The Democratic Party is worse than the Senate:

Lots of people are griping that in order for the Democrats to get anything done in the Senate, they have to have a 60-seat "super majority" (in order to shut down a filibuster by Republicans). 60%.

What's going on with the race for the nomination to be the candidate for president?

There are a total of 4,048 delegates involved. But 3,253 are "pledged delegates", chosen through the primary process (election or caucus). The remaining 795 are superdelegates.

To get the nomination (a majority of all delegates) 2025 are needed. But to get that number with pledged delegates only, a candidate needs to get 62% of them (2025/3253).

It's even worse than that, since the granularity at lower levels results in many even splits when delegates are assigned, erasing many 5% to 15% margins. Earlier this year people were wondering if John Edwards would become a kingmaker, using his delegates to pick the nominee. That never happened, but instead, the Democrats turned out to already have a kingmaker of sorts. The superdelegates.


posted by Quiddity at 3/09/2008 11:24:00 AM