Yeetle Box - Superdelegates Wring Hands Over Making A Decision

The protracted and increasingly acrimonious fight for the Democratic presidential nomination is unnerving core constituencies -- African Americans and wealthy liberals -- who are becoming convinced that the party could suffer irreversible harm if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton maintains her sharp line of attack against Sen. Barack Obama - even though the Superdelegates could bring this whole thing to an end immediately if they could only make a decision.

Clinton's solid win in the Pennsylvania primary exposed a quandary for the party - a quandary that only a Superdelegate could have: selecting someone to overturn a majority of delegates, popular vote, and won primaries.



Her backers may be convinced that only she can win the white, working-class voters that the Democratic nominee will need in the general election, but many African American leaders say a Clinton nomination -- handed to her by Superdelegates -- would result in a disastrous breach with black voters - something they would be willing to do if Senator Clinton or Bill Clinton could convince them they do not really need black voters like Bill Clinton did in 1992 and 1996.

"If this party is perceived by people as having gone into a back room somewhere and brokered a nominee, that would not be good for our party," House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (S.C.), the highest ranking African American in Congress, warned yesterday. "I'm telling you, if this continues on its current course, [the damage] is going to be irreparable - maybe irreversible."

"We keep talking as if it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter that Obama gets 92 percent of the black vote, because since he only got 35 percent of the white vote, he's in trouble," Clyburn said. "Well, Hillary Clinton only got 8 percent of the black vote. . . . It's almost saying black people don't matter. The only thing that matters is how white people respond. And that's what bothered me. I think I matter."

Take that Superdelegates!

Solution: Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi have been floating around the idea of Super Duper Delegates - those who are not in positions of public power but would have a the final say in ending this protracted and divisive campaign, and who could actually make a decision.

Said Howard Dean, "These could only be people with intelligence, wisdom, and commen sense all rolled into one. We don't know yet where we could find such people, but we're looking really hard at the proposal."

Nancy Pelosi chimed in. "In politics, it's hard to find people of such caliber who can actually make a decision - either in the face of, or in the spite of, facts and Obama's inevitable lead in all major voter categories."

Clyburn raged at the proposal, but, then added, "Perhaps if these so-called Super Duper Delegates were black... Never mind!"

Campaigning for Clinton in Gary, Ind., yesterday, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (Ohio), who is black, said she does not share her colleagues' concerns. "I don't think Bill and Hillary Clinton will 'do anything' to win this election," she said. "I don't think they would kill anyone or even shank them." She added that black voters "are not a monolith, like that portrayed in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey."

Rumor has it that consideration for Super Duper Delegates include Oprah Winfrey, Bill O'Reilly, and Ralph Nader.

Howard Dean did not deny this claim. "Anything's possible," he screamed. "Except for a black man in swimming trunks to get the nomination. That we cannot have."

Other suggestions rumor to be floated about by Barney Frank include auctioning the nomination on eBay. "It would be a wonderful way to bring donors and voters together."

The Yeetle Box