A lot of people (myself included, until recently) are really confused by the discussion of delegates and superdelegates and all that. They refer to the complex manner in which the Democratic Party selects its candidate.<\/p>\n
Normal delegates are much like people in the Electoral College system, except that the Democratic Party awards them to a proportional vote: if Obama gets 60% of the votes in a state, Obama sort of<\/em> gets 60% of the delegates. (It’s actually more complicated, and is awarded by precinct, but I digress.)<\/p>\n The other element is superdelegates<\/em>, which is a bit of a made-up word referring to “PLEOs” — Party Leaders and Elected Officials. The Wikipedia page Superdelegate<\/a><\/em> gives a helpful explanation. They include DNC members and current governors, senators, represenatives, past and present Presidents\/VPs, and a few others. (Thus Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama all count as superdelegates, as does Bill Richardson, and probably some others.)<\/p>\n The theory is that these people are more experienced and less subject to whims, although the system has been rightfully criticized as being anything but democratic, giving a small cadre of people enormous sway in the process. There’s a list of all the current superdelegates<\/a>. It’s on another site in a more organized form<\/a>, but is split up into multiple pages, and it includes those who haven’t yet endorsed a candidate.\u00a0 You can also view superdelegates supporting Obama<\/a> and superdelegates supporting Hillary<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A lot of people (myself included, until recently) are really confused by the discussion of delegates and superdelegates and all that. They refer to the complex manner in which the Democratic Party selects its candidate. Normal delegates are much like … Continue reading