Missouri’s delegation-selection process now kicks in; Democratic caucuses coming up
(Through the magic of WordPress, somehow this entire blog post got erased. And I just found out about it. So here it is — again)
The Wildhorse Township Democrats will caucus on February 28 at 7:30 pm “to begin the process of selecting delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
“The meeting will be held at Sorrento Springs Elementary School, 390 Tumulty Drive, Ballwin,” the group’s release says. ”Any Democrat who is registered in Wildhorse and who voted in the Democratic primary is eligible to participate.”
Wildhorse Township is among 28 in St. Louis County, and among more than 100 counties or jurisdictions around the state, who will hold Democratic gatherings on Feb. 28 as part of the delegation-selection process.
They’ll select delegates for the March 27 congressional caucuses, who’ll in turn select some presidential delegates as well as representatives for the state party convention May 9-10.
(The Republicans have a similar, but less complicated process, largely because the GOP has winner-take-all and the Democrats dole out their delegates proportionally to the presidential candidates.)
On the Democratic side, all these caucuses will end up selecting most of the 72 committed on Super Tuesday. ( 25 of the 72 are at-large delegates and will include 9 party leaders and 16 pledged delegates named by Missouri Democratic party chairman John Temporiti.)
The 72 — plus the 16 superdelegates — will go to the national convention in Denver, Colo., from Aug. 25-28.
(5 votes, average: 3.4 out of 5)
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This is very important. It is the place in the process where the pols could strip the effectiveness of the primary vote away. How? The delegates are pledged to particular candidates, but they’re NOT pledged to vote the way that candidate would want on any other issues. So, say, if Clinton supporters could get their people elected to a majority of delegate spots, even those obligated to vote for Obama could vote Clinton’s way on, say, credentials fights over who to seat in other states’ delegations or whether to seat currently barred delegates from Florida and Michigan. Or vice versa.
The people’s job is not done by just voting in the primary.