Why don't the Republicans have "Super Delegates"?

Okay the Republicans do NOT have "Super delegates" they just don't have a name for them which fits as it makes it perfectly just a little inconvenient to talk about.

BUT they do have "party officials" who are appointed to vote.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdelegate
The Republican Party also seats some party officials as delegates without regard to primary or caucus results, but the term "superdelegate" is most commonly applied only in the Democratic Party

The Democrats apparently started the "Super delegate" process after the 1980 election

*from the same link as above-I know wikipedia isn't really a definitive source but it is a fairly good starting point on a search*

After the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the Democratic Party implemented changes in its delegate selection process, based on the work of the McGovern-Fraser Commission. The purpose of the changes was to make the composition of the convention less subject to control by party leaders and more responsive to the votes cast during the campaign for the nomination.

These comprehensive changes left some Democrats believing that the role of party leaders and elected officials had been unduly diminished, weakening the Democratic ticket. In response, the superdelegate rule was instituted after the 1980 election. Its purpose was to accord a greater role to active politicians.<3>


*Notice here on the CNN tally they are called "Unpledged RNC*"
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/scorecard/#val=R

Special Notes
• Total Delegates* - This number includes pledged delegates and unpledged RNC member delegates
• There are currently 2,380 total delegates to the Republican National Convention, including 1,917 pledged delegates and 463 unpledged delegates. The total number of delegate votes needed to win the nomination is 1,191.
• Unpledged delegates in the Republican Party do not have to indicate a candidate preference, but a majority are elected just like pledged delegates. Of the 463 unpledged delegates, 123 are RNC members who become delegates automatically.

The GOP Convention site strangely doesn't even mention them
http://www.gopconventionreport.com/home.html

Neither does Fox News or the RNC that I can find

http://www.rnc.org/
http://youdecide08.foxnews.com/2008/02/12/national-delegate-count-tally/

So no need to build in a check against it.
:yoiks:

They are Unpledged Party Leaders and Elected Officials, pretty much like the GOP.

I wonder why the different terminology?

Some states have more unpledged than pledged delegates.

Democratic unpledged delegates comprise about 19.5% of the delegates.

Republican unpledged delegates comprise about 24.5% of the delegates.


Democrats have 4048 delegates after the penalty against FL and MI.

Republicans have 2380 delegates after the assessed 50% penalty against FL, MI, NH, SC and WY.

Democrats have about 70% more delegates overall and about 36.6% more unpledged delegates than the Republicans.

The fewer delegates the easier it is to manipulate or agree for them to agree on one candidate. The more delegates the more difficult it is for everyone to agree on one candidate.

to steal/manipulate elections.

unless they're serving an ulterior purpose, like Huckabee.

It's just that since McCain's so far ahead of Huckabee, they're not going to be a factor.