Posted by
Steve on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 2:53:04 PM
Yesterday, there were primaries in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Barack Obama won all three on the Democrat side, giving him 10 wins in a row. John McCain won all three on the Republican side, moving him that much closer to the magic number for the nomination.
That Obama won all three contests was not really a surprise. He was expected to win all three. But, it now gives him the delegate lead for the Democrat nomination. The Democrats do the delegate thing much different than the Republicans. The Republicans try to determine who the winner is, so most are winner take all. The Democrats are much more considerate of everyone’s feelings, so they are distributed according to a formula. As a result, even though Barack Obama won all three contests on the Democrat side, he did not get that many more delegates than did Mrs. Clinton. What he did get is the perception that he is the front runner. Mrs. Clinton has held that perception from the beginning. He has now taken that title away from her and taken it upon himself. If he wins the next couple of contests, he will be considered the nominee by most people.
There is a real fight looming on the Democrat side. Barack Obama is set to win the most delegates in the state contests. Going into the convention, he is most likely going to lead in delegates determined by a state primary and caucus. Mrs. Clinton is likely to lead in the Super Delegates (the politicians) that are unelected by the people in the nominating process. These are the Democrat Governors, Senators and Representatives. They would hold the power to select the nominee. They could select someone who the primary process had not selected. That would cause a big problem. If it remains close, and it probably will, things could get real dicey at the convention.
Republicans on the other hand want to select their nominee. As a result, the primaries are set so whoever wins the primary gets all the delegates. This can lead to vote totals that are similar and widely different delegate counts. John McCain is only 2-300 delegates short of the total needed to be the nominee. Mike Huckabee is about 850 delegates short with 850 delegates to pick. He has virtually no chance to catch John McCain. There will be no disagreement on who will be the nominee of the Republican Party. There may be some disagreement on whether John McCain is the best person for the job, but he won fair and square.
Which is the better way to select a nominee? Being a Republican, I tend to think that the Republican way is best. It eliminates the discussion on who is the nominee. The person that wins the most states will be the nominee. In the Democrat process, if you have two equal candidates, you have a real mess. No-one can pull out and get a real lead because they do not win a real majority of the delegates when they win a state. They need to modify the process so winning the state means something and then the percentage means something. That would be much better than they have now. It would help eliminate the problem that they are having this year.