With the race to win Democratic presidential nomination still too close to call, the decision most likely will not be determined by the people, but by the “superdelegates” during this summer’s Democratic National Convention. Superdelegates are Democratic Party members – those belonging to the National Committee, members of Congress, former leaders and other elected officials – and they represent 19.6% of the votes at the convention.
In the latest edition of Capital Eye, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics’ newsletter, it’s reported that Democratic superdelegates have received $904,200 in campaign contributions from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the last three years.
The newsletter says Obama, who currently has a slim lead of pledged “non-super” delegates (1,112), has shelled out nearly $700,000 to superdelegates through his Hope Fund political action committee or campaign committee since 2005. As of Feb. 12, according to Capital Eye, 43 percent of the superdelegates (35 of the 82) who announced they would be supporting Obama have received campaign contributions from him for the 2006 or 2008 election cycles, for a total of $232,200.
As for Clinton, her HILLPAC and campaign committees have distributed $205,500 to superdelegates, according to the newsletter. Only 12 percent of the superdelegates (13 of the 109) who have said they will back her have received campaign contributions, totaling about $95,000 since 2005.
The superdelegates themselves all say the same thing – that any money flowing from the presidential candidates to the delegates’ own campaigns hasn’t had any sort of influence on their decisions, but where have we heard that before?
Perhaps the Capital Eye data provide a clue as to how we might evaluate that claim. As it turns out, 29 of the superdelegates have in fact received cash from each candidate. Let’s exclude the 11 who have received identical sums from both Clinton and Obama and then look at how the remainder are committed.
- Pledged to candidate giving greater sum: 8
- Pledged to candidate giving lesser sum: 4
- Not yet pledged: 6
So while we lack a huge sample size, the 2-1 ratio of superdelegates backing the candidate who’s ponied up the most money hardly supports the claim that the cash doesn’t matter.
Candidates can donate more in the coming months and superdelegates can change their votes, so it’s still too early in the game to make conclusive statements about the influence of large sums of money on the decision-making process. However, there is that old adage: money talks and bullshit walks. At this stage of the game, it looks as true as it ever was.
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