superdelegates. That’s the kind of thing politicians do. But I suspect as events unfold this week, Bernie will realize that history is moving forward. If he doesn’t, he’ll be left behind.
“Events are in the saddle and ride mankind.” -Emerson