Paulie
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- May 19, 2007
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This should help clear it up, because the media is all over the place from one outlet to the next about who won how many delegates.
Romney, Santorum, and Paul: How many delegates will each candidate get? - Slate Magazine
The media has no way of knowing delegate totals at this point. What if Perry, Newt, and Santorum drop out? Any delegates that were going to commit to them would become unbound and up for grabs.
This is what is meant when people say this is a representative republic, and not a democracy. The candidates are protected from the tyranny of the majority and can still win delegates regardless of how they do in the voting.
This isn't the case in every state, as some are winner take all. But in a place like Iowa, it is.
Romney, Santorum, and Paul: How many delegates will each candidate get? - Slate Magazine
Mitt Romney won Tuesdays Iowa Republican caucus, sort of. All news organizations report that the former Massachusetts governor defeated second-place Rick Santorum by eight votes, but they dont seem to agree on the exact number of delegates that will be awarded to each candidate. According to CNNs initial estimate, Romney, Santorum, and Paul would each receive seven of Iowas 25 delegates, with Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry netting two each. The Associated Press, on the other hand, predicted that Romney would get 13 delegates, and Santorum 12. Why is it so hard to calculate Iowas delegate totals?
Because the popular vote has nothing whatsoever to do with delegate selection. Its best to think of Tuesdays GOP caucuses as two different votes with two different purposes. In one, Republicans voted for their favorite candidate for president. Thats the vote Mitt Romney won by a razor-thin margin, and its the result that will have the most practical significance on the campaign going forward. The winners get a boost in fundraising and media attention, while candidates who do poorly, like Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, can get knocked out of the race. (If they could only manage 5 or 10 percent in Iowa, what would their chances be in the rest of the country?) The vote, however, has no direct impact on how many Iowa delegates will vote for any given candidate at the partys national convention in August.
Delegates are selected in a different vote, held at the same meeting after the presidential poll. At each precincts caucus last night, political enthusiasts volunteered to represent their peers at the county caucuses, which will be held in March. The volunteers dont necessarily offer themselves as supporters of any given candidate, although some do. Others just express an interest in becoming a delegate, and their neighbors give them the go-ahead. They are free to vote however they like at the county caucuses, where the delegates from each precinct will select who among themselves will continue on to the district and state caucuses.
Its not clear how or why media organizations estimate delegate totals after the vote. The practice may arise from confusion between the Republican and Democrat caucus processes. In the latter, Iowa Democrats apportion delegates to the county conventions based on each candidates share of the vote in the precinct caucuses. The delegates arent technically bound to stick with the candidate theyre supposed to represent, but there is a somewhat stronger link between the presidential preference poll and the delegate selection process.
The media has no way of knowing delegate totals at this point. What if Perry, Newt, and Santorum drop out? Any delegates that were going to commit to them would become unbound and up for grabs.
This is what is meant when people say this is a representative republic, and not a democracy. The candidates are protected from the tyranny of the majority and can still win delegates regardless of how they do in the voting.
This isn't the case in every state, as some are winner take all. But in a place like Iowa, it is.