I think I heard Hillary won a state

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
But, as a practical matter, what happens to them if Obama selects Edwards as his running mate?

Then Obama gets laughed at by everyone else for nominating a veep that couldn't even deliever his own state in the last Presidential election .

[Wiglaf]

Re: I think I heard Hillary won a state

Originally posted by Heraclitus
I was just being environmentally conscius and using public transit, when I tought that I heard someting on the local raido news station about Hillary beating Barack in a state.


I'm too lazy to google to figure our if I misheard or if this is real news... so tell me a bit about the dryest subject on Earth.

You are just so cool. Google.com. And yes, a bunch of white coal miners and cotton farmers in White Virginia are racist and did not want a black Muslim cyberterrorist and voted for an ugly white woman instead. Shocker of the century.

[Heraclitus]

Re: Re: I think I heard Hillary won a state

Originally posted by Wiglaf


You are just so cool.

Ok, I'm sorry. Why am I deserving sarcasm? I just started a thread because I wanted to learn more about the US.

[Zkribbler]

You're not. Wiggie's just being grumpy.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Heraclitus
But if she is still winning states why is the race "over"? I mean these elections are more recent than the pseudo "national primarys", also is this reported on any news site. I must admit I have no idea Where TF is West Virginina...

West Virginia is just west of Virginia.

[Theben]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
You're not. Wiggie's just being grumpy.

You did pretty good, tho. No 's in his post. You must have caught him during a 'happy moment'.

[jkp1187]

Re: Re: Re: I think I heard Hillary won a state

Originally posted by Heraclitus


Ok, I'm sorry. Why am I deserving sarcasm? I just started a thread because I wanted to learn more about the US.

The others covered it pretty well.

What is typically left out of the news stories is that Obama also cannot win the Democratic Party nomination outright at this point purely by winning primaries. Neither candidate can. To win the nomination, the winner is going to have to rely on "super-delegates" -- essentially elected officials who are members of the party, along with assorted party fat-cats who are given the privilege of being an unelected delegate. They are the ones who will tip the balance one way or the other. They do not have to be beholden to popular vote or anything in the way they vote.

At this point, most of the super-delegates are still uncommitted, although Obama has swung several over to his side since the North Carolina primary.

Also, in case you were curious, the Republican party (also known as the "G.O.P." or "Grand Old Party",) does its candidate selection somewhat differently. The Democratic party selects delegates to its convention via a proportional representation system, while the GOP tends to have a lot of winner-take-all primaries, which is a big reason why they pretty much have selected a nominee already, while the Democrats have not. The GOP also does not have a superdelegate system. If the Democrats had a winner-take-all system, Clinton might have been the one ahead at this point.

Although the primaries are over in June, the party nominating conventions are going to be at the end of August (Democrats) and beginning of September (Republicans). That in itself is a little odd -- the conventions normally aren't that late.

[Bosh]

jkp1187: not true.
Currently less than a third of superdelegates are uncommitted, with Obama leading Clinton by a small but growing margin.
Unless Clinton gets nearly all of the remaining ones (and why would she?) she's done.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Bosh
jkp1187: not true.
Currently less than a third of superdelegates are uncommitted, with Obama leading Clinton by a small but growing margin.
Unless Clinton gets nearly all of the remaining ones (and why would she?) she's done.

As far as I understand there is nothing that prevents a superdelegate from changing his mind, right?

[jkp1187]

Originally posted by Heraclitus


As far as I understand there is nothing that prevents a superdelegate from changing his mind, right?

Sorry -- I misspoke on superdelegate counts. See here for a count:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_delegate_count.html

However, both HRC or BHO will require the vast majority of the remaining "uncommitted" superdelegates to win the nomination on the first ballot.

But Heraclitus, you are absolutely right. Any superdelegate can change their mind for any reason. Being "committed" at this point simply means that they've SAID they're going to vote for a certain candidate. But under the current rules, nothing is official until the convention. In fact, I think one or two superdelegates switched from HRC to BHO a week or two ago.