re: #72 Belafon

The unelected delegate are the ones we call superdelegates. The fact that they stayed out for so long kind of contradicts the idea that they helped choose.

(I haven’t actually read the book)

The idea is that party actors set things into motion so that superdelegates never actually matter — they exist only as a check on the power of the primary voters, to keep wholly unelectable individuals from winning a nomination. Before that, they put the limelight on a candidate, or a few candidates, that seem palatable.

It’s also incorrect to think of the party as a monolithic institution. Indeed, Obama came from within the party. A bloc of powerful actors helped him achieve national recognition within the Democratic party, and Obama used this recognition to put his candidacy together and make it more viable.

What 2008 definitely did not have was a Trump or Sanders sort of outsider figure who tried to crash the party (both figuratively and literally). From start to finish, it was either Clinton or Obama, both figures selected and vetted by the Dem establishment. Which one won wasn’t super critical, but the winnowing of the proverbial 17-candidate field had already taken place.