So, who's ahead? Nobody knows...

Kari Chisholm FacebookTwitterWebsite

The votes have been cast and the networks have declared winners in each of the states. So, now we know who's winning, right?

Wrong.

There were 1688 pledged delegates at stake on Super Tuesday. Along with the 137 in the first four states, that's a total of 1825 delegates.

But because of the complex delegate math, that requires calculating the totals in each congressional district, we're a long way from knowing who has the lead coming out of Super Tuesday.

At the moment (10:10 a.m.), MSNBC is reporting that Clinton leads Obama 582 to 485 (plus 26 for Edwards). That's 1093 delegates accounted for - with 732 still outstanding.

CNN is reporting a pledged delegate count of Clinton 632, Obama 626, with the same 26 for Edwards. That's 1287 delegates accounted for - with 538 delegates still outstanding.

Update 11:10 a.m.

MSNBC is now much closer to a final estimate. They're now reporting that Obama leads Clinton 838 to 834. Just 127 delegates still outstanding.

CNN seems to have gone backwards. They're now at Clinton 618 to Obama 614. 567 still outstanding.

I guess we'll all just stay tuned.

  • (Show?)

    From Mike Allen at Politico.com:

    "The Obama camp now projects topping Clinton by 13 delegates, 847 to 834.

    NBC News, which is projecting delegates based on the Democratic Party's complex formula, figures Obama will wind up with 840 to 849 delegates, versus 829 to 838 for Clinton.

    Clinton was portrayed in many news accounts as the night’s big winner, but Obama’s campaign says he wound up with a higher total where it really counts — the delegates who will choose the party’s nominee at this summer’s Democratic convention.

    With the delegate count still under way, NBC News said Obama appears to have won around 840 delegates in yesterday’s contests, while Clinton earned about 830 — “give or take a few,” Tim Russert, the network’s Washington bureau chief, said on the “Today” show.

    The running totals for the two, which includes previous contests and the party officials known as “superdelegates,” are only about 70 delegates apart, Russert said."

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    Thanks, John. I've updated with the latest from MSNBC's scoreboard. Oddly, CNN went backwards, taking delegates off the board.

  • backbeat12 (unverified)
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    It really ticked me off that the national corporate media, including my beloved AAR/Arianna Huffington, called California for Clinton when the polls were still open in Alameda and several other counties.

    http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/ci_8183950

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    Yeah, that shouldn't happen. Of course, given that polls were supposed to close at 8 p.m. - did the national media folks even know that a few precincts in Oakland were unexpectedly still open? And would people standing in line at the polling places have even heard the news reports?

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    Kari,

    I am a little confused on the totals you quote. If there were 1688 delegates up for grabs in the Super Tuesday states, and if Obama and Clinton are at 838 and 834 for a total of 1672 why is the total outstanding 127 rather than 16?

  • Miles (unverified)
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    I'm still irritated by the whole concept of superdelegates, who are unaccountable and in many cases voting for their own self-interest (e.g., a position with the Administration, support from the WH when they run for higher office, desire to be an ambassador, etc.). Superdelegates also create a situation where conceivably Obama could win more pledged delegates but Clinton gets the nomination by securing the votes of people like Ted Kulongoski. Or vice versa, with Obama winning because of Earl Blumenauer. That's just plain undemocratic.

    In the "delegate math" thread, Kari asks what the alternative is, which is a good question. In almost all cases, one person is going to get a majority of pledged delegates. In the rare situation where two candidates are close but a third (e.g., Edwards) holds the balance, then I think it's fine for pledged delegates to be freed up after the initial vote. I'm okay with delegates making the ultimate decision on the party nominee. I'm not okay with superdelegates overriding the decisions of actual Democratic voters.

  • backbeat12 (unverified)
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    Kari, MSNBC and CNN appear to have no West Coast reporters at all. Remember the LA fires? They ignored them for hours until their big east coast stars could fly out. Sure wish we had a West Coast major cable news station.

    I'm still burning from 1980 when I was driving like a maniac to get home to my rural red Oregon town to vote....only to have them announce that evil Ronnie won. It hurt us in the Senate/Congressional races as well as local school and other measures.

    I hear CNN is now removing delegates from the Clinton count. They are clueless.

  • Miles (unverified)
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    By the way, has anyone compiled a list of all the Oregon superdelegates? I would love to start a campaign demanding that they only support the nominee who actually wins the Oregon primary. If we do this now, there can be no complaint that it's unfair to either candidate -- and it would increase Oregon's importance. Of course we can't force them to do it, but our Democratic officials aren't going to take lightly the demands of Democratic party members.

  • Bill R. (unverified)
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    Here's a pretty good delegate counter from Time.com Mark Halperin's page

    Apparently Obama got 9 more delegates than Clinton yesterday (845-836). He leads overall 908-884 in Pledged Delegates. This does not include party-boss delegates.

    http://thepage.time.com/obama-delegate-count/

  • Pat Malach (unverified)
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    Widely varying and constantly fluctuating results from the different news outlets don't exactly boost my confidence in this system. The words "banana" and "republic" come to mind.

    Maybe it's time for some simplification of the "delegate math."

  • Bill R. (unverified)
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    This idea of having the party bosses determine the nominee in spite of who the voters choose is a national scandal. And the fact that it could become a reality needs to be stopped now... it would absolutely destroy the party, guarantee a convention walk-out and the nominee chosen under those rules would be a joke, an embarrassment. I agree we need to start with Kulongoski and Darlene Hooley and all the rest and tell them to with draw from their so-called super delegate status until the candidate with the most elected delegates has been determined.

  • Urban Planning Overlord (unverified)
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    Is everyone else at Blue Oregon getting excited that, unlike every year since God knows when, the Oregon Presidential Primary for the Democrats, and possibly for the Republicans, will actually be a hotly contested race?

    Pundits are predicting that Pennsylvania will be decisive on April 22. I'm betting that the race will still be up in the air on May 20, and Oregon will share the national spotlight with Kentucky's primary on that day (including having lots of candidate visits beforehand).

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    I am a little confused on the totals you quote. If there were 1688 delegates up for grabs in the Super Tuesday states, and if Obama and Clinton are at 838 and 834 for a total of 1672 why is the total outstanding 127 rather than 16?

    Because the total is 1825. Yesterday's 1688, plus Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

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    Man, Chuck Todd NAILED it--and did so around 9PM Pacific Time last night. I watched him do a math dance on the big board, until finally he scrawled Obama 841, Clinton 837 on the screen.

    He won't be perfectly on--that would have been insane--but to be that accurate that early in the tally is amazing.

    The superdelegates will fluctuate. If Obama's decently ahead after Texas and Ohio, they'll switch.

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    Widely varying and constantly fluctuating results from the different news outlets don't exactly boost my confidence in this system.

    Well, keep in mind that all of this is only because the media (and let's be honest, all of us) have the insane urge to demand the full and complete accounting of the results immediately after the polls close.

    The final numbers will be rock solid and certain. It just takes a while for elections offices to a) count every ballot, and b) do the math in each and every district.

    If we were willing to know nothing until a magic moment three days hence when the results are revealed, it would be much easier. But that would make everyone crazy.

    So, we live in a world of projections and estimates and exit polls and sorcery...

  • Pat Malach (unverified)
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    Oooooh sorcery! fun ...

    I like this more already.

    I also like the idea that a May 20 primary might actually play a role in the final outcome.

    I guess we'll all just stay tuned.

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    Miles, you may be irritated by superdelegates, I'm not. They almost never have any real impact on a race, unless things are very close - close enough to have a brokered convention.

    And in a brokered convention, they're critical.

    Take for example, this upcoming convention. If HRC tries to win by cheating - for example, seating delegates from states that lost them because they broke the primary scheduling rules - superdelegates are savvy enough to recognize it. And because they're not pledged, they can put a stop to it.

    They would too, because if Hillary wins in any manner but fair and square, she'd split the party in two.

    In summary, superdelegates act less like players in the nomination game and more like refs. Their real job isn't to protect the nominees - it's to protect the party. And in that function, I think they're fine.

  • Pat Malach (unverified)
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    Anyone know generally how many "average" voters it takes to earn one delegate vote?

    Yet the "super" delegates are put in the hands of single individuals.

    These super-delegate votes given to individuals are weighted the same as the cumulative votes of thousands of citizens?

    So much for the concept of one person, one vote.

    It's an unnecessary opportunity for abuse.

  • pdxatheist (unverified)
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    does anyone know what happens to the delegates that were alloted to john edwards?

  • backbeat12 (unverified)
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    So much for the concept of one person, one vote.

    Plus - they get to vote twice! Once in the primary and again as a super delegate.

  • Matthew Sutton (unverified)
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    Well Hillary disclosed today that her campaign had to borrow $5 million from her personal finances. Very interesting.

  • Matthew Sutton (unverified)
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    And now it is being reported that some top level staff are working without pay to get through the month, including their campaign manager.

  • Miles (unverified)
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    In summary, superdelegates act less like players in the nomination game and more like refs.

    The problem with that theory, Steve, is that over 300 of the "refs" have already decided which team they want to win. Sure, they could change if someone stakes a big lead, but if the nomination remains close they won't. I don't have much faith in Kulongoski or Blumenauer's ability to objectively arbitrate a brokered convention given that they've already told me who they want to win. If Clinton wants to seat the Florida delegates -- and she said she does the night of the FL primary -- are you suggesting that Gov. K will switch to Obama in protest? Doubtful.

    There are almost 800 superdelegates -- about 20% of the total needed to win the nomination. It is very possible that we'll get to the convention and Obama will have more pledged (i.e., real) delegates than Clinton, but Clinton will get the nomination on the strength of her lead in superdelegates. That would cause millions of Democrats such as myself to lose faith in the party.

  • Bill R. (unverified)
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    Steve says: "In summary, superdelegates act less like players in the nomination game and more like refs. Their real job isn't to protect the nominees - it's to protect the party. And in that function, I think they're fine."

    If "super-delegates" are there to protect the party, why do they commit to the candidate before the convention? I have trouble understanding that.

    Along those lines here's a quote from Howard Dean about a brokered convention: "Then we’re going to have to get the candidates together and make some kind of an arrangement. Because I don’t think we can afford to have a brokered convention, that would not be good news for either party.”

    -- DNC Chairman Howard Dean, in an interview on NY1, on what happens if the Democrats have not settled their nomination fight by "sometime in the middle of March or April."

  • Bill R. (unverified)
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    From: Matthew Sutton | "And now it is being reported that some top level staff are working without pay to get through the month, including their campaign manager."

    Bill R.- Obama is transforming and democratizing campaign finance with his base of nearly half a million contributors and growing. On the financial state of the race:

    <hr/>

    Obama on Pace to Raise $30 Million in February Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign "is on track to raise another $30 million in February," according to The Politico.

    He's raised $2.2 million in just the last 24 hours.

    "Insiders in both campaigns say the growing financial disparity virtually ensures that Obama will be able to significantly outspend Clinton in the critical primaries to come. Even before all the Super Tuesday votes were counted, Obama began airing advertisements in Nebraska, Virginia, the District of Columbia, Maryland and Maine -- the next round of primary and caucus states -- before Clinton did." Taegan Goddard- Political Wire

  • Miles (unverified)
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    By the way, Democratic Convention Watch has a list of superdelegates pledged and unpledged. So far, they have Hooley and Kulongoski for Clinton, and Blumenauer for Obama.

    Wu and DeFazio are unpledged, as is Wyden.

    Oregon's other superdelegates appear to be Meredith Woods-Smith, Frank Dixon, Jenny Greenleaf, Wayne Kinney, Gail Rasmussen, and Bill Bradbury.

    I'm serious about putting pressure on all of them to pledge their support to the ultimate winner of the Oregon primary. Kari, Jeff, and Charlie, can we get your support for that idea?

  • sadie (unverified)
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    My mom, back in San Diego, CA, an independent who voted for Obama - reported to me last week that she was so sick and tired of seeing Hillary Clinton ads every time she turned on the TV. It could be that $5million went towards those commercials to hold on to CA. Probablly a wiser strategy than Mitt's $35 million to lose big.

    I don't think this bodes well for the General if Hillary is our candidate, though. She spent what, about $110 million to win in the bluest of states, her original hometown, and she likes to claim the two non-contested states, too? How is this a winning strategy?

    For me the most fascinating statistics from last night are the margins of victory. If you average them out for all of their wins, Hillary won mostly in blue states with an average margin of victory of 15.6%. Obama won last night in red, blue and purple states with an average margin of victory of 28.4%.

    Since we know we can win the blue states, I am far more excited over these huge margins in actual swing and potential swing states. It's clear that people love Obama in those states. I hope we don't have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to win a General just in the blue states - as we know, that would really not be a winning strategy.

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    I was quoted in today's Oregon Daily Emerald as essentially saying I wouldn't support Hillary in the general. An interesting way to convey me saying that I have reservations about how electable she is and how she hasn't addressed certain parts of her record.

    Please remove these two mistakes if reading the article:

    I did not say I wouldn't support Hillary, just that I have reservations about her as a candidate.

    I am not the president of the UO College Democrats. Just a member. And I speak only for myself (right, Kari?).

  • pdxatheist (unverified)
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    miles, and anyone else thinking about pressuring superdelegates,

    please go to dailykos.com and see the link off to the right about the message from the obama campaign asking people not to begin pressuring superdelegates on their own, as the obama campaign already has plans laid for winning over the supers. of course, we're all free to do as we please, but it makes sense to let the obama campaign employ its own strategy in this matter.

  • pdxatheist (unverified)
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    looks like i jumped the gun a bit on that last post. after re-reading, it is now clear that pressuring for one specific candidate over another at this point in the game was not what miles' post was about. my apologies.

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    Just so you folks know, I and the other "super delegates" have been hiding out in smoke-filled rooms doing exactly the things Miles has described.

    I'm not expecting an ambassadorship, though. I won't settle for that -- I want to be in the cabinet.

    The first candidate who offers me Secretary of Baseball, and I'm off the undecided list.

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    Wayne-

    Secretary of Baseball sounds like a good fit. Could you squeeze into your deal that I get 1 visit to the White House a year to go bowling at the alley there? I want to go visit the Richard Nixon portrait and ask him for some advice on the 7-10 split.

  • Destiny Lewis (unverified)
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    [Editor's note: Violent and potentially libelous comment removed.]

  • Miles (unverified)
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    The first candidate who offers me Secretary of Baseball, and I'm off the undecided list.

    Ha ha. But seriously, Wayne, why not let us know right now that you'll support the candidate who wins the Oregon primary? Or at least make an argument that voting against the will of Oreogn Democrats is somehow justifiable.

  • Rick Hunter (unverified)
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    Kari wrote:

    Yeah, that shouldn't happen. Of course, given that polls were supposed to close at 8 p.m. - did the national media folks even know that a few precincts in Oakland were unexpectedly still open? And would people standing in line at the polling places have even heard the news reports?

    Kinda like Florida in 2000, when they called the state for Gore even though thousands of Floridians hadn't voted yet in the conservative panhandle?

    Just sayin...

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    does anyone know what happens to the delegates that were alloted to john edwards?

    Haven't researched it, but if memory serves.... Edwards didn't drop out, he only "suspended" his campaign. That means that his delegates are still pledged to him. They'll have to vote for him on the first ballot. (And the second and third? Any help here, Wayne?)

    Of course, if he drops out, his delegates will be released - and they'll be able to do whatever they want. Presumably, though, they'll do whatever he asks them to do -- support the candidate he endorses.

    [Some people have assumed in the past that I speak for the Edwards campaign in Oregon. I do not. I am a donor and volunteer. Nothing more. As always, I speak only for myself.]

  • LT (unverified)
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    In 1984 McGovern publicly released his delegates at the convention and said he supported Mondale. Some of them said "I came here to vote for McGovern and that is what I will do". They have that right if they choose to do so.

  • Matthew Sutton (unverified)
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    I hate to keep going back to the fundraising, but something interesting is happening on barackobama.com that you might want to check out.

    Since it was disclosed that Bill & Hillary loaned their campaign $5,000,000, and they announced a fundraising goal of another $3,000,000 (confirmed by an email to HRC supporters posted on barackobama.com), Barack's campaign manager issued a challenge to his supporters to match or exceed that. So far, Barack has raised another $6,000,000 and its not eve 10:00 p.m. yet on 2/6. That figure is measured since the polls closed on Super Tuesday.

    This sets up an interesting dynamic. For every new fundraising goal that Hillary will make, the Obama campaign will that to challenge its 650,000+ online small amount donors to match or exceed. So far, it looks this is turning into a net positive for Barack's campaign. Its a bit counter-intuitive, but the more Hillary will donate to her campaign and challenge her own campaign, the more it helps Barack.

    The fundraising numbers have been incredible. I wonder at some point whether they will have too much money. But since they have to campaign in so many states, buy airtime,etc., I'm sure they will find a way to use it. For example, the Obama campaign announced today that they are opening ten new offices in Texas. More offices are opening in Ohio as well. This will only help Barack in the general election which is now starting to creep up on us it seems.

  • A. Rab. (unverified)
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    Slate had an "Explainer" on Clark's delegates in 2004 (the link is to when they republished the article after Edwards dropped out). Nobody is bound to vote a certain way, so Edwards delegates can do whatever they want. If Edwards endorses somebody, they could follow him but, as LT's article illustrates, nobody can force them to change their minds.

  • Pat Malach (unverified)
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    "...they get to vote twice! Once in the primary and again as a super delegate."

    Actually, they vote once when they fill in their ballots like the rest of us peons, then they vote what is the equivalent of thousands of times when they cast their individual "super" delegate vote.

  • Matthew Sutton (unverified)
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    File this under "you have got to be kidding me!"

    <hr/>

    Uncounted, Unreported New Mexico Ballots Spent Night in Homes of Polling Place Managers Hmmm… New Mexico Politics reports:

    The New Mexico Democratic Party caucus may be tainted by three ballot boxes that spent the night in the home of the Rio Arriba County party chair or the homes of other local election officials instead of being reported to the state party.

    Those ballots still haven’t been counted, but they have been retrieved by the state party.

    Several sources told me the ballot boxes spent the night at the home of Rio Arriba County Democratic Party Chair Theresa Martinez, whose state-lawmaker husband, Sen. Richard Martinez, endorsed Hillary Clinton. But Richard Martinez told Santa Fe New Mexican reporter Kate Nash that the boxes actually spent the night in the homes of three polling-place managers. He gave Nash no explanation for why the results from those ballots weren’t reported to the state party last night and why they were instead kept overnight in officials’ homes.

    “The site managers locked them and they kept them and they took them to my wife this morning,” Nash quoted Richard Martinez as saying.

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    Bill R.: If "super-delegates" are there to protect the party, why do they commit to the candidate before the convention? I have trouble understanding that.

    They can have their favorites, just like everyone. And usually it doesn't matter. But remember: a super-delegate is never truly pledged. If the day of the convention, Congressman Blumenauer says, "I was for Obama, but for the good of the party, I'm going to vote for Hillary instead", there is nothing from preventing him from doing so.

    Why would they do this? Remember that for superdelegates, who are major democratic office holders and party functionaries, party loyalty trumps personal fealty to candidates. For instance, if we get to a point where Hillary tries to win by cheating, I think she'll lose most of her superdelegates. They just won't stand for it.

    They may even do it just to put a candidate over the top. Because of Edwards' delegates, we may come to a point where one candidate leads substantially, but is shy just a handful of votes to win in the first round. If that occurs, don't be surprised to see some superdelegates flip just to get the vote over with. Brokered conventions make for great political theater, but lousy party reconciliation.

  • A. Rab. (unverified)
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    Any delegate can actually do that. The difference is that super delegates are not named by the candidates, and probably have their own power base, so they are perceived as more likely to change horses. Regular delegates are perceived as less likely to switch because the candidates select them for their loyalty.

  • Bill R. (unverified)
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    Steve M. said: "Why would they do this? Remember that for superdelegates, who are major democratic office holders and party functionaries, party loyalty trumps personal fealty to candidates. For instance, if we get to a point where Hillary tries to win by cheating, I think she'll lose most of her superdelegates. They just won't stand for it."

    <hr/>

    As an undergraduate student of Pol. Sci (my major) one of my professors made the statement that political parties only exist as a party at the time of national presidential elections. Your belief in their loyalty to the integrity of this entity called party is edifying but ill-founded in my view and history would suggest otherwise. I am inclined to see party officials, elected and not, in large part as viewing the party as an instrument of their ambitions rather than a greater instrument of the public good to be supported. And in times past, as well as times present party officials are inclined to do what they see as being good for themselves in the short term, rather than long term good of their constituent citizens.

    I think it is inherently corrupting to be giving them the power to overrule the choice of Democratic voters if it is their whim to do so. The concept of "super-delegates" is an anachronism of the party bossism of the past, and the mere existence of this power erodes the legitimacy of the party and those candidates to whom they have committed themselves. At present the only check on this power is the outrage of Democratic constituents who resent the whole idea of "super-delegates."

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    The superdelegates exist because in the 1980s the DLC leadership (or the folks who became that) successfully put over the notion that the McGovern Commission reforms after the 1968 convention debacle had created an excess of democracy & that the leadership needed more control over the party. They are intentionally undemocratic.

    Channel 8 last night caught an embarrassingly beschwiptzed Bill Bradbury at the DPO party exulting over the fact that being one might mean something.

    Steve, I don't dispute what you suggest about a response to the Clinton campaign cheating by trying to change the rules on Florida and Michigan, or in some other way.

    But that's not the question. The question is, in a situation where neither candidate has enough to win coming out of the primaries & caucuses, what if the collective wisdom of the superdelegates decides that the candidate with fewer of the popularly based votes has the better chance to win, & thus constitutes "the good of the party" on that basis? Someone suggested that this would tear the party apart, & one would hope that the superdelegates would recognize that avoiding that would be more important for "the good of the party" than getting the most electable candidate if they think that's different from the popular vote based leader. But it's not good for that to be left up to hope (as even hope-happy Obama people might agree in this context).

    This need not be pro-Clinton, btw. It is imaginable that Clinton could come in with more election-caucus based delegates but that superdelegates could be persuaded by the "Hillary's divisive / Obama gets independents" memes. The strong pro-Clinton leanings earlier were at least partly based on the theory of getting behind the leading candidate early for the sake of a smooth nomination. If Clinton has already failed at that task by arriving at a brokered convention, there probably will be a chunk of superdelegates who are Clinton loyalists going back to Bill C.'s administration, but I don't think they all are by any means.

    We shouldn't make too much of Obama getting a lot of D and even I votes in very "red" states. Carrying the D primary or caucuses in those states ain't the same thing as carrying them in the general, not at all. Especially if as is likely the Rs nominate McCain, who also pulls independents.

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    Regular delegates are perceived as less likely to switch because the candidates select them for their loyalty.

    Here in Oregon, our delegates to the National Convention will be voted on at the Congressional District Conventions and then some more will be voted on at the State Convention. You run for a position as a National Delegate, trying to get as many people as possible who are voting members at the Conventions to vote for you.

  • Bill R. (unverified)
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    This is the narrative about the super-delegates today. Underscores the need for to rid ourselves of the "super-delegate" scourge. A new rule change could simply say that the candidate, short of the the required number of delegates, with the most delegates wins the nomination. A party boss nominee is a sure recipe for destruction of the party and victory for the other side.

    <hr/>

    From Political Wire:

    "Back to Smoke-Filled Rooms The Wall Street Journal points to a wonderful scenario for political junkies but a "nightmare" for Democrats: "The party's bigwigs, rather than its voters, may end up choosing the presidential nominee."

    If neither Sen. Barack Obama nor Sen. Hillary Clinton "manages to pull decisively ahead in the next few weeks, the nomination could depend on the convention votes of 796 party leaders, or superdelegates, who are free to ignore the preferences of Democratic voters."

    A new site has already been set up to track the superdelegates in the case of a brokered convention."

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    You guys who hate superdelegates need to check out the Constitution of the United States. Originally, members of the electoral college weren't just assigned in proportion to their respective States' Senators and Congressmen, they actually were the Senators and Congressmen. But even today, if the electoral college comes up a tie, the President is selected by a vote in the House of Representatives.

    When push comes to shove, the people who get the final vote on who is President is Congress.

    So if that's the way we select the President, why is is so unconscionable for a party to give a vote to those same Congressmen for the party nominee?

    And please, don't go into any sophistry about "the will of the people". Their votes only count when the party itself is so divided that there really isn't any true will of the people.

    Besides, what else do you want to do when things come up a tie? Flip a coin?

  • Miles (unverified)
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    First, Steve, the way we constitutionally elect a president has little bearing on how a private political party selects its nominee. But even if you draw the parallel, we've come a long way since the Constitution was written on how we view the popular vote. People didn't used to directly elect their Senators, either, but I assume you don't want to go back to that system.

    Second, you're making a strawman argument when it comes to a "tie" in the party. I'm not arguing that superdelegates shouldn't play a role, I'm arguing that they shouldn't play a role on the first few ballots at the convention. All delegates should be pledged for the first few votes (whatever the party rules currently say with regard to pledged delegates) based on the popular vote in their state. If after those ballots there is no clear nominee, then ALL delegates should be released.

    The situation that I want to avoid is one where the superdelegates decide the nomination on their own. Chris is right, there are reasonable scenarios where superdelegates could push Clinton or Obama over the top, even though they may be behind in actual "real" delegates.

    Remember that for superdelegates, who are major democratic office holders and party functionaries, party loyalty trumps personal fealty to candidates.

    You do know that both Bill Clinton and Terry McAuliffe are superdelegates, right? That fact makes your above statement untenable.

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    Miles: The situation that I want to avoid is one where the superdelegates decide the nomination on their own.

    How are they going to do anything on their own, Miles, unless it's already a tie? Please, come up with a scenario where one candidate has a majority of votes, but the superdelegates "on their own" choose someone else.

    You do know that both Bill Clinton and Terry McAuliffe are superdelegates, right?

    Right. So is Barak Obama. But the vast majority don't have that kind of direct conflict of interest, so my point still stands.

    You have to have a tiebreaker. Superdelegates are better than heads or tails.

  • Miles (unverified)
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    Please, come up with a scenario where one candidate has a majority of votes, but the superdelegates "on their own" choose someone else.

    Okay. There are 4,049 total Democratic delegates -- 3,253 regular delegates and 796 superdelegates. A candidate needs 2,025 to win the nomination.

    Imagine that Obama comes to the convention with 1,800 regular delegates, and Clinton comes with 1,453. But Clinton gets 572 superdelegates to vote for her, while Obama gets the remaining 224. Clinton gets the nomination with 2,025 delegates to Obama's 2,024.

    In that scenario, Obama got 55% of the pledged delegates -- the ones apportioned by actual Democratic voters -- but lost because party bosses supported Clinton. There are endless scenarios where this could happen given the closeness of the race. It is very unlikely at this point that either candidate will achieve 2,025 pledged delegates, so the decision is almost certainly going to be made by the superdelegates.

    Here's how the NY Times describes superdelegates: Superdelegates were created by the Democratic Party following the 1980 presidential election as a means of ensuring that party officials were given a substantial voice in the nominating process.

    So they were actually created to control the Democratic party masses. Frankly, the whole system is appalling, and it's being exposed now that we're in a tight race. So we need to put pressure on Oregon superdelegates to support the candidate that we, Oregon Democratic party members, support.

  • Bill R. (unverified)
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    Steve M. said: When push comes to shove, the people who get the final vote on who is President is Congress. So if that's the way we select the President, why is is so unconscionable for a party to give a vote to those same Congressmen for the party nominee? And please, don't go into any sophistry about "the will of the people". Their votes only count when the party itself is so divided that there really isn't any true will of the people. Besides, what else do you want to do when things come up a tie? Flip a coin?"

    <hr/>

    Bad analogies, Steve. But if you want to defend the undemocratic electoral college, a plutocratic anachronism from the days of oligarchy, and with it the monstrosity of the 2000 election, where the loser of the popular vote, George W.Bush won the electoral college by vote of the Supreme Court, go to it!

    Tie vote of delegates.. how many times has that happened, Steve? If need be, flip a coin, yes, much better than a bunch of party bosses rigging the nomination. But surely the party can be inventive for an absolute tie,for an unlikely event which will never happen.

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    Your scenario, Miles, is not one in which a candidate has a majority of votes. But even if I accept the lesser standard which you apply, you are still making another completely unreasonable assumption - that a huge number of superdelegates would vote contrary to the wishes of the people of their own districts. And not just on some relatively minor matter that could be swept under the rug either, but on who is to become the President of the United States - about as public an issue as you can imagine. In your scenario, many of those Clinton superdelegates would be ex-delegates in the next available election.

    That simply doesn't happen, period. The only way I imagine it could is if a large majority see something more damaging to their election prospects if one nominee is chosen over another - for example, Hillary splitting the party by trying to win through finding a way to seat the illegal Florida delegation.

    Again, Miles, I think you should think about who our superdelegates are, and ask yourself "Are these the Illuminati"? They're: Jenny Greenleaf, Wayne Kinney, Bill Bradbury, Gov. Kulongoski, David Wu, Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio, Darlene Hooley, Ron Wyden. Do you honestly see them as people united for the subversion of Democracy?

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    Steve, you're the one who's engaging in sophistry here. The point is that with 20% of the delegates ex-officio, a candidate needs to win not 50+1 % of elected delegates to get nominated without them, but 62.5%+1 (5/8 of total). So there is a big range in which there is no majority of all delegates, but there is a majority of elected/caucused delegates. Miles gave you exactly an example of such a scenario.

    Personally I am not that worried about a scenario such as Miles lays out. If one candidate comes in with 55% of elected/caucused delegates, in practice you're almost certainly right that the superdelegates would affirm that choice.

    The scenarios that worry me are if Clinton is leading with 51% or 52% of elected/caucused, but the supers put Obama over the top, or vice-versa. If it's that close I can imagine situations where "the good of the party" gets viewed through some prognositicatory lens of electability by the superdelegates, but the effects of the convention going against the elected/caucused delegate count are erroneously weighed by them. This requires no supposition of bad faith at all.

    Also, there are 796 superdelegates. Of these, about 230 are members of Congress, 51 senators I think (presumably not Joe Lieberman or Bernie Sanders), call it 25 governors, we're up to about 300. How many statewide electeds like Bill Bradbury (is he going as SOS or as DNC member)? Anyway, it looks to me as if 300-400 & possibly more of the superdelegates will not be elected officials but party officials and some ex-office holders, who would not face re-election in the manner you describe.

    Also, consider the cases of Governor Kulongoski and Representative Blumenauer. Each has committed himself to a candidate prior to Oregon's primary. If the primary goes strongly one way or another, will voters really punish either for voting their pledge? (Will the governor even be running for office again)? Again, bad faith not the issue.

    You have a point about the value of a guard against candidate malfeasance of some sort or another. But that's not where the problem lies. It lies in what we might call fairly good faith paternalism, in which the superdelegates cumulatively (but probably not in collective deliberation, which might actually be better) out of some combination of political deals and decisions about where they think the good of the party lies (not mutually exclusive, of course) decide to overturn a narrow but real majority of electoral/caucus delegates.

    IMO that poses a very real risk of disastrous consequences for turnout, phone-banking, shoe-leather work & so on.

    Whether over the long run the protective benefit you cite outweighs the democracy deficit some of us fear is imponderable and to a degree a matter of personal philosophy. But in the short term, it might be good for confidence all around if the superdelegates evinced awareness in public that how they handle the convention, should it arrive in that shape, may influence party unity afterwards.

    As you suggest, probably that is so. But people make bad judgments in good faith, and both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have many true-believer supporters for whom their candidate represents more than a calculus of likelihood to beat John McCain. Think of some of the more vociferous Obama folks among us: if he goes into the convention with 51% of elected/caucused delegates and Clinton emerges the nominee, how many of them will impute bad faith even if there is none?

    We don't have so many of the Clinton equivalents who comment regularly here, but they probably exist in Oregon and they certainly exist in many other important states. Women have been turning out disproportionately in many of the primaries and voting for Clinton disproportionately -- one can read gender gaps both ways, of course, but for Dems they cut toward women & suppression of the women's vote by perception of unfairness to Clinton would be bad for us.

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    By "probably that is so" I mean, probably the superdelegates have that awareness. I hope so, but I'd like to have a little more than hope.

  • Miles (unverified)
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    you are still making another completely unreasonable assumption - that a huge number of superdelegates would vote contrary to the wishes of the people of their own districts.

    Over 300 of the 796 superdelegates have already committed to Clinton or Obama, including 25% of Oregon's superdelegates (Hooley, Blumenauer, and Kulongoski). Since my assumption reflects reality, I don't see how it can be unreasonable.

    I think you should think about who our superdelegates are. . . . Do you honestly see them as people united for the subversion of Democracy?

    In your list you forgot Meredith Woods-Smith, Frank Dixon, and Gail Rasmussen. My point is not that they are bad people (although I can only speak personally about a few of them), it is that the system is set up to limit the power of party members and put it in the hands of party leaders. Whether they ultimately act in good faith or not is irrelevant; the key question is why such a system is better than the alternative.

    What do you see as the drawback to binding the superdelegates in the same way we bind regular delegates? We can even split them proportionally by state, just as regular delegates are split. In a two-person race, this would always result in a winner on the first ballot. In a three-person race, the delegates could all be released after the first vote. Again, I'm fine with the delegates making the ultimate decision -- so long as they all have equal say.

    By the way, you keep suggesting that the superdelegates would abandon Clinton if she tried to seat the Florida delegation. She has repeatedly stated that her intention is to do just that, yet Kulongoski and Hooley have yet to renounce their support for Clinton. On what do you base your assertion?

  • Bill R. (unverified)
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    If the WaPo article today proves true, then the Dem. party is facing the dilemma we are discussing today. Howard Dean apparently wants to meet sometime in Mar or April with the candidates to work out a "fix." He must realize the danger and disaster that awaits a convention "brokered" by party bosses. I suspect the only fix is to get the candidates to agree that the one with the least elected delegates by convention time cede the nomination to the other.

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    I base my assertion, Miles, on the fact that I know both Kulongoski and Hooley. They're partisan, not insane.

    There is a difference between seating the Florida delegation as a courtesy (because their votes don't actually matter), and seating them to ensure victory. The latter might let Hillary be the nominee, but it would damage the Democratic party immeasurably in the long term. I don't think Ted or Darlene would do that.

    However, unless that final, unlikely, scenario actually occurs, I doubt they'd feel the need to have a change of heart.

    And certainly they're not when Hillary still has a chance to win legitimately. I'm for Obama, but there are plenty of Democrats who view this race differently than I do.

  • Miles (unverified)
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    I don't think you're paying close enough attention to what Hillary Clinton is saying, Steve. She wants to seat the Florida delegates because she thinks they deserve to vote -- for her. She's betting that the national party won't snub them given the importance of Florida in the general, and that could be enough to put her over the top. In spite of that, Hooley and Kulongoski are still committed to her.

    But that issue aside, do you have any objections to binding superdelegates the same way we bind regular delegates?

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    Miles: I don't think you're paying close enough attention to what Hillary Clinton is saying

    My suspicion is neither Darlene nor Ted are either. They have day jobs, you know.

    But beside that, my point was that if Hillary wins a full majority without the Florida delegates - which could still happen - then her intent to seat them would be moot. In that scenario, it really would be no big deal to seat them as a courtesy. So there's no particular reason for Ted or Darlene to jump the gun until this relatively unlikely scenario comes up.

    Despite Chris' silly accusation of sophistry against me, the truth is that there is normally very little difference between a 63% and 50%+1 majority. Usually, the tendency of voters to vote for the candidate who is already ahead gives 80% of the delegates to the nominee.

    Finally, if we "bound" superdelegates, they wouldn't be superdelegates anymore, now would they? They'd just be regular delegates. If you want to get rid of superdelegates, I think you should just say so.

  • Miles (unverified)
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    If you want to get rid of superdelegates, I think you should just say so.

    Wait, haven't I been saying that all along!?! Maybe I need to recalibrate my "directness" meter.

    <h2>I think the party should get rid of superdelegates. Given that we're already in the middle of this race, and that's impossible, I think individual state party members should pressure their own state superdelegates to vote with the majority of the state on the first ballot. I'm an Obama supporter, but if Clinton wins Oregon then all 12 of our supers should vote for Clinton.</h2>

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