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A quick political reality check

Look, I've got to do something on ad deadline days because I can't write and I can't edit anything substantive and I can't be sure when our clients will be e-mailing large files my way that I'll need to juggle. So I read up on the Tennessee Titans and I fuss around the house and occasionally I drift off into the web of news.

Not simply because I'm an occasional political junkie, but because the best story going, just now, is the nominating process for our next president. Especially with the writers' strike, it's the best story going.

Here, then, courtesy CNN's delegate tracker, is where we stand:

The Democratic party will credential 4049 delegates to its convention, which means one needs 2025 to become their nominee for president. To date they have selected 370 of those delegates, as follows:
Clinton: 202
Obama: 116
Edwards: 51
Kucinich: 1

The Republicans will seat 2380 delegates to their convention, meaning 1191 are needed for the nomination. Their race stands this way, with 126 chosen so far:
Romney: 48
McCain: 33
Huckabee: 28
Thompson: 8
Paul: 6
Giuliani: 2
Hunter: 1

Am I alone in being stunned by how little has been decided, and how much has been decided? Candidates have dropped out, and none of them (so far) made the wrong decision, but, good grief we've spent a lot of money and time and energy to go very quickly down a very slow road.

All this fuss about a handful of delegates in states which are otherwise minor players in the political stage. Which may be the point. Actually, I'm not sure what the point of the process is anymore, though it seems, an oddly dysfunctional way, to be working.

One more thing: What will the Republicans do if Ron Paul holds sufficient delegates (and he well may) to insist upon a place at the podium during their convention?

Ah. And let me repudiate an earlier prognostication: Clinton and Obama for the Democrats, and I think they're playing far more nicely with each other than the media argues, but the media are trying to make a story up as they go, and that's the best they can find just now (which is probably a good sign, in its perverse way). And I don't think Huckabee can do it, now. He did too poorly up north in Michigan, and not nearly well enough in South Carolina, where he should have been able to win convincingly if he was to wear the mantle. Romney? Surely not, but...McCain? I can't imagine the Republican Party nominating him, but he's probably the toughest candidate they have.

And if Bloomberg enters from the middle with a serious third party challenge, we're stuck with the Electoral College and NO mandate for anybody. Maybe. We'll see. It's a good story, but it'd be more fun if it weren't our lives at stake.

(And, hey, I WAS going to write about the Grateful Dead, but got distracted.)

Posted by grant on January 23, 2008 5:03 PM | Permalink

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