Republican superdelegates
You might say: “Say what? I just read CNN and they said that there are no Republican Superdelegates!”. Well, when it boils down to the abilities of what superdelegates can do, CNN and many other people are wrong. Superdelegates are people who are not required to vote for any particular candidate and are free to, regardless of how the people vote within the primaries, choose whoever they want for president. This is not something unique to the Democratic Party.
Take, for example, the Republican delegates from Louisiana. Even if Huckabee got 50% + 1 of the votes in the primary, he would have only been awarded 20 pledged Louisiana delegates. The other 27 would have been “unpledged” and could have voted for whoever they wanted to. However, Huckabee only got a plurality of the votes. So all of Louisiana’s Republican delegates were unpledged, until this weekend. Now, McCain has gotten 32 of the 47 Delegates from Louisiana. So the argument that only Democrats have a mechanism that can go against the will of the voters is false. So far, Louisiana has proved that our Republicans are more than willing to go against the will of their people.
So you might say: “But Dan, those delegates are still elected. Superdelegates are appointed because of their position, that is why CNN and others are telling the truth, right?” Wrong. The chairman of the Louisiana Republican party (Roger “florist gump” Villere, national committeeman and national committee woman are not elected delegates and they are always unpledged. So there you have it, Republican superdelegates… or as some would say, a rose by another name. Although, the smell isn’t quite the same.