| The first results for Super Tuesday are already in! Taking West Virginia's Republican state convention is...Mike Huckabee!
Gov. Huckabee takes all of the state's 18 delegates, apparently with help from John McCain, who asked his supporters to vote for the Arkansas politician over McCain's rival, Mitt Romney.
Wonder how the WVA convention works? The shorter version, from Romney advisor, John McCutcheon: "This has been the slow drill school of dentistry." Ouch.
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The dueling polls for the California Democratic primary:
SurveyUSA predicts Clinton upends Obama, 52 to 42 percent. Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby predicts Obama-rama in California, 49 to 36 percent.
Josh Marshall: "There's one guarantee I can make right now about tonight's results. They are going take make either Zogby or SurveyUSA look like complete fools."
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Here's a glimpse at the controversy that might be the story about the Democratic nomination: the superdelegates may decide who gets to run for president as the party's nominee. Superdelegates are those Democratic insiders who get to cast their vote - disproportionately - for the nominee; they're the party's insurance against the voters having the final say on the party's nominee:
There are about 800 of them, and that's a lot when you can win the nomination with only about 2,000 delegates. Hence the controversy. Even though Barack Obama is winning more delegates in actual primaries and caucuses, Hillary Clinton is substantially ahead of him in the overall delegate count because many more superdelegates say they will vote for her.
Maybe that shouldn't matter. Both candidates knew the rules when they started. If she's better at securing these delegates, good for her, too bad for him.
But that argument may clatter like a counterfeit quarter with the general public if this race continues neck-and-neck down to the convention, if the Democratic nominee is not selected by a sea of Americans voters, but instead is anointed by party leaders.
Shane:
I like this idea about as much as I like the electoral college. Once again, another system made to keep the common man from harming himself and being sure that we don't become 'too democratic'.
Thus far, Obama has won 63 pledged delegates to Clinton's 48, but Clinton leads in overall delegates, 241-169, thanks to her 193-106 edge in superdelegates. |
