DENVER — Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet was drowned out last weekend by irate Colorado Democrats, who booed and chanted “change your vote” in reference to his position as a superdelegate for Hillary Clinton.
Supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders repeatedly interrupted Mr. Bennet’s remarks Saturday as the senator attempted to address the Colorado Democratic Party convention at the Budweiser Events Center in Loveland, according to multiple videos posted online.
“The idea that you have to be appealing to the superdelegates as an aspect of your electability — that’s not democracy,” Roxanne Dennis, a Sanders supporter from Mesa County, told KREX-TV in Grand Junction.
Mr. Bennet did receive the party’s nomination to run for re-election in November, which as uncontested, although he did receive a smattering of boos, the Colorado Independent reported.
He later told the Denver Post that there is “a time and place for a debate,” adding that “this is a time and a place for people to let their voices be heard — for me to hear those voices. And I think that’s what was accomplished today.”
Mr. Sanders won Colorado with 41 delegates to 25 for Ms. Clinton, but most of the state’s 12 superdelegates are pledged to the former secretary of state. A preference poll taken at the convention showed 63 percent supported Mr. Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The conservative website Colorado Peak Politics said afterward that the “harsh yet hilarious response to Bennet appears to have put him in a quandary.”
“[H]e could either support Sanders and get his sorry self reelected, or switch his support to Hillary and abandon the party establishment, along with any hopes of a cabinet post in a Clinton administration,” said the Monday post.
Sanders supporters have bristled at Ms. Clinton’s advantage with superdelegates, who are unbound and make up about 15 percent of the Democratic Party delegate field.
By contrast, Republican superdelegates have less freedom to vote for whomever they choose and comprise only about 7 percent of total GOP delegates.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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