Well, not all of the results are in as I write this but most of them are. After last night, CNN predicts that Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton leads the delegate race 825 to 732 over Barack Obama. On the Republican side, it is John McCain with 615, Mitt Romney with 268 and Mike Huckabee with 169.
In his speech last night, McCain used the term “frontrunner” for the first time. Given the nature of the winner-take-all states involved, I’d say its a pretty good bet that McCain will be the nominee. I’m a little surprised that Republican voters are not up in arms about such allocation of delegates. It seems quite un-democratic. If the Republicans used a different allocation, I doubt we’d be talking about McCain being the frontrunner at this point.
The race on the Democratic side is not over but Clinton remains in the lead. Her win in Massachusetts was quite telling of the strength of her candidacy: despite receiving the endorsements of Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and the governor, Obama managed to garner only 41% of the vote.
In watching the coverage last night and reading through the various postings, one thing emerged that I would like to look further into. It was said that Clinton won the states where there were primaries while Obama won the states where there were caucuses. I haven’t done a state-by-state breakdown of this (and if it is on the web somewhere, somebody please link it) but on the surface, this appears to be the case. What that says about our democratic process – as well as the larger issue of electability – is a topic for another post, since I’ve got to get to work 😦
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
“I’m a little surprised that Republican voters are not up in arms about such allocation of delegates. It seems quite un-democratic.”
But no mention that Hillary’s lead is virtually all “superdelegates” that aren’t chosen by any primary or caucus at all?
Super Tuesday was bad news for Sen. Clinton. She really needed to whack Sen. Obama. Money and momentum look to be on his side. If he does very well Saturday, the narrative will change to his benefit.
In all honesty, that’s a reasonable point, Brian. There are reasons pros to having the superdelegate system, but there are undeniably cons as well.
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I don’t think the primary/caucus dichotomy is (a) true or (b) significant. While it is the case that Obama won all the caucus states and, by process of elimination, every state Hillary won was a primary state, it is not the case that every primary state went to Hillary (one of Obama’s biggest blowouts of the night was Georgia, a primary state, and his biggest upsets were in Connecticut and Missouri, both primary states). Moreover, Obama’s success in the caucus states isn’t a result of the process selected; most of the states that caucus are smaller states that Obama decided to focus on to counter Hillary’s strenght in delegate rich states like NJ, NY, and CA. A lot of them are also states that are either red states or swing states, while Hillary’s strongest in the blue states. The fact these states predominantly chose to caucus instead of hold a primary is basically a conincidence.
I think the caucus/primary controversy is as big a red herring as the supposed latent racism in New Hampshire that some people argued was the result of Hillary’s surprising win in that state.
Great job in the spin room Vivian … here is the Obama version:
“The Obama campaign released a memo laying out their official delegate tally of Feb. 5th’s results this morning, claiming that they won 845 delegates to Hillary’s 836, a margin of nine points.”
“The Obama camp’s total of pledged delegates for the race thus far: Obama, 908, Hillary 884.”
Obama top adviser David Plouffe’s spin on the results:
“By winning a majority of delegates and a majority of the states, Barack Obama won an important Super Tuesday victory over Senator Clinton in the closest thing we have to a national primary. From Colorado and Utah in the west to Georgia and Alabama in the south to Senator Clinton’s backyard in Connecticut, Obama showed that he can win the support of Americans of every race, gender, and political party in every region of the country. That’s why he’s on track to win Democratic nomination, and that’s why he’s the best candidate to defeat John McCain in November.”
Wow. At least Vivian shares her own thoughts instead of copying and pasting press releases. I must not have gotten the same memo the rest of the Obama supporters received about how we’re going to start mimicking Ron Paul’s Interwebs horde.
Shawn – point me to any spin in what I wrote.
Brian – the number of superdelegates compared to winner-take-all states? Come on. What I said is still valid – how come you guys aren’t concerned about that?
anon – thanks for the info. I have not had time to look at all the details and simply wanted to throw that out there, especially in light of the process by which caucuses are done. I just don’t think they are democratic.
What is so bad about winner take all primaries?
Because conservatives like competition and merit being rewarded, unlike Democrats who want those who fail to be rewarded as if they won.
Now you can go on and defend the Democratic nominee to be chosen by the 20% of Democrat delegates that are outside the primary/caucus elections completely.
What’s so bad about them? They dilute the effect of the voters. If someone wins by 1 vote, they get all of that state’s delegates, completing ignoring the fact that almost 50% of the voters chose a different candidate.
As for defending the super delegates, I’ve not made any attempt to do so and would, in fact, support allocating all all of delegates.
Almost 50% of the voters choose a different candidate than the winner in just about every election. You don’t ask that the losing candidate go serve in the legislature for a couple weeks.
And we see how well this theory of governing has worked in the past 7 years . . .
I’m a little surprised that Republican voters are not up in arms about such allocation of delegates. It seems quite un-democratic.”
I have to agree with Brian. I am BLOWN away by a system that has ‘Super Delagtes’ of insiders who choose what they want… or what they are paid to do in cash and favors. It amazes me that the party that cried about voices and votes not being counted is one that lets almost 1/3 of the votes be made by insiders.
Reminds me of a certain failed system of government where “the same for all” was preached but only the party elite really had input. Hmmm
CNN’s tally —
Clinton: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/candidates/#1746
Obama: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/candidates/#1918
Very interesting. While you’re there, look at the numbers of people who participated in the Democratic CAUCUSes. Kansas caucus: 27,172 votes
Caucuses aren’t democratic: they are not one person, one vote, in private. Caucuses take a lot of time and most folks don’t particiapate because of the number of hours required to “vote”.
Can commenter Shawn O’Donnell explain his numbers being so different than the CNN numbers?