But our constitution does not call itself “democratic,” either.

It is very amusing that the Republicans are more democratic in their method of choosing a candidate than the Democrats are.

Do you disagree?

I know Scott Surovell and I think he honestly has the good of the party at heart. He’s a good person. But I disagree with his line of reasoning.

As he said, he saw something incredible happen across Virginia, especially in Fairfax precincts, where the turnout was the highest ever. New people have gotten involved as never before, especially young people.

But the same can and needs to happen in the remaining states. Just as this is the first time Virginia’s vote has truly counted, the same will be true in other states holding primaries. This is a great chance for them to register new voters, get more volunteers, increase their voter turnout, and build their local party infrastructure.

So, a letter attempting to convince Virginia’s super delegates to all commit to Obama as a method of convincing Hillary to drop out before the process has run its course takes on an unseemly and inappropriate appearance.

As I said, Scott, and his fellow author, Peter Rousselot, has the best interests of the party at heart. But democracy – and the Democratic Party – is best served by letting democracy takes its course by completing the rest of the primaries and giving all states a chance to vote.

I’m a Democrat and an Obama supporter, and like a lot of folks I’m well into Primary fatigue. However, well I’m sure that this petition and letter is largely well intentioned, I can’t help but feel that some aspects of it are disingenous, and many more are dangerously misinformed.

This close primary is good for the party. Mr. Surovell already pointed out how it was good for Fairfax (it will be good for Pennsylvania the same way, just as it was good for Ohio and Colorado and Missouri and all the other potential battlegrounds this November). It’s also raised Democratic fundraising performance to unthinkable levels. Mr. Surovell has expressed the view that spending $100m on a primary is “political suicide.” Respectfully, I’d point out that the fact that we even *have* $100m to spend on *anything* is an unbelievable, beneficial direct consequence of this close primary. New small-dollar donors are pouring out of the woodwork to give money to my candidate of choice because they know he needs the money right now, and they’re going to continue giving money as long as he needs it. Between the end of the primary contest and the convention, though, the tap’s going to run dry; so let’s keep it on, shall we?

Rather than pressuring super delegates to do this, that or the other, I’d like to ask EVERYONE to get over yourselves. Quit with the egos. People are taking the situation way too personally, are taking themselves way too seriously, and generally are overreacting to a situation that is actually not nearly as bad as folks seem to think.

(By the way, Ms. Swecker, if you do happen to read this, I still hope you’ll vote to support the candidacy of Barack Obama.)

Obama gets 54 pledged delegates and Clinton gets 29. If we truly use the “will of the people” argument, then should not our SDs be allocated on the same percentage?

Some people seem to be misreading our letter. We agree with you, Susan, Mame, and Senator Webb that superdelegates should exercise their independent judgment. Our letter provided a whole series of factors that they ought to take into account. Although Obama’s popular vote victory in Virginia was one of those factors, by itself it isn’t the one that is most important to us.

Many of us from around the state saw something amazing happen in Virginia’s primary.

- We had hundreds of people show up at Fairfax County’s high-performance, low-turnout precincts on primary day looking **to register** to vote.
- We saw more volunteers out and more doors knocked in a primary than anyone can ever remember.
- We’ve seen scores of new people looking to get involved in the party – WAY more than usual in a Presidential cycle.

This is unprecedented and it was seen across the Commonwealth.

Our point and what the letter said was that given what all of us have seen in our committees, undermining the will of the people IN THIS ELECTION, would be unduly destructive of the Party and our base.

The people who signed this letters are committee chairs. They have committees to run. We have signs and stickers to order, literature to design, and campaigns to plan. Fairfax County by itself is larger than 8 states with 1,000,000 people. We can’t wait until September 1 to find out who our nominee is going to be and September 30 for the stickers and signs to be printed and arrive. We need some finality now.

If it were numerically possible for Sen. Clinton to win the delegates of the popular vote count at this point, we might feel differently, but at this point, many of us view spending another $100,000,000 fighting each other instead of focusing those kinds of resources on John McCain is the equivalent of political suicide.

I like your blog by the way. Keep up the good work and you frequently post thoughtful articles.

As for the Superdelegates.I think we all need to respect the opinions of ALL the Superdelegates. Period.