Presenting a thread in which you may all chew the fat about today’s presidential election action from South Carolina and Nevada. Republicans in South Carolina are holding an open primary (meaning any voter can participate in one primary or the other, regardless of their registration) to choose 24 delegates from the national total of 2380. It would normally be 47 delegates, but the state has been penalised for “allocating delegates outside of the Republican National Committee-approved timeframe”. The South Carolina Democratic open primary will be held next week, choosing 54 delegates from a national total of 4050. Forty-five of these are pledged to particular candidates; the remaining nine are unpledged “superdelegates” who attend the national convention as senior party office holders. In Nevada both parties will hold closed caucuses: closed means only voters registered with the party can participate, while caucuses means there is no secret ballot. The state’s Democrats get 33 pledged delegates along with eight superdelegates; the Republicans have 31 delegates determined by the caucuses plus three unpledged Republican National Committee members (the term superdelegates does not get used in relation to the Republicans, for some reason).
Mr Welsh, um while you might call Clinton’s opposition ‘perfunctory’, you’ll find Obama’s was simply non-existent.
His original Republican opponent Jack Ryan had to withdraw and then just three months before the election they flew in Republican certified fruitcake Alan Keyes to be the challenger. It’s shocking he only got 70% against a non-entity!
It’s Walsh. And indeed, little can be drawn from Senate contests with hopeless opposition. Thank you for acknowledging my point.
Before us Obama supporters get too excited, Jesse Jackson won the primary in SC in 1984 and 1988. ‘Nuff said.
845
Adam – since the Democrat primaries are not winner take all like the majority of the Republican ones, Obama even though not winning NY or California will pick up a fair slab of delegates. Clinton is by no means assured the nomination IMHO.
New thread open, so this one closed.