Tennessee’s Governor Bresden offered a pretty good idea on how to nail down a Democratic nominee for President before the Denver convention. Quoting Bresden’s op-ed in the New York Times:
Here’s what our party should do: schedule a superdelegate primary. In early June, after the final primaries, the Democratic National Committee should call together our superdelegates in a public caucus.
Of the 795 superdelegates, over 40 percent have not announced which candidate they are supporting; I’m one of them. While it would be comfortable for me to delay making a decision until the convention, the reality is that I’ll have all the information I reasonably need in June, and so will my colleagues across the country.
There will have been more than 20 debates, and more than 28 million Americans will have made their choices and voted. Any remaining uncertainty in our nominee will then lie with the superdelegates, and it will be time for us to make our choices and get on with the business of electing a president.
I’ve got to say that, even though I’ll be voting either third-party or for McCain (see note below), I like the idea a lot. Intraparty squabbling will only detract from the seriousness of the general election, and I’d like to see some real debate emerge between McCain and the eventual Democratic nominee.
Besides…after the questions surrounding the 2000 and 2004 elections, the last thing that needs to happen is for a national decision to be based seemingly on the back-room discussions of a Democratic cabal. The Dems would be well-served by having at least the appearance of openness with regards to the final steps of their nominating process.
Of course, for such an idea to work, closure needs to be reached on what to do about Michigan and Florida delegates. That’s another discussion where intraparty squabbling is distracting at best, and damaging at worst.
There is one little catch to all this, however. Considering some of the vagaries involved…what happens if the Clinton-Obama race is still close—a handful of delegates apart—at the end of a superdelegate caucus? Would the two camps continue to fight all the way to Denver, trying to sway individual delegates here and there?