Battery Park

It's been 40 years since there was a political convention that mattered, and now things are shaping up to where we might have two.

Realistically, unless Edwards pulls off some stunning upsets, the race on the Democratic side is merely Clinton and anti-Clinton.  With Edwards drawing off some of the anti-Clinton vote, it seems as though Hillary will pull a string of wins.  She probably WON'T secure enough delegates on Super Tuesday to win the nomination- in fact, she's likely, at best, to only pull in 35-40%.  But the Democrats have their "PLEO"- read as "muckity-mucks".  Nearly 800-strong, this 20% edge that will turn a close race into a landslide.  Hillary doesn't have to reach a majority- she merely needs to reach an edge, and even if Edwards (who looks to stay in the race to the convention) and Obama outnumber her, the party will coalesce behind her to show "unity", rather than face a divisive convention.

Republicans don't have the "super-delegate" like the Dem's, but they do have an even larger (proportionally) contingent of officially unpledged delegates, nearly 1/4th of delegates sent up here.  What's not clear is whether a front-runner in the party will merit the votes, especially when the front runner may have less than 1/3 of the delegates.  Huckabee seems to be establishing his role among the evangelicals, McCain among the fiscal conservatives, Romney and Guiliani are battling for regional dominances, and it's remotely possible (sorry Barry) that Thompson might even wake up from his nap of a campaign, and pull in a few delegates himself.

Super Tuesday compounds this problem, not simplify it, as most of the primaries  on the Democratic side at least, are proportional.  Most of the Republican races are winner-take-all, which does look to be to Guiliania advantage, specifically in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

The frustrating part of all of this, for me, is that the media will make it seem like a series of races, and not report the meaningful numbers.  If you listened to the news, you'd probably expect that the Republican race is tied between McCain and Huckabee.  Well, the delegate count (as of New Hampshire's primary) looks like this:

1. Romney    24
2. McCain     17
3. Huckabee  15
4. Thompson   8
5. Paul            4
6. Uncomm.    3
7. Guiliani       1
8. Hunter        1

(Delegate count estimate from The Green Papers)