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The Difference Between Supporting a Person and a Principle

Cross posted from: Heidi Li's Potpourri

The difference between supporting a person and supporting a principle
Thursday, July 24, 2008

Today, one of the political activities with which I am involved, The Denver Group, received some attention from the MSM. Both reporters I spoke with were courteous and professional. But the stories they produced about The Denver Group run the risk of conflating two very different things: supporting a particular candidate and arguing for a certain procedure.

Anybody who reads this blog knows that my preferred candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination is Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. But that is not why I decided to co-found The Denver Group with Marc Rubin.

I have said it here and I say it when interviewed: I do not know whether come August and the Democratic National Convention, Senator Clinton herself will be willing to accept being placed in nomination and thereby being entered into a truly democratic election process.

That choice is Senator Clinton's and I would listen carefully to her reasons for accepting or rejecting being placed in nomination were that opportunity offered to her; just as I would listen carefully to her were she to end up winning a meaningful roll call vote and having to decide whether to accept the nomination. Based on her reasons, I might or might agree that her decision is wise but the decisions involved are hers to make.

But I would want this year's Democratic National Convention to include both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton's names in nomination even if Senator Obama were my preferred candidate. This is because I care about something that has very little to do with either candidate. I would care about it if the two candidates who lasted through the primary season without ending up with enough pledged delegates were Senator Dodd and Governor Richardson.

I care about genuine equality of opportunity under established procedures. I care about this for its own sake but also because I believe that it is only by agreeing upon procedures before the results are in is it likely that people who disagree deeply about the specific results can accept that divide yet then move on to support the actual outcome.

I know that many people think that Senator Obama can win the presidency with lots of money and the unhappiness people have with the current Republican administration. I do not think that will work. Senator Obama needs votes from millions of people like me, people who feel that a process that was established without regard to particular outcome must be followed to its natural conclusion. A rigged or short-circuited process taints the result in a way that I find off-putting. So often this political season the Democratic Party, sometimes at the state level and sometimes at the national one, has seemingly disregarded its own rules because some in the Party find that following those rules is inconvenient or fatiguing or scary. I understand those feelings: they are based largely on the fear of uncertainty. But just because one fears or dislikes uncertainty one cannot wish it away.

The Democratic Party's rules and the people's votes produced an inconclusive result with regard to the nominee going into the Convention. Fortunately the party has a procedures for resolving such a situation: any and all candidates who qualify for and accept being put into nomination can be considered by superdelegates, whose votes end up determining the outcome.

Regardless of who that group would end up electing were they presented with a real and meaningful choice of candidates at the convention, I want to see the superdelegates accept responsibility for their positions. And I want Dr. Dean, Senator Obama, and anybody else who is unwilling to see the the superdelegates take responsibility to get over it. The superdelegates are adults capable of exercising their faculties of reason and judgment. Just like we rank and file Democrats they do not need a sham Convention just because that would comfort some folks. I trust that superdelegates understood from the get-go that they might have to decide the contest. Certainly, I along with many others, understood this.

That understanding makes me committed to something wholly apart from my preference for Senator Clinton. I am committed to enfranchisement, enfranchisement wherever franchise is offered. By exercising the franchise individuals go through a decision making process to resolve a situation that was not previously resolved. I insist that the superdelegates be meaningfully enfranchised at the Democratic National Convention, that they be given a real chance to make a real choice. If they choose my preferred candidate, I will be quite pleased. But even if they do not I will feel able to regard the Democratic Party as an institution committed to democratic principles.

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