Scoring the Game of Politics
The Democratic National Convention is on August 25th, but the primary/caucus season ends abruptly on February 5th. Our nominees are typically chosen well before the conventions. How is this decided?
Americans like to keep score, and politics is no different. Polls help us determine the momentum of campaigns, but in this season, it is all about the number of delegates pledged for the convention. This is the purpose of the caucuses and primaries.
Introduction
States determine their own voting laws and state parties determine their rules for voting in caucuses or primaries. Most of these rules are either too different to sum up easily, or too strange to be properly democratic. I don't want to pick on any states, so I am just focused on creating a timeline for when delegates are actually scored.
If we wish to change the way that our nominees are selected from a media-based populist contest with the actual convention a simple coronation to a more democratic system, I think we should pay more attention to the delegate scoring, which represents (in some way anyway) real votes, than to pundit and insider opinions. With that in mind, let's review the real score in this game thus far.
Early Primaries and Caucuses
The Iowa caucus gave serious legitimacy to Barack Obama, but he actually acquired only a 1 delegate lead over Hillary Clinton. Edwards trailed Clinton by only 1 delegate, as well, making the Iowa caucus essentially a wash. Keep in mind that we are talking about over 2000 total delegates to be pledged at the convention in August.
Clinton didn't actually win anything in New Hampshire. Both Obama and Clinton won enough of the vote for 9 delegates. They tied in that primary. Edwards can be said to have lost in a sense, as he received only 4 of New Hampshire's delegates. That means he trails Obama, however, by only 7 delegates.
In South Carolina, a large black voting polulation could easily extend Obama's lead. In Nevada, Obama received an endorsement from the largest union in the state. However, polls in these early states show Clinton is well within striking distance, as she was in New Hampshire.
Super Tuesday
The majority of the states in the union vote in primaries and caucuses on February 5th. The most important of these states are, of course, New York and California. Clinton is a senator in New York, so it is likely she will come home with a very large victory in number of delegates there. California could likely go either way at this point, but polling suggests Clinton has a strong lead there, as well.
State Conventions
In many states, delegates divided during the primaries and caucuses are supplemented by super-delegates from the state party or composed of state elected officials. How these super-delegates are pledged is also different by state. However, many of them, including South Carolina, Nevada, California, and New York, have state party conventions in April or May to pledge several of their super-delegates. Once the primaries and caucuses have completed, if there are two or three candidates within a few dozen delegates of each other, I believe the state conventions will become important events this cycle.
National Convention
Finally, if a nominee has not been chosen by default by August, the DNC will gather the remaining super-delegates to pledge their votes to a candidate. Given the dedication of the Clinton, Obama, and Edwards campaigns, I would not bet against having a real convention for the first time in decades.
Summary
Personally, I do not care to listen to those that talk about the amorphous support candidates are receiving from this or that event. I see the numbers. The CNN Election Center (link below) has predicted many of the super-delegate pledges and suggests that Clinton has a fairly commanding (predicted) lead into the convention at this point. Given what I predict for the early primaries, I think Obama may have to have a real stunner on Super Tuesday to achieve the nomination. However, without assembling a full list of super-delegate endorsements, I believe it is foolish to predict so many super-delegates for Clinton, and I believe the race is wide open until the convention. Things change, of course.
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