Aww, why doesn't The Huck get a caricature? He's sure easily caricaturable! (Note: that may not actually be a word.)

We can take it with a grain of salt, but with these breakdowns and projections clearly laid out, we know *where* to put the salt.

I see money to be made in delegate scorecards, like what MLB has in their programs.

Some delegates are more equal than others. [Apologies to George Orwell.]

Super delegates are anti-democratic. They are there to make sure the close calls (and perhaps some not-so-close calls) go the way the party elite wants. They represent the same sort of corruption that is exactly the problem with our federal government as a whole. They are unbefitting a party that calls itself Democratic.

The Diane Rehm Show on npr covered the "Super Delegate Dilemma" today. Several pundits and Super Delegates discussed whether Super Delegates should vote their conscience, or vote like their constituents; pledge themselves now, or after major primary contests, or stay uncommitted until the convention, etc., etc., etc.

It got me thinking. What does a Super Delegate from Nevada do? If they are true to their constituents, who gets the vote, since HRC won the popular vote, but Obama got 13 pledged delegates, to HRC's 12? Do the Super Delegates from MIchigan and Florida get a voice, even if the pledged delegates from those states do not? How could a Michigan know who Michigan Democrats want?

What a Byzantine system. And yet, do the REpublicans have it any better? (The whole "winner take all" delegate scenario that they use would make the Democratic race look much different. Is that what we'd want?)

Thank you for not smushing together the pledged delegates and the unofficial, very changeable, superdelegates, as so many other media sources continue misleadingly to do.

Am I the only one who sees a super delegate system from a party that loves flicking the class card at Republicans having a system whereby the party elites can countermand the will of the people more than a little hypocritical?

Winner take all tracks with the state-based electoral college system of the general election, so, while it may not be perfect, it is clear how Republicans came up with it.

The super delegate system smacks of stereotypical liberal elitism in that "they" know better and therefore have to act as a circuit breaker should hoi polloi make a mistake with their freely cast ballot.

Oh. the. irony.

At least by my unofficial count (looking back and awarding all of a state's delegates to whoever won the popular vote), we'd be looking at about the same thing we're looking at now. If these primaries and caucuses were winner-take-all, I show Obama with 802 pledged delegates to date and HRC with 765.

It's about the same thing--a virtual dead heat with Clinton earning most of her delegates by winning key big blue states, and Obama earning his by winning lots of small and mid-size states.

It is already evident that the so-called 'super' delegate counts are not representative of the earned delegate counts. Leaving aside the republican race, Howard Dean and the DNC must get this problem fixed immediately if the democratic party is to avoid a disaster in our nation. This is too important to leave the fate of this election to party hacks, friends of one candidate or another, possible buying or bribing of delegates, or to any secret backroom deal making. The 'super' delegate vote must be made to completely follow the will of the electorate...anything else will be unacceptable by Americans.

That Huckabee drawing is eerily realistic!

I thought the same thing! And then I realized...

Huckabee himself is actually a caricature, so no additional artwork was needed.

Also, allow me to echo the thanks for not assuming superdelegates and delegates were the same thing like some organizations have done.

You mistakenly leave Washington out of the "caucus state" list. Yes, we have a primary as well in a couple of weeks, the caucuses were what occurred on February 9th. And, at least for the Dems, the primary doesn't actually count.

Juliebird, I think delegate scorecards is a great idea! You should print some and try to sell them online. Maybe too late for 2008. Think about it for 2012.

In New Mexico, primary elections are governed by statute. When New Mexico decided to pull its Democratic presidential primary out of the state-run primary and move it up to Super Tuesday, it had to legally call it by a different name. Hence, it is called a "caucus", even though the rules governing the voting are every bit like a primary. Specifically, the votes were secret and no campaigning was allowed within the polling sites.

When you list the "Available Delegates" in the second column of the "Results by State" table, are all of those delegates pledged according to the results of the caucus or primary? If not, how are they allocated?

It would be very helpful if you could at least provide some indication of which states have already pledged all of their available delegates. It's possible for readers to do the math on their own, but it would be great to have a quick visual indication, like the footnote marker you use for caucus states. Beyond that, it would be even better if you could indicate how the remaining delegates will be pledged: as in, are we just waiting for all of the votes to be counted before we know the real delegate total, or will some delegates be pledged by other means at future dates?

It's great to have a tool like this to clear up all of the confusion surrounding the convoluted delegate allocation process, but you're not all the way there yet!

Media are conservative to the core. They are owned by the most corrupt elite pack of profiteers in our society. Media "always" stick their noses in our elections, and always corrupt them; and each election, the public falls prey to their manipulations. In this election, McCain is their man. There is not the slightest doubt about this. Media will go to any extreme to destroy the democrat that stands the best chance of competing with McCain; that's Hillary.

Anyone that thinks that, if Hillary loses this nomination, it had the slightest to do with her political views, or her campaign, or her husband, etc., are simply falling head over heels, into the media stupor and trance prepared for them. If Hillary is destroyed, it will be by media. The question is simply, whether the democratic party establishment, also falls for this media treachery; or more cynically, if the fix was already in place long ago with the dem party.