Much has been made about Hillary Clinton’s comment as to the differences between primary and caucus delegates. Josh Marshall has an analysis that shows this is not a meaningless distinction.

Specifically, caucus goers do not select delegates. They select representatives who go to the next level, either county or state wide, and at the end of this process, a delegate is selected.

So, if Obama representatives do not show up at these meetings, it is possible, and completely within the rules, for Clinton representatives to pick up some delegates this way.

Of course, we have Obama supporters whining that it’s not fair, but given that he raised $55 million dollars in February, investing a million or so in making sure that their representatives actually show up to the higher level caucuses would be a good idea.

In Texas, Many Obama voters were far more likely to have left the rest of the primary ballot blank.

Don’t expect Obama voters to vote down ticket if he’s the nominee in 2008.

I’ve always been a fan of mail in voting, so I like the idea.

My guess will be that it will be the Obama campaign that expresses problems, because people have already voted, and in the event of a revote like this, they stand to lose, a lot.

Additionally, as shown by the results in Alabama on Super Tuesday, where a large win resulted in a nearly break even number in delegates for him, the revotes in MI and FL would be stacked against him delegate-wise.

Let me note that this is not evil. This is politics, and Obama is likely to favor something like a caucus instead, because it benefits his campaign.

That’s how political campaigns are supposed to work, to structure the process toward their candidate’s advantage, and absent stuff like Republican style vote suppression, it is neither good nor evil, it simply is, as Mount Everest is, and Alma Cogan isn’t.

Looks to be about 59:41 plus or minus a point or 2.

I’m sure that the political junkies of Wyoming are happy that someone paid them attention.

The ostensible reason for the change is that they believe that turnout will overwhelm the caucuses, but I’m wondering if both campaigns might see some sort of political gain.

I think that it is clear is something will be done to reselect delegates.

The options are a primary and a caucus, and neither the states or the DNC are willing to front for a primary, which would cost about $25 million, $10m for Michigan and $15m for Florida.

My guess is that its probably going to be a caucus, but you could fund the primaries with soft money, so theoretically 1 person could cut two checks to make it happen.

The have released a joint statement on this, and it seems to be backtracking on the part of Crist, who originally made noises about reholding the primary.

I’m not clear on the politics involved, I assume that Granholm is a Clinton supporter, and Crist, being a Republican, may just want to piss in the proverbial punchbowl, since the delegates mean nothing at the Republican convention as McCain has already clinched.

Then again, this may just be pandering to the local electorate.

From Crooks and Liars:

Given the complexities of the process, it’s even possible, hard as it may be to believe, that when the dust settles on the March 4 contests, Obama may have lost three out of four contests, and managed to gain delegates — proving, once again, that this is a very silly process in need of reform.

McCain Sweeps it, he’s over the top for delegates.

Obama wins Vermont, Hillary wins Rhode Island, and CNN is calling Ohio for her.

Texas is too close to call, and I’m getting some sleep, for once.

John, for those of you who don’t know, is the proprietor of Americablog, and he has a post on the election titled What will the Republicans throw at Hillary Clinton in the fall?

Generally, I highly recommend his blog, just not this post:

…. But I’m not going to detail those things today because I’m, surprisingly, still pulling punches with regards to what I write about Hillary. I don’t want to damage Hillary should she become our nominee, as increasingly unlikely as that appears. I don’t want to write about very real scandals in Hillary’s past, scandals that we will be forced to revisit for the next 8 months, and 8 years. I don’t want to write about the rumors about Bill that no one has written about to date, even though the rumors include lots of details which are at least just as true as Obama being a Muslim. While Hillary’s campaign is pushing known lies about Obama, such as the “Muslim” connection, most of the stories about Hillary are anything but lies. They’re real stories that she will have to discuss publicly, again and again and again, to her and our party’s detriment.

But I’m not going to be discussing the details of those stories today because I don’t want to make our candidate damaged goods in the fall. You will notice that neither Obama’s campaign nor Obama’s official, or unofficial, surrogates are talking about the Clintons’ past or present scandals, the Clintons’ negatives, what a Clinton run for the presidency will to Democratic congressional races and governor races across the country. The Clintons are counting on the fact that none of us will write about their negatives, because we’re too nice. So they can get as dirty as they want, with impunity.

He then goes on to say that he will unload if Clinton does not get 65%.

This is bull%$#@. I disagree on any number of levels:

• The empirical evidence, specifically the long primaries in 1976 and 1992 when the Democrats won the elections, indicates that prematurely wrapping up the nomination process does not create wins.
• Just look at 2004. John Kerry was consistently ahead of GW Bush until he had locked up the nomination.
• For that matter, look at 2008, where the only way that John McCain gets any coverage, now that he’s pretty much nailed down the nomination, is when a right wing bigot endorses him.
• Clinton’s and Obama’s attacks on each other are really pretty tame, that “3am phone” ad is rather mild.
• I’d like to see the Pennsylvania primary used to build the party there, and that will happen only if the primary means something.
• At this point, we are talking about a 5-6% difference in delegate count.

I don’t want a brokered convention, but the fat lady has not sung, though it does appear that she has started warming up.

I certainly have my disappointments about the nomination process, John Edwards pulled out before I could vote for him, but the fact that that the Democratic candidates and the Democratic agenda is getting additional coverage because the process is ongoing is a good thing.

Charlie Crist is a Republithug, so I have no clue as to why he is offering this, except perhaps he figures that it will help with his bid for reelection.