Common Sense University

Common Sense Authors assume that most individuals over the age of twenty know that the two major political parties pick their respective Presidential candidates at the party convention every four years. This process takes place by the voting of party delegates at these conventions. Now, in most instances, there are frontrunners after the primaries have taken place in all states and the voting process becomes more of a show than a true election process where more than just one candidate still has a chance of winning the nomination.

The delegates are being selected in both parties based on party membership and standing or if they are officeholders such as governors, State and U.S. Senators and Congressmen. Both parties have in the past determined the number of delegates for each State based on population. As a result, the Democrats have a total of 4050 delegates and the Republicans have a total of 2380. To become the party nominee, a candidate has to get ‘fifty percent plus one’ of those delegates. So much for the process at the party conventions. The delegate assignation happens based on the results of the State primaries and caucuses by using two major methods. Some States assign delegates proportionally while many other States have a ‘winner take all’ process. These decisions have been made by the party officials at each state level and are generally accepted by voters in all states.
 

After just a few primaries and caucuses, it is bewildering to see how polls and pundits are already picking the ultimate party nominees based on who has won what and how many delegates he or she has at this early stage. It is amusing to see that the various delegate-counters cannot even get a uniform count this early in the process. For instance, a source called Real Clear Politics shows that until now 313 Democrat delegates have been assigned to candidates while the Associated Press source lists only 67 delegates in that party as having been assigned. On the Republican side, both sources have identical numbers, namely 101, but they differ in the number of delegates for each candidate. Another source, MSNBC has different number for both party’s candidates.

Let us not try to find out where their differences are, at this point who cares when only 101 Republican delegates out of a total of 2380 have been assigned. To be specific, do the 42 or so delegates assigned to Mitt Romney mean he will win the nomination? Of course not! In fact, they mean absolutely nothing. Nor does it mean that John McCain has no chance because he has only 19 delegates. Instead, let us look forward to what is coming up until February 5, the so called Super Tuesday, by only seeing the picture on the Republican side:

• January 19, South Carolina primary – 24 delegates – proportionally awarded

• January 19, Nevada caucus – 34 delegates – proportionally awarded

• January 29, Florida primary – 57 delegates – ‘winner take all’

• February 1, Maine caucus – 21 – proportionally awarded

• February 5, 20 States hold primaries or caucuses – 1064 delegates; of which 689 delegates will be ‘Winner take all’ and 375 delegates will be awarded proportionally.

What does this mean? The Republicans will have awarded by way of both methods a total of 1301 delegates, 746 of those are by ‘winner take all’ assignation.  The larger states on this day, February 5, are California (173), New York (101), Georgia (72), Missouri (58) and New Jersey (52) and they are all in the ‘winner take all’ category. After this date, there are another 1079 delegates to be assigned in the remaining 22 states where primaries and caucuses will be held until June 14.

Does it therefore make any sense on the part of the pundits when they tell us that Mitt Romney (42 delegates to date) has no chance in getting the nomination while John McCain (19 delegates to date) is the front-runner in the Republican race for the White House? There is only one answer to this question: Absolutely Not!  

This is unadulterated nonsense and nothing more than wishful thinking on their part. They are no more qualified than a pre-schooler in making these kinds of statements. In fact, they should all without exception be ashamed of themselves for going on television or writing articles in newspapers and magazines and attempt to convey that they know what they are talking about.

This is as stupid as projecting passing a driver’s license test after having answered the first question. One hundred and one delegates have been assigned to seven different candidates on the Republican side and with over 2300 delegates yet to be won; only fools would try to tell the rest of us the outcome of this Republican. Common sense should tell us that this is pure craziness and we should not waste any time listening to these self-proclaimed experts. Why would any person for instance in California pay any attention to what happened in two very small states, Iowa and New Hampshire where the election processes were at a minimum questionable in that last minute party switching was allowed and where so called independents could vote in either Party. Everybody in California and for that matter everywhere else should look at all candidates and listen to what they say, what they are for and what they are against and then decide who to give their vote to. Common sense should not allow any other process when it comes to voting for someone who could become the next President of the United States. This article and others on Back to Common Author are designed to provoke further thought and investigation.   It is not the intent for the articles to be politically biased. Sources are referenced in each article to encourage readers to delve into the supporting material.  We welcome all readers to participate with their point of view either in support or contrary with additional information sources.

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