Decision ‘08

Wondering About That Delegate Count After Yesterday’s Rulings?

With the decision to give Florida and Michigan delegates half a vote, and a ruling on how to apportion Michigan, the magic number to nominate is now 2,118, with Obama at 2,051 and Hillary at 1,876. Including today’s vote in Puerto Rico, there are 86 delegates remaining in the primaries, and 178 superdelegates who have yet to tip their hand. Assuming Obama gets at least 25 of the primary delegates, just to throw out a number that surely isn’t too high, he only needs about 25% of the remaining superdelegates to clinch.

Furthermore, I suspect that many, many superdelegates will reveal their preferences after Tuesday’s final primary votes.

This one ain’t going to the convention, though Hillary may still pretend it will…Obama is the nominee (though we’ve known that for some time now)…

UPDATE: Though Hillary won Puerto Rico big, as expected, Obama picked up another 17 or 18 delegates, so he’s within 50…

9 Responses to “Wondering About That Delegate Count After Yesterday’s Rulings?”

1 EAST COAST Says:
June 1st, 2008 at 8:16 pm
HE NEEDS TO DO MORE THAN QUIT THIS CHURCH. HE APOLOGIZED TO MOSS FOR CAUSING TOO MUCH PUBLICITY. HOW ABOUT APOLOGIZING TO AMERICA FOR SITTING IN THIS CHURCH FOR 20 YEARS. I BELIEVE OBAMA AGREES WITH THESE RADICAL PASTORS. HE WILL DESTROY OUR COUNTRY.

After Obama said rural voters cling to guns and religion out of bitterness, I don’t see why anyone in South Dakota or Montana would vote for him. (He also co-sponsored a bill to limit gun purchases on Oct. 2007–one of the few things he actually did in the Senate besides show up for pictures–and came out in favor of localities being able to ban guns altogether in February of 2008).
in his effort

Besides, how much does anyone really know about Obama–besides the fact that he is silver-tongued and chose to belong to an Anti-American, racist church for more than 20 years? How can we pick someone to be president based only on a nice smile, a silver tongue, and vague promises of “change?” “Change” means different things to different people, and he seems to be vaguely promising it all to everyone.

Last Thursday Anderson Cooper showed how ruthless Obama was in his effort to become a state senator, asked why the media had failed to investigate Obama, and wondered what else there was that the public doesn’t know about him. Apparently no one will know until it’s too late.

Had the biased media and DNC bigwigs told the truth about Obama AND HIS ANTI-AMERICAN PAST — BEFORE over half of America had voted — Obama would not be in this race.

Pelosi, Dean, Reid, Kennedy, Kerry, Edwards and Obama, along with many other big-wig Dems are corrupting the Democratic Party.

It appears that the DNC is setting a new precedent:

YOU NO LONGER HAVE TO BE ON A BALLOT TO GET VOTES.

In Michigan, Barack Hussein Obama removed his name from the ballot, own choice, own reason, but hey…. That don’t matter because he is getting delegates and votes from the DNC who think it is fair to give him some even though he did not represent himself.

The morons who voted for this … Must be FIRED!!!!

We the people will vote AGAINST the corrupt DNC in November. If Obama is the nominee We will never vote for him. Our votes go to Sen. Clinton OR Sen. McCain, both are American patriots.

A landslide loss for the DNC in November will teach the bastards a lesson about counting votes, and honoring the votes of the people. If they won’t listen to us — we won’t listen to them — vote them out of office as soon as possible.

WE DON’T NEED A RADICAL IN OUR WHITE HOUSE SPEWING HATRED AND “GOD DAMN AMERICA”. READ HIS BOOK — READ HIS WIFE’S THESIS.

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DECENT, HONEST PEOPLE.

NO OBAMA.
2 Mark Says:
June 1st, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Mmmm, hmmmm…well, it’s a free country - but this type of rant will, if anything, draw people TO Obama. Oppose him on policy, condemn him for not leaving his church sooner, fine - but why refer to Barack Hussein Obama? And you completely ignore the fact that Michigan and Florida disenfranchised themselves by breaking the rules, and the DNC cut them a break anyway…but in closing, let me say..

THANKS FOR THE COMMENTS - BUT NO SHOUTING NECESSARY!…
3 Chris J. Breisch Says:
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:11 am
Well, Mark, I still respectfully disagree.

And, I will continue to do so until either:
1) Hillary officially quits the race
2) The FL lawsuit is dropped

The number is still 2210, and actually, the decision on Saturday makes things worse, not better for Obama. It’s harder for me to figure out the numbers now since DemConWatch has eliminated the only chart I care about, but my count now, Obama is 144 short of the needed 2210.

Here’s my math, so if I’m wrong, someone can point it out to me. As always, I’m using the FL and MI primaries as they ran, seated in full, and Obama getting 0 from MI.

Pledged Delegates: 1660.5
MI Delegates: 0
FL Delegates: 67
Pledged Superdelegates: 328.5
Pledged Superdelegates from FL and MI: 10
Total: 2066
Needed: 2210
Short: 144

The number is higher than on Friday because Edward’s delegates are not counted with Obama’s.
The final two primaries have a total of 48 delegates. Obama is expected to win both, so let’s be generous and give him 3/4 of the 48. That leaves him 36. So, he still will need 108 after Tuesday.

That seems an insurmountable number to get to before the convention. People keep pointing out to me that he’s picked up on average 4 supers per day lately, so it won’t take him long to get those last “few” delegates he needs. Yes, and no. He’ll pick up a bunch this week. Easily enough to get to the 2118 number that everyone is quoting. And that may be enough to get Hillary to drop out. In which case he’ll get all the rest of the supers and everything will be wonderful.

However, as I’ve asked many times before, if it’s June 4, and you’re a super and you haven’t committed yet, why should you commit before the convention? Well, to answer that, look at why they might not have committed.

1) They really don’t know (seems unlikely, but ok). If that’s the case, you’re probably going to want a chance to meet with the candidate and his people personally and really see what they have to say. You’d probably like to meet with both. When’s your best chance for that? At or right before the convention.
2) They’re afraid to commit publicly (I think some Hillary supporters may be in this one). They don’t want to be seen as being behind a loser. This is sad, but it’s the way politics works.
3) They don’t care who the nominee is. Well, that’s a poor way of putting it. A better way is that they want to commit to the person who’s going to do the most for them. They’re angling for a position of power in the administration, Cabinet, etc. So, they want to see who’s going to give them the most for their support. I think most of the uncommitteds fall into this last group. Yes, I know. I’m cynical. If you are in this group, you’re unlikely to commit before the convention either.

Hillary will take it to the Credentials committee (fat chance there), and the FL lawsuit will move forward. And, in the end, the Democratic nominee will have the support of 2210 delegates, and FL and MI will be treated more “fairly”.
4 Fargus Says:
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Chris, you’re not serious, are you? Obama gets zero delegates from Michigan? You really think there’s a possibility that’ll bear out? Those uncommitted delegates would likely break largely toward Obama.

The assumption, too, that Florida and Michigan need to be counted in full is so deeply flawed it’s hard to know where to start laughing at it. They broke the rules and knew it, so a sanction is entirely appropriate. More to the point, though, to count the primaries as held in full would throw out the opinion of the people who opted not to vote in them in the knowledge that they wouldn’t count.

Holding new primaries or caucuses would have been an entirely acceptable solution to rational folk the world over. But nobody’s accused the Clinton dead-enders lately of being rational. Or, apparently, the Clinton campaign’s right-wing apologists, as evidenced by the comment above.
5 Ryan Says:
June 2nd, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Fargus, Chris is dead serious. That’s the most jaw-dropping part of the whole thing. He actually believes the stuff he say.
6 Gulf Coast Bandit Says:
June 2nd, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Resident Liberals: Well… you know there is that FL lawsuit based on the Voting Rights Act… and according to your logic, the Supreme Court is full of evil Republicans who are willing to do anything to ensure the electoral success of the Republican Party - “selected, not elected,” you know - and plus, the Clinton campaign will find a MI voter who really wanted to send Uncommitted delegates to the convention (they do exist, Messrs. Uncommitted, Unpledged, Unassigned, and their ilk do get votes) and sue that his/her rights were violated when the RBC assigned those delegates to Obama… for me, I’ll be paying attention until the last night of the convention.
7 Jacques Distler Says:
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:55 pm
I believe Chris and Gulf Coast are operating under the “and that’s when the dinosaurs attack” theory.
8 Clint Says:
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I think the Rules Committee basically did the best they could with the hash they were given…

But isn’t there something a little bit surreal about a bunch of party functionaries meeting and deciding how many delegates from Michigan to award to each candidate?

Is this really how the Democratic Party thinks elections should be run?

Would they be happy if in 2000 the Florida legislature had just decided to circumvent the whole “recount” thing by just selecting Electors to send to Washington to vote on Florida’s behalf in the Electoral College?

Again, the result seems like a perfectly reasonable compromise — but the utter lack of basic principles underlying it is horrifying. It’s not just that the Ends justify the Means… it’s not clear that anyone even gave a moment’s thought to the Means. It was just about reaching a compromise between the Ends valued by those with the power to demand it.
9 mikebdot Says:
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Thanks Jacques, I haven’t checked fafblog in awhile. Hilarious as always.