(no subject)

[moominmolly]

Just captured from cnn.com:



Okay, so, stop me if I misunderstand, but does this show in the BIG BOLD NUMBERS that Obama is behind Clinton, but in the little teeny numbers that they're neck and neck in the popular vote, but CNN has awarded the "superdelegates" (i.e. the Smoky Back Room vote, delegate votes belonging to important party members not beholden to any popular vote contest) mostly to Clinton? How do media outlets decide how they think these votes are going to go?

Comments

[kungfoogirl.livejournal.com]

I was wondering this too.

It's strange because all the news sites have something similar. And the margins seem to be about the same, even if the numbers are drastically different.

So there must be some formula, but they all seem to be using it differently.

[jacflash.livejournal.com]

I think some of the superdelegatepeople have made public "pledges" to support certain candidates.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Ahh! Interesting. Thanks.

[inahandbasket]

Indeed.
Like Ted Kennedy (superdelegate) coming out for Obama.

[sconstant.livejournal.com]

And I think that Bill Clinton (superdelegate) is pretty sure he's going for Hillary.

[reesei.livejournal.com]

For that matter, we're pretty sure where superdelegates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama stand as well. Seriously, they're on the list from the links in someone's comment!

I'd think they'd have to recuse themselves or something...

[fengshui.livejournal.com]

However, those are not binding pledges, of course. If either Barack or Hillary gets a large portion of the popular vote, some of those pledges could go the other way. Nothing is set in stone till the convention.

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

I think we should totally get rid of superdelegates. But they didn't ask me.

I'm intrigued by how *not* settled things are after Super Tuesday.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Jesus. No kidding.

[cassielsander.livejournal.com]

They are pretty shady. But it might be good to have somebody, once the primaries are over, who can get together and say "Okay, these two are never going to concede to each other, let's throw it to one of them for the sake of the party."

Especially if the alternative is for the nomination to go to some third "dark horse" person who Barrack & Hilary can agree on but no one actually voted for.

Otoh, regular delegates could do this too. Just probably not ahead of the convention.

[harimad.livejournal.com]

Otoh, regular delegates could do this too

Technically yes. In practical terms, no. Delegates are long-time party loyalists who have a lot at state wrt their status and reputation in their party. They would lose everything if they voted for someone other than their pledged candidate: job, influence, reputation, livelihood, all standing in a matter very important to them. If their candidate is still running.

If the candidate is not, I believe the delegates are similarly constrained to vote for the person the candidate then backs, but I'm not sure. If the candidate doesn't back anyone, the delegate is free.

Final point: the delegate system is relatively new. It has not been put to the test under, say, 1960 Democratic Convention conditions. I can't say what would happen then.

[tablesaw]

This page has a good summary. Note that every outlet has a slightly different count of the number of superdelegates.

[sernin.livejournal.com]

thanks for that link
I looked for that kind of information last night.

[goat.livejournal.com]

The superdelegate system is bullshit.

I think the candidates may have supplied the news outlets with a list of the people who had pledged to them.

[redheadedmuse.livejournal.com]

no the news outlets call the superdelegates and ask who they are supporting.

[dolohov.livejournal.com]

Oh, they have an inside source -- a former president, even!

[fanw.livejournal.com]

Yup. Basically, it all used to be smokey-back-room stuff. I don't know when they made primaries open to a popular vote, but they obviously put a lot of catches onto it to make sure the people don't get uppity and vote for someone the Dems don't want to support.

This is an interesting race. I still feel it could go either way.

[fanw.livejournal.com]

I know how many delegates they got and I know how many states, but does anyone have any idea how much each has in the popular vote? That's what would interest me!

no popular vote

[cos]

Actually, it would be very misleading in a system like this for a few reasons:

1. Some states have voted and some have not, and the set that have are not a representative random sampling of the population.

2. (less relevant this cycle than in other cycles) Some primaries matter more, and stimulate higher turnout.

3. Several candidates who competed in earlier primaries dropped out, getting far fewer votes after they dropped out, skewing the results in ways that are hard to measure.

4. (perhaps most important of all) In states that have primaries, we have figures for the number of individual votes each candidate got. In states that have caucuses, we have figures for the number of precinct level delegates each candidate got. A lot of people from the same precinct get together in a room, form groups, disband groups for nonviable candidates, convince each other to switch sides, and eventually figure out how to allot their precinct's fixed number of delegates for each candidate. These numbers you see from states like Kansas and Colorado and North Dakota and Alaska are not vote counts, they're precinct delegate counts.

[avacon.livejournal.com]

Digging around, this seems to have some numbers
and good data:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2008_Democratic_presidential_primaries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2008_Republican_presidential_primaries

and this has some good discussion:

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

I'm curious if you add up the popular vote totals...

[zogathon.livejournal.com]

You know, if he wins the popular vote and she gets the nomination because of super-delegates...

...I won't like it any more than I liked the similar ending to the W v. Gore race.

[obra.livejournal.com]

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/leading-among-the-unpledged/ did a pretty goodjob of explaining it to me.

[cos]

Also keep in mind that a *lot* of yesterday's delegates have not been calculated yet, and CNN's count will update over the next few days. In the caucus states the final totals will likely change a bit once they hold their count & state conventions, but by next week I think we'll have a nearly accurate tally of delegates from the Super Tuesday states.

[redheadedmuse.livejournal.com]

there are 796 superdelegates. the ones that are posted are just the ones who have publically declared their support for one candidate or another.

What was pissing me off last week was how CNN kept showing Obama as the frontrunner on their front page and then if you clicked through to the actual election pages, it would show that Hillary had more delegates.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

CNN kept showing Obama as the frontrunner on their front page and then if you clicked through to the actual election pages, it would show that Hillary had more delegates.

Also annoying! I do not like it when people oversimplify to the point of outright lying.

[inthatoneway.livejournal.com]

What I noticed is that they did that until just before Tuesday. Then on election day their front page showed "all" the numbers. So Obama was "winning" up until voting day, when all of a sudden Clinton surged into the lead. I have to wonder if they did that deliberately in order to help Clinton, by trying to invent some non-existant momentum for her.

*takes off tin-foil hat*

[redheadedmuse.livejournal.com]

here my tinfoil hat was telling me that she was a victim of a sexist conspiracy to make it appear as if his campaign had all the momentum when she was steadily in the lead all along, and that someone must have finally called them on their bullshit - because I also noticed that it changed on election day.

so much for tinfoil. :)