Before I digress, let me urge you to read this week’s Rolling Stone cover story on Barack Obama. Whether you like him or not, it gives great insight into how he is running his campaign.
“In the process, the Obama campaign has shattered the top-down, command-and-control, broadcast-TV model that has dominated American politics since the early 1960s. “They have taken the bottom-up campaign and absolutely perfected it,” says Joe Trippi, who masterminded [Howard] Dean’s Internet campaign in 2004. “It’s light-years ahead of where we were four years ago. They’ll have 100,000 people in a state who have signed up on their Web site and put in their zip code. Now, paid organizers can get in touch with people at the precinct level and help them build the organization bottom up. That’s never happened before. It never was possible before.” (via Rolling Stone: The Machinery of Hope)
If you’re a geeked-out internet guy like me, you’re bound to think this is pretty cool. As it turns out, this formula for keying in at the precinct level has Obama gobbling up delegates from state to state regardless of how he fairs in the popular vote. A lot of this has to do with the Obama team brilliantly taking advantage of the caucus voting structure that most states employ in the primaries. This week, even after losing big money states – Ohio & Texas – he maintained about the same delegate lead he had going into those contests.
Right now, Obama leads Clinton in total delegates 1,524 to 1,432. And Hillary leads 238 to 199 in Superdelegates. With a limited amount of delegates left up for grabs it is going to be difficult, if not virtually impossible, for either candidates to accumulate the 2,024 delegates necessary to win the nomination outright prior to the Democratic National Convention in August. So unless something changes, it will most likely come down to the Superdelegate count.
Superdelegate you say? I want in.
Unless it’s too much work. I went with Yahoo! Answers to get to the bottom of this:
How do I become a superdelegate? I want in on this, unless it’s more work than it seems. (via Yahoo! Answers)
19 answers in less than an hour, baby! That dwarfs when I posted What doesn’t go well with bacon?; 14 answers in less than a hour.
Of course, a few doofuses posted garbage like this against their better judgment:
You all have way too much free time on your hands.
On the other side of the spectrum, we have these people:
Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Slow down chief. That was kind of a perfect storm of exhausting tactics and condescension. I’d give you more credit for exposing my laziness, but I’m pretty sure I did that to myself years ago.
These links look sort of official. Let’s not go down that road. My friend, this is Yahoo! Answers, any source material that merits being referred to as source material, check it at the door. Might I direct your attention to this example.
Alas. However, I did vet out one gem here:
Pretty sure I’m on some list now, and you might start to see this screen when you come to this blog (which I only know exists after being directed to this blog yesterday; I was provoked to go here, let me make that abundantly clear)
…so basically, I’ve learned very little from this exercise. But listen folks, I can spell wikipedia, I should be fine. And the concept of your tax dollars paying for some political taskforce member to come knock on my door and witness first hand the stain I’m leaving on society…let’s just say it’s better this way.
(Not actually my place, nice digs however – that coffee table, what’s that? Oak?)
Read the story in R.S. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy it as much as I did, and be moved to do some much more worthwhile.
…I know what’s your thinking, ask and ye shall receive, mon frauer:
John McCain with his High School Wrestling Team (photo credit)
