Good Read on Pledged Delegate Issue: Politico Misses The Point On Pledged Delegates

[jsamuel]

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4019

...

Big whoop. All this story tells us are two things anyone closely following the campaign already knew. First, as I have pointed out on Open Left several times, "pledged" delegates are not really pledged, and are probably more accurately called "elected." Second, if the campaign is undecided heading into the convention both campaigns will lobby these delegates hard to change their minds. No shock there. Anyone who watched the West Wing saw exactly that in the penultimate season finale a couple years ago. It is also exactly what happened at the last brokered convention in 1976:

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There is nothing new in the Politico story. It is a simple fact of politics and process that campaigns will begin to directly lobby delegates once it becomes clear we are going all the way to the convention. Any campaign that did not do just that would be caught flat-footed at a brokered convention, and be in real trouble.

However, let me break a much more salient point about delegates that was first suggested here on Open Left back on Sunday. Many states, including primary states, have multi-tiered delegate selection processes that continue past the first caucus or voting that has already taken place. In these states, it is entirely possible for pledged, or "elected," delegates to change hands after the fact without any lobbying or promises of the sun, the moon and the stars. The most prominent of these is Iowa, where the Clinton and Obama campaigns will compete for the 14 Edwards delegates at the county conventions on March 15th. However, the voters will not even have the final say in who becomes a delegate even in a primary state like Pennsylvania...

Some interesting info there that I had no idea about.

[tyne]

1. Evidently

he didn't get the new Clinton memo which basically states "absolutely not".

[Occam Bandage]

2. Er, yeah. It would totally be no big deal whatsoever if Hillary were to convince pledged delegates

to override the will of their voters. Faithless electors are a dime a dozen.

:eyes:

[LiberalFighter]

3. Pledged delegates are most likely going to vote for the candidate

they campaigned for at the time of their election at the convention.

There is a key in the Party Rules that allows candidates to reject or accept delegate candidates before they hold their state convention. So if a candidate has reason to believe that a delegate candidate may not be 100% supporting them they can reject that person being a national convention delegate candidate. Candidates will most likely accept and delegate candidate that has helped chair a fundraiser or other event/activity supporting the candidate.

At the convention the slots for Obama and Clinton will be voted on by state convention delegates. Those state convention delegates can only vote for Obama or Clinton delegates within their congressional districts. I don't recall how the vote for at-large delegates are conducted. Whether they hold the vote within the congressional district delegation and tally the totals or have it different.

ON THE LOBBYING OF DELEGATES. Both campaigns would be wise to lobby delegates before the first vote in the event neither candidate receives the requisite votes to win the nomination on the first vote. For either campaign to say they won't would be a lie.