Beyond the Dome

You knew it was going to happen at some point. The Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee are trying to set up a commission to recommend changes for the next presidential primary season — including, possibly, cutting down on the number of “superdelegates.”

Their proposal, which will be presented to the Democratic convention rules committee in Denver on Saturday, would create a 37-member “Democratic Change Commission” to suggest a series of changes to the delegate selection and primary rules for the 2012 election. They’d look at ways to make sure no states hold primaries or caucuses before the first Tuesday in March — except for “approved pre-window states,” which could hold their contests in February — and they’d consider changes to the rules for caucuses.

All of this was probably inevitable — especially the debate over the primary schedule — given the mess that Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton faced in their drawn-out nomination fight. The early Florida and Michigan contests, which almost cost those delegations their seats at the convention, were some of the testiest issues Obama and Clinton had to resolve to make peace before the convention.

But for members of Congress, the biggest issue before the commission may be the question of whether to reduce the presence of superdelegates the next time around.

It wasn’t that long ago that the superdelegates — mostly elected officials, including all Democratic members of Congress, and party powerbrokers — looked like they might have been in a position to decide the nomination. Clinton’s campaign openly pursued them, hoping to overturn Obama’s lead with the pledged delegates. Obama’s campaign, meanwhile, warned that unelected delegates shouldn’t overturn the will of the voters. The whole episode served as a refresher course on why the Democrats had created superdelegates in the first place: to give party officials a voice in the process and make sure they could step in if the grassroots party voters were about to nominate a candidate who was sure to lose in the fall.

But since that goal started to look unseemly, many Democratic lawmakers became more open to re-examining the superdelegate system — not by changing the rules in the middle of the game, but by looking at it after the nomination was settled. That’s exactly what’s happening now. “The commission will review it and make recommendations on reductions to ensure the voters choose our presidential nominee, not party insiders,” said Obama spokesman Nick Shapiro.

Now, all they have to do is convince Democratic members of Congress to give up their automatic seats at the conventions. Don’t hold your breath.