Conventional Wisdom

Since tomorrow is Super Tuesday, it seemed like an appropriate time to figure out just how the heck my current state of residence selects its delegates to the National Convention. This has never been an issue before: prior to moving here, I spent all but one year of my adult life in California, which had a presidential primary and required nothing more than walking over to the nearest polling place and filling in a scantron. Washington, on the other hand, has a nominating process that borders on the bizarre.

Voters here have our pick: we can participate in either the precinct caucuses (next Saturday) or the primary on the 19th. In fact, we can choose to participate in both, and even select two different candidates (although not from two different parties). The catch is that the Democratic party pulls all of its delegates from the caucuses, not the primary, while the Republican party goes about half and half. And the primary election is costing us $10 million, roughly $526,000 for each of the 19 delegates we will be sending to the Republican convention. Confused? I know I am.

Also, I recently learned that only 80% of the Democratic National Convention delegates are actually chosen by voters in caucuses or primaries. As explained in this article by Ari Berman at The Nation, the other 20% are the so-called "superdelegates" - a group which includes all Democratic members of Congress and governors as well as various party operatives and local officials. So even if Barack manages to win over a majority of voters, the Clintons' longstanding political ties and influence could tip the nomination in Hillary's favor.