It’s the delegates, stupid.
It’s not the final score in a primary election, it’s not the one who wins the most primaries – the nominations for president in the Republican and Democratic races will go to the ones who claim a majority – 1,191 delegates for the Republicans and 2,025 for the Democrats.
So, if you are a Democrat, it’s not enough just to vote for your candidate of choice in the Super Tuesday New York presidential primary (noon-9 p.m. at all your regular polling spots). Both New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama have fielded a slate of five delegates and an alternate in the 19th, 20th and 22nd Congressional districts that make up Dutchess County. To make your vote count for either one, you will want to pull the six levers adjacent to their names, even though you likely won’t recognize any of the names. To vote only for your candidate has a mere beauty pageant effect – no meat when the real counting starts, because there are no delegates chosen by merely winning.
New York Democrats have what is called a proportional primary, with a candidate needing at least 15 percent of the vote to reap any piece of the delegate pie. Of the state’s overall slice of the pie, 281 delegates in all (second only to California’s 441 on Super Tuesday), only 151 will be chosen on Feb. 5. To obtain the rest, apparently operatives of any campaign will need sharp elbows and the ability to twist arms and entice with great wiles. Of the remaining 130 delegates, look to the top of the state political hierarchy to royally choose – 45 are automatic and chosen from party leaders, leaving much room for haggling. At a state Democratic committee meeting in May, the remaining 85 delegates are battled over.
Winner take all in the GOP
Republicans have it easier. Of the state’s 101 delegates allocated to the Republican National Convention, 87 will go to the winner of the Feb. 5 primary. Period. Republican state leaders will choose the remaining 14 un-pledged delegates.
As of Monday, Jan. 28, Clinton had 230 delegates, Obama 152 and John Edwards 61. On the Republican side Mitt Romney leads with 73, John McCain has 38, Mike Huckabee 29, Ron Paul 6, Rudy Giuliani 2.
The Democratic Convention will be in Denver, Colo., from Aug. 25 to Aug. 28 at the downtown Pepsi Center. Republicans will meet in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., from Sept. 1 to Sept. 4.
Though many had believed that the races would be over after Super Tuesday – when states with 2,075 Democratic delegates and 1,081 Republican delegates at stake will either hold primaries or caucuses – both nominations remain up for grabs with close races involved, and once again the delicious specter of brokered conventions arises in the fantasies of serious political junkies. Not since Republicans in 1948 turned back the challenge of Ohio’s Sen. Robert Taft and constant candidate Harold Stassen in favor of New York Gov. Thomas Dewey have the Republicans gone into a national convention with uncertainty. Democrats have not gone beyond a first ballot at a national convention since 1952, when Adlai Stevenson wrested the nomination from Estes Kefauver. And, of course, no convention in history can match the Democrats’ 1924 donnybrook in the summer heat of New York City, when then-State Senator from Hyde Park Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke for New York Gov. Al Smith; but the renegade convention, broadcast live on national radio, took nine days and 103 ballots to nominate John Davis, a Wall Street lawyer, who lost the general election to Woodrow Wilson later in the year.
Few states can match New York for Byzantine intrigue in the collection of delegates, though many follow suit in various and arcane ways. This particular pundocrat might even believe that the campaign with the most experienced operatives – those skilled in the ancient and royal black art of delegate gathering and counting – will reap great advantage should the candidates in either or, be still my beating heart, both parties race toward the national convention within spitting distance of one another.
For information about polling places in Dutchess County, visit www.dutchesselections.com.