The delegate fight: History lesson
Posted: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 9:08 AM by Domenico Montanaro
The New York Times looks at previous delegate fights and how they took a toll on the eventual nominee. “For all the sirens warning of disaster, history offers mixed guidance on whether spirited primary fights are fatal. Many historians and analysts say that while protracted primaries can weaken a nominee, bigger factors are usually at play. Voters are often swayed by whether they feel the country is headed in the right direction. They take into account whether primary battles are personal or political. They want to see whether the winner and the loser can patch things up. And time can make a difference.”
Perhaps Dems were doomed in both 1980 and 1984, but the primary fights appeared to make the GOP’s that much easier.
Last night, the Obama campaign proclaimed -- after Mississippi certified the results of its primary earlier this month, 62.51% for Obama to 37.49% for Clinton -- that Obama had a net gain of seven delegates in the states (20-13) versus five (19-14).
And of those nine remaining Texas delegates, “Obama picked up seven of nine outstanding delegates, giving him a total of 99 Texas delegates to the party's national convention this summer. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won the other two, giving her a total of 94 Texas delegates, according to an analysis of returns by The Associated Press.”
The Politico asked a delegate expert to project the makeup of the credentials committee, which is based on delegates earned (big states first), as well as 25 members appointed by Dean. There's little change Clinton will control a majority but Obama may only control a very NARROW majority since, for instance, a candidates victory in a large state gets a little more weight in this allocation process than simply the candidate who wins the most delegates overall.
On some in the Democratic Party calling for Clinton to drop out… "My take on it is a lot of Senator Obama's supporters want to end this race because they don't want people to keep voting," Clinton told a local TV station in Billings, Mont. "That's just the opposite of what I believe. We want people to vote. I want the people of Montana to vote, don't you?” The Obama campaign rejected the charge, dismissing Clinton's criticism as "completely laughable."
Michigan Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak is the latest MI/FL Dem with a delegate-split plan. In a letter to the DNC, "Stupak suggested awarding the 83 pledged delegates from the state to be decided upon at congressional district conventions next month based on the results of the disallowed primary election – with 47 going to Hillary Clinton and 36 who voted ‘uncommitted’ going to Barack Obama. Then, he suggested splitting the state’s remaining 73 delegates -- those which would be elected at a state central committee meeting in May as well as the state’s so-called superdelegates -- based on the percentage of the popular vote each gets nationwide after the last primary in June."
The RNC has unveiled a new Web site that seizes on the fact that Democratic superdelegates will end up deciding the eventual Dem nominee. “Great Scott!” the site says. “The power to choose does not belong to the Democrat voters. Find out who really chooses the Democrat nominee.”
