The American presidential election (14)
Hillary Clinton’s camp is now bracing its supporters for the time when in the next few weeks Barack Obama will overtake her in the delegate count. This is clever – it seeks to minimise the psychological boost that this will give to the Obama team. However, in a crucial sense, Obama is already in the lead.
The figures are changing all the time but right now, according to the 2008 Democratic Convention Watch web site, Clinton has 1,063 delegates and Obama has 984. But about a third of the delegates who will go to the convention are what are called super delegates. They are not chosen through caucuses or primaries; they have an automatic right to attend the convention and vote because they are state governors or members of Congress and the like.
If you take away the super delegate votes so far declared, then Clinton has 842 elected delegates and Obama beats her with 859.
If we reach the Convention with one candidate having more elected delegates and another having more total delegates, there will be an almighty row about the nature of democracy.
If you’re finding the American presidential election complicated, don’t worry. In a a few weeks, the Russians will have a presidential election which will be much simpler and quicker and cheaper – although less exciting and democratic.