Posted on 02/11/2016 8:00:42 AM PST by SeekAndFind
As you may recall, the Iowa Democrat caucus ended with Hillary Clinton allegedly holding a lead of roughly one quarter of one percent of the total number of micro-delegates or bitcoins or quarks or whatever it is they measure them in. (Not that it matters, since they won’t tell you how many people voted anyway.) In any event, Clinton and Sanders were essentially tied. Then we headed over to New Hampshire with its 24 pledged Democrat delegates. Sanders blew Clinton’s doors off there, taking roughly 60% of the votes. So at this point the delegate race should be pretty close, with only a slight edge for Bernie. Unfortunately, we had a good estimate last night of how the score really stands. (US News)
Bernie Sanders will win at least 13 of the Democratic delegates in New Hampshire and Hillary Clinton will win at least nine. Two delegates haven’t yet been allocated…
Sanders has 42 delegates.
In the overall race for delegates, Clinton has 394.
So after a tie in Iowa and a strong win in New Hampshire, Sanders is only losing the delegate race by 352.
Wait.. what?
If you thought the way the Democrats count the votes in Iowa is messed up, that’s nothing compared to the way they wrangle their delegates. The Daily Caller has a good breakdown of this farce which takes place every four years.
New Hampshire has 24 “pledged†delegates, which are allotted based on the popular vote. Sanders has 13, and Clinton has 9, with 2 currently allotted to neither.
But under Democratic National Committee rules, New Hampshire also has 8 “superdelegates,†party officials who are free to commit to whomever they like, regardless of how their state votes. Their votes count the same as delegates won through the primary.
New Hampshire has 8 superdelegates, 6 of which are committed to Hillary Clinton, giving her a total of 15 delegates from New Hampshire as of Wednesday at 9 a.m.
The state’s 2 remaining superdelegates remain uncommitted.
For the real wonks out there who have never looked into it, amNewYork has a fairly good set of links explaining all of the byzantine Democrat rules. The bottom line is that the Democrat nominee will need 2.382 delegates to carry the day at their convention as compared to the 1.237 the GOP requires. But if the Democrat establishment doesn’t like you (read: if you are Bernie Sanders) you are starting out with a huge hill to climb no matter how much the voters like you. You’ll have to not only muster enough support to outnumber your opponent’s vote count, but enough beyond that to defeat the built in firewall represented by the superdelegates.
Lest we go away thinking the GOP is pure as the driven snow, they have some floating delegates as well, but the number is a lot lower than that of the Democrats. There are three RNC-member delegates for each state and an additional set of bonus delegates which are assigned based on an arcane formula fully understood by at least a dozen people in the country. (I’m just guessing here, but I don’t imagine a lot of them are wearing Make America Great Again ball caps or TrusTed lapel pins.) But even for those extras and bonuses, the GOP formula is still miles closer to being an accurate reflection of the voters’ wishes than the Democrats’ method.
Good luck, Bernie. You may have to win all 57 states in a landslide to take Hillary out.
This is “YUGE!”
Tough sell to the Hussein Heads if Bern keeps winning primaries yet her highness is far ahead. Their minds won’t be able to process it.
How will Big Media mollify the freaks?
So why does Bernie Bern, if the water hoses are already going.
Maybe Big Media can’t!
Every FReeper should be telling their Democrat friends, if you will not hear the Trump or Trus’ the Ted, then at least by all means feel the Bern. Get your freestuff fair and square.
I’ve been trying to explain this to the democrats in my family. They are livid that this could even happen. I’m like, “You’ve been voting dem for decades and you only now realize this has always been the nomination process?”.
Oh, I’m sure all those the independents that voted for Bernie will surely vote for Hillary after they get shafted by her with superdelegates.
The superdelegates are not legally bound. When they get to the convention, they can vote for anyone they like. To say that Hillary has these delegates is not really true.
It is highly likely that if Bernie won the primaries, then they would be forced to support him.
But will all of these superdelegates who currently support Hillary, still support her if Bernie continues to gain support and win more primaries?? What if Hillary gets indicted? What if some other scandal erupts with the Clinton’s and their family foundation??
The whole point of superdelegates is that they are unpledged and uncommitted. Even if a survey shows they support Hillary right now, they are not committed to vote for her at the convention. And they can change their minds between now and the convention.
What does water have to do with venereal diseases?
Unless they have advance voted and can’t alter that...
I wanted to see the Comments section of the article, which would have been delicious.
Burying this New Hampshire business isn't serving the Lefty Media DeathStar AT ALL.
The Bernie children are Internet savvy, and they're going to figure out that the Stalinist Media organs are trying to hide what happened - and it's going to ROYALLY p*ss them off.
Bernie just might win. Hildabeast is going to lose all the most liberal smaller states that the kenyan won in 2008. She’s got to run the table in southern (black) states and big states like CA/NY/TX. It’s going to be close, IMO.
What does VD have to do with Bernie
In the rustiest of ironies... Bernie is being berned by the very socialist policies he advocates. Your labor and earnings stolen and “fairly” allocated by the 1% rulers at the top of the socialist Ponzi pyramid. Feel the bern Bern!
Overall, how many super-delegates are there?
Are they numerous enough to alter the “popular vote” results at the convention?
What if they all vote for Joe Biden?
What, you mean the people don’t get the freestuff? It’s the rulers who get the freestuff?
looks like it REALLY will be hillary v yeb in the general, and we know how that will turn out!
Just curious about the democrats in your family, and what they feel about the charade of an election process - with maybe two or three debates on Saturday nights, some unknown governor and an 80 year old unabashed socialist. IOW, do they even mind that the party has already picked Hillary, and they are just pawns in a big ‘show election’?
Print out an article from the Free Conservative side of the Internet that explains this situation well, give it to them, then tell them to try to find a similar article on the Washington Post or the New York Times websites.
Their heads will explode when they realize that their "Trusted Media Organs" have been suppressing information all these years.
I went to the Washington Post website yesterday, and couldn't find a THING on the Bernie Sanders New Hampshire situation. Glanced at the NY Times website - same thing.
BTW - I'm REAL GOOD when it comes to finding information. :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.