Will Tammy Baldwin, superdelegate, represent the 2nd CD as well as Tammy Baldwin, Congresswoman?
February 20, 2008
The answer appears to be no.
As a reward for winning every single precinct in Dane County, and for winning big in all the neighboring counties as well, Barack Obama will win five delegates from the 2nd CD, while Clinton will win three.
Unfortunately, unless things change, his actual advantage at the convention will be only a single delegate, since Tammy Baldwin is a superdelegate who plans to vote for Senator Clinton.
Thanks to arcane bylaws written decades ago, Tammy Baldwin has the ability to trump the expressed wishes of her constituents (*), and singlehandedly cut Obama’s delegate advantage in half. Today she stated that she plans to do just that. This hardly seems fair to the thousands of Democrats in Madison and the surrounding communities who went to the polls yesterday and voted for Barack Obama.
One hopes that Rep. Baldwin will recognize the need for democratic legitimacy when selecting our nominee, and support the candidate who, you know, won the most votes.
(*) 251,627 people voted for Baldwin in 2004 (the last presidential election year). If we take that to be a fair estimate of the district’s Democratic voting population, we find out that Tammy Baldwin’s vote in the Democratic primary is roughly 31,000 times more important than anyone else’s.
In exactly the same way that Sandra Day O’Connor’s vote for George Bush was worth more than the votes of 51 million Americans, this sucks.
February 20th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
This is an argument I’ve been having constantly with Obama supporters (a group I would include myself in). I was actually happy that Tammy got involved in the primary. Many representatives chose to sit this tough one out, and Tammy decided to get involved and back the candidate she felt would do the best job. Good for her.
But, now that the voters have spoken, I think she has a duty to represent her district at the convention. If the vote had been close, then I think she would have had some wiggle room by saying, “People were undecided in my district, and I need to make an executive decision.” But when she has won her seat mostly with the help of the student vote, and the students voted 10:1 for Obama, I think it would be dishonest, and politically stupid, for her to vote for Clinton at the convention.
I think the first letter on this page explains best how I feel: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/opinion/l18elect.html
That said, I think she can still stump for Hillary, still travel with her, still try to convince people that she is best. We’ll only see how Tammy really feels about her duty as a super-delegate at the convention.
February 20th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
I agree 100%. I’m not the least bit concerned with elected officials taking sides in a primary, and campaigning for the people they think would do the best job. (Tammy has a completely legitimate argument about who would be better on health care.)
But when it comes time to actually vote, I think everyone’s vote should count the same. I don’t think a politician should have any more say than you or me in voting for a nominee. That’s the essence of a democracy.
February 20th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Writing this mostly for others: We live in a Republic, not a Democracy. Tammy does have more say than us (that’s how a Republic works), but she is also beholden to us, and we expect her to represent us accordingly.
February 20th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
“We live in a Republic, not a Democracy”
This is one of the lamest and overbaked pieces of political cliche soiling the internet, for god’s sake, and says absolutely nothing. This is mostly for others too!
The U.S government has elements of both a republic (which essentially means the head of state isn’t selected by heredity) and a democracy (in which a defined class of citizens get their say in selecting leaders and perhaps policy). No matter what label you want to put on it, though, a basic American ideal is that “all men are created equal.” Superdelegates, particularly those not representing their constituents, conflict directly with this ideal, and goes directly against American notions about their own democracy.
Baldwin’s rapidly burning up good will around Madison with this kind of crap and her do-nothing tenure.
February 20th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Here’s a suggestion if she doesn’t vote the way you want vote her out of office when she comes up I belive that’s how the system works.
February 20th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Re. the republic vs. democracy thing: there’s an important distinction between choosing someone to represent us (using her own wisdom and judgment, subject to our approval) in a parliament (it’s a republic!) and giving them more say than us in the process of deciding who gets elected in the first place.
Of course she has more say than us when it comes to running the government. But I don’t think she should have more say than us when it comes to voting for the other people who run the government.
Re. voting her out of office: but she’s a great representative in almost all respects (this is the first time I can remember strongly disapproving of something she did), and there’s no change in hell that I’ll vote for Dave “.22-caliber” Magnum.
February 21st, 2008 at 9:58 am
Superdelegates are supposed to help keep fatal mistakes from befalling the party (e.g., Dukakis). Unless Tammy Baldwin wants to stand up and say that she thinks Obama would be such a candidate, she needs to join her constituents.
If you feel strongly about it, tell her so at http://tammybaldwin.house.gov/.
February 21st, 2008 at 11:33 am
Tammy can learn quite a bit from Wisconsin’s youngest superdelegate:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/2/21/74119/1940/666/461062
February 21st, 2008 at 7:20 pm
I suspect Tammy will come around on this well before the convention. Her office is going to get inundated with calls, including mine. But if she doesn’t, the way to unelect her is not to vote for Magnum, but to run a strong, progressive primary challenger. It happens — look at Donna Edwards in Maryland overturning a Democratic incumbent.
February 21st, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Madison Guy: good point. If Tammy does end up voting against her constituents at the convention, I would certainly support a progressive primary challenger.
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:14 am
Ben,
You are pathetic. This rule has been in effect most of your life, and you now suddenly don’t like it. I don’t hear you getting upset that Forbes Kerry, or Kennedy are still voting for Nobama.
I actually do think Nobama will be a Dukakis. He will implode in the general and do so in a big way. Nobama’s I’m a box of chocolates, something new and different every day will not stand up in November.
Remember just because the Republicans came out and voted for Nobama Tuesday does not mean they will in November.
I would go so far as to say Nobama has done / will do what no Republican could , drive the final stake through the FDR coalition. Nobama is making McCain look good, now that’s scary.
Come on lets be honest if this guy was white, he’d be Liebernated. The guy is against caps of 30%, against health care mandates, pro nuclear power and coal, pro corporate written trade agreements, pro NCLB, and pro merit pay for teachers. This guy is wrong on all the right issues, and falls right into the Republican narrative on all the others.
Look at his recent crackpot surrogate on Hardball, no I am not talking about the goof ball we call a governor, who could not state one accomplishment. Nobama is completely media driven, a Pepsi commercial gone terribly wrong.
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:08 am
As usual, HD, I can’t fail but be convinced by the power of your rhetoric. There’s nothing quite as persuasive as replacing people’s names with similar sounding insults.
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:39 pm
And then there’s the person Tammy says she’ll cast her vote for:
It’s starting to seem inevitable that in less than two weeks, Clinton will be decisively knocked out of the running by a vastly superior ground organization in Texas. She’s not the first front-runner to blow a lead, but few have ever blown as big a lead, as spectacularly. Political scientists will be studying this one as a classic case study in hubris and mismanagement for years to come. And one thing they’ll be documenting will be the monstrous incompetence — and expense — of her rich, talentless consultants, especially the poisonous Mark Penn. Hillary Clinton: It could have been so different.
February 24th, 2008 at 2:04 am
Well Ben of course I would prefer a constitutionalist Conservative but I was refering to a primary if some upstart liberal chooses to run against her because she goes against the choice of the people at the convetion.
February 27th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Ben, you didn’t engage one of the points made by Henry Dubb, which is that there is very little uproar over John Kerry and Teddy Kennedy still planning to back Obama, even though Massachusetts went for Clinton.
MadisonGuy, there is a major difference between corrupt, anti-progressive Al Wynn getting picked off by Donna Edwards over years of actually terrible representation in Congress and someone challenging Tammy Baldwin over a Democratic Party procedural issue.
Fact of the matter is that Superdelegates, and even the delegate selection process alltogether, are a Democratic National Committee issue. That’s right, the party itself sets rules for how delegates are awarded. And if you don’t like it, well get involved and change it. It’s the same principle with our government - you can’t expect American politics to change by bitching from the sidelines, be it the actions of Congress on, say, global climate change, or the goings-ons of the Democratic Party proper.
If you’d like to be a delegate to the national convention, you can do so - anyone can. You need to be a delegate to the county caucus first, then the district-level caucus. Find the info on www.wisdems.org.
But in the meanwhile, don’t go bellyaching without considering and confronting the context and the facts alltogether. Superdelegates are supposed to choose to back who they want to and are not obligated to support a candidate, even if said candidate gets a majority of voters in their district. That wasn’t the intent of SDs, and it’s never been their function. I don’t like it myself, but I’m involved in the party and I’d like to change it. So no one should be doing this hand-wringing routine unless they know the full story, and certainly no one should be attacking Tammy on this or suggesting something so ridiculous as a “challenge from the left.”
February 27th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Also, kids on the internets probably have seen that Tammy Baldwin just scored the best of anyone in the House on Progressive Punch’s “Chips Are Down” index:
http://www.progressivepunch.org/members.jsp?chamber=House&party=All&x=12&y=11
That’s right, when the chips are down, on the tough votes, Tammy does the progressive thing. If you’re whining about not having a progressive-enough Congresswoman, here’s the crow to eat (among thousands of other examples to contradict you).
February 27th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I don’t live in Massachusetts, but the principle is the same: in an election, everyone’s vote should count the same.
Peter: your “bitching from the sidelines” quip, if taken literally, would suggest that it’s useless, and indeed counterproductive, for anyone outside of the organizational machinery of the Democratic Party to voice an opinion on anything.
I’m pretty sure you don’t mean this, and in any event, expressing disapproval on a moderately well-read blog is functionally equivalent to writing a letter to the editor or sending a message to your congressman. It’s just another way of participating in the civc forum of politics.
I’ve voted for Tammy Baldwin every time she’s been on the ballot, and at no point did I suggest she’s too right-wing for my tastes (which tend a little to the center of most of my commenters). Butthe argument that “no one should be attacking Tammy on this” seems misplaced. I’d rather we not have superdelegates in the first place, but since we do, I’d rather that they simply vote for the person who won the most elected delegates.
I don’t particularly care how they do this — if they all vote for their favorite candidate, and their votes cancel each other out, that’s fine. If they vote en masse for the democratic winner, that’s fine too. If they’re elected officials, voting for the person who won their district is fine. If they’re party functionaries, who knows?
I’m well aware of the context, history and “full story” of the superdelegate idea, as are most people who pay attention to politics. I want a more open and responsive Democratic Party, and at this moment in time, one of the ways to get there is to make the votes of elected officials equal to the votes of everyone else when it comes to choosing presidential candidates.
Given the dynamics of the campaign, the “superdelegates steal a win for Clinton” idea was never going to happen, but for a while there, the Clinton camp was trying very aggressively to set it up. And Tammy Baldwin was participating in the attempt.
This isn’t the same thing as saying, “Personally, I support Hillary Clinton, and I think her health care plan is superior to Obama’s”, while remaining non-commital about the convention. Russ Feingold did exactly that when announcing his support for Obama, and in fact he also highlighted his discomfort with the whole idea of his vote being more important than everyone else’s.
Under the circumstances, this is a pretty reasonable position, and certainly preferrable to emphasizing your willingness to vote down your own constituents.
One one level, none of this matters, since the superdelegates aren’t going to swing the election one way or another. But on another level, they have the theoretical potential to do so. Tammy was vigorously asserting her “right” to exercise a power that I don’t think she or anyone else should have in the first place. Why wouldn’t I object to that? If a “hand-wringing routine” is part of what’s required to change the system, then so be it.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
I’m disgusted that she would even think about voting against her constituent’s wishes. If she continues to blindly support Senator Clinton, then I’ll assume that she doesn’t have our best wishes in mind. Maybe we need a progressive democrat to represent a progressive district. Tammy, are you a progressive?
March 7th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I can’t wait for DLCer Clinton to get the nomination. I am working for the Nader campaign and she will put us in the race! Clinton has all of the DEM hacks with her while Obama has all of the younger less loyal to the party progressives. With Obama out of the way they will be easy pickin’s for us!
I voted for her in the primary so Ralph will have the best advantage possible to explain to the nation why we need a multi-party system.
Go Hillary Go! Implode Democrats Implode!