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We had some discussion in Advanced Newswriting class about issues regarding delegates in the Democratic primary this year, particularly all the rules being debated between the Clinton and Obama camps.
The Washington Post’s David Broder has an excellent column covering the four rules that are having the greatest impact on the fight for delegates:
The details of the process for choosing and allocating delegates to the parties’ national conventions are usually sleep-inducing to all but the most dedicated political junkies. But in this year’s Democratic race, as Barack Obama searches for the last votes he needs to defeat Hillary Clinton, the rules of the delegate game have become more and more important.
Last week, my efforts to analyze the rules disputes that have burst out between the two campaigns were bolstered by a conversation with Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster who is neutral in the Clinton-Obama battle.
He pointed to four separate rules that could well determine the outcome.
[Continue reading Four Rules That Count]
Broder’s analysis produces “a mixed verdict — endorsing Obama’s position on caucuses, proportional representation and the Florida-Michigan dispute, and Clinton’s stance on the superdelegates.” I tend to agree with that assessment, at least from the standpoint of following the rules in existence before the election began.
