Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Delegate counts all over the place

WE’VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com

Everyone’s got 2008 Democratic Convention delegate counts, and just about everybody’s count is different. Why? Well, it’s not the pledged delegates. Most media organizations (CNN, CBS, AP and NBC) are consistent, showing Obama with 38, Clinton with 36 and Edwards with 18 pledged delegates. Then there’s the NY Times, which is not including Iowa or Nevada as they haven’t selected actual national delegates yet. And then there are outlets reporting numbers with Michigan and Florida included, which greatly increases Clinton’s lead. The GreenPapers and MyDD are tracking this way, and we’ve got both sets of numbers in the sidebar.

But even assuming no delegates for Florida and Michigan, the superdelegate numbers are different everywhere. As seen on our Superdelegate Tracker (as of 1/22), CNN has it 174/85/34, CBS has it 195/88/41, and the AP, via the Chicago Tribune, has it 200/98/34. Continue Reading...

Monday, January 21, 2008

Convention vendor directory surpasses 1000 businesses

WE’VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com

Over 1000 vendors are now listed in the DNCC’s vendor directory.

Among the hopeful vendors are 255 minority-owned businesses, 22 businesses owned by persons with disabilities, 68 “green businesses” and 410 women-owned businesses. Continue Reading...

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Convention delegates not bound to candidates

WE’VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com

To our loyal readers: Oreo and I have been invited to post on occasion to MyDD. Oreo made his first post on Friday (can you guess the subject), and I just made my first one today, which is also below. Be assured we will continue to provide you the most deep and detailed coverage of the convention and the nominating process right here at 2008 Democratic Convention Watch.

For those of us who have been around a while, the last time a Democratic Convention had even a little suspense was 1980, in Madison Square Garden, New York. Ted Kennedy was making a last attempt to try and get the nomination from President Carter. The problem: Rule F(3)(c), which officially bound delegates to the candidate they had been elected for on the first ballot. But with a weak Carter campaign on the horizon, Kennedy thought that if the delegates were released from their pledges, he could get enough votes to get the nomination. The problem was, Carter still had a majority of the delegates, and they voted not to overturn the rule, and Kennedy’s campaign was over. Continue Reading...

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Meet your convention delegates

WE’VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com

I promise we won’t do this for all the delegates, but New Hampshire was the first state to select actual Democratic National Convention delegates, and here are four of them:

Four area residents are among those named by the New Hampshire Democratic Party as delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. Continue Reading...

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Campaigns preparing for brokered convention

WE’VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com

Delegate tracking operations? Brokered Convention Madness has broken out in the campaigns:

Still, the prospect of serious wrangling in Denver remains a distinct possibility, and the leading campaigns say they’ve begun to focus on the prospect of running the kind of delegate operations that were common in the 1980s, when campaigns would employ a dozen or more staffers, each assigned to minding a set of delegates. Continue Reading...