Penn Primary Blues

Michigan and Florida will hang over the Democrat 2008 primaries for a long time. An internal party dustup might have cost Hillary Clinton the nomination and almost certainly the presidency as a result. She has been playing catchup with a stacked deck (love those mixed metaphors). The job of the Super Delegates will be tough if it stays close. They are part of the process just like its many other imperfect aspects.

Take Texas for instance. Clinton won 50.89% of the primary vote in the primary and captured 65 delegates to the national convention. Obama's 47.37% gave him 61. When the caucus convention process finishes in June, Obama should win 38 national delegates to Clinton's 29. Seems fair except that to vote in the caucuses they had to vote in the primary first. Barack did well in caucus votes probably because of the nature of the these meetings. Please see Obama: King of the Caucuses for more on this.

The outcome of all this was that Clinton won the Texas popular vote clearly but could end up with less delegates than Obama, 94 to 99.
Doubtless Obama supporters will scream from the rooftops if Clinton wins at the National Democratic Convention in August without a majority of the popular vote or primary/caucus delegates. The strategy is only to object to the rules if they work against your side.

Who would ever have imagined that Indiana would be a real player in this enervating scenario?

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