Bernie Sanders supporters, stop gnashing your teeth and searching for States where Bernie can 'hang in there' after Super Tuesday.
Hillary Clinton supporters, stop doing your happy dance, you have 47 MORE STATES TO GO and over a thousand delegates to win before this race is over -- celebrate too soon and it'll turn into a eulogy instead.
The 2008 race was rife with talk of super delegates, too, and the Clinton campaign was happy to tout her early lead in Super Delegates, as a sign of her support among the serious people in the Party. Sound familiar?
This time around, though, there is something new at play.
Earlier today I went looking for the actual Delegate Count, because I wanted to reply to someone's comment. So I googled "pledged delegate count democratic primary". Guess what I got?
A bunch of links to talk of the Democratic Primary and the count of Clinton 502 to Sanders 70. Now this primary session is most certainly not my first time at the rodeo, and I knew that number was not the Pledged Delegate Count (the delegates won in the first three states to have voted already) but those PLUS the unpledged super delegates.
Ok, so I figured it should be easy to find those real numbers, the ones that reflect not the view of the Party faithful but The Voters -- you know, the people who will be choosing our nominee, not the folks who get to add their count at the Convention like the frosting on the cake.
I was wrong. I spent a half hour reading articles from a pretty wide variety of sites and all I could find was that 502 to 70 number.
Until I went back to the Huffington Post Elections site and more carefully read over their coverage.
To find the true delegate count you have to go the Huffington Post 2016 Primary Results page.
Then you have to go to each State result and UNCHECK the box labeled "count unpledged delegates" to see how many delegates each candidate won in that Primary.
It's as though the entire Media wants the electorate to think that Hillary Clinton has won 502 delegates and Bernie Sanders has only won 70. How is that possible? Is the entire Media full of neophytes who just took up reporting on electoral politics and how Democratic Party Primary pledged delegates are counted as opposed to how (and when) super delegates are counted?
All I know is that the reporting of these counts is so far from the actual truth, and gives such a flawed and irresponsible view of the status of this race, that the situation cries out for some sunlight.
I'm asking you, kos, as the Founder and Publisher of Daily Kos, to do what the rest of the Media is avoiding for whatever reason, and publish prominently on the Daily Kos Front Page the true, earned pledged delegate count in the Democratic Primary. The only count which should be considered by primary voters as to how the voters in other states have voted, which is and always has been seen as part of how our Party's voters determine who to choose as our nominee. Because people like to pick a winner, and if someone has been winning and is jumping ahead early on, then they are probably a very strong candidate and likely more worthy of their vote, right?
The Voters deserve to read the truth about this race somewhere. Supporters of either one of the candidates shouldn't be thinking the whole thing is basically over and just decide not to bother voting in their primary when the time comes. After all -- a low November turnout will assuredly leave us with an (ugh) President Trump, and from the numbers of the first three states, we are already lagging dangerously behind Republican numbers.
So please, I beg of you, use your authority and power to do something for the good of the race, the voters and in the end, the nation.
Tell people the truth.
No one is winning anything, yet.
Because the Pledged Delegate Count is:
Clinton total = 51Iowa -- 23
New Hampshire -- 09
Nevada -- 19
Sanders total = 51Iowa -- 21
New Hampshire -- 15
Nevada -- 15
UpdatePlease go read this truly enlightening story from 2008 by Poblano, now known as Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com -- A brief history of super delegates