When it comes to the nominating process, nothing is ever straightforward. At first blush, yesterday’s results of the Democratic caucus in Nevada weren’t complicated at all — Hillary Clinton enjoyed a modest victory over Barack Obama. She won, he lost, and then they’re off to South Carolina. No muss, no fuss.
But then there’s the delegate question to consider. Here was the news, as of late afternoon yesterday:
In a just completed conference call with Obama campaign manager David Plouffe and director of delegate selection Jeff Berman argued that the Illinois Senator will leave Nevada today with 13 pledged delegates to 12 for Clinton thanks the weighting of northern and rural areas in the state.
An Associated Press official on the call suggested that Obama’s campaign may well be right and the organization was looking seriously at its own math.
While the process of delegate apportionment is extremely complicated, it boils down to this: in the places that Clinton won, there were an even number of delegates that were split between she and Obama. In the places Obama won, there were an odd number of delegates, meaning that he often took two delegates to one for Clinton.
“On one very important measure, we had a slight lead,” said Plouffe.
And sure enough, by 7 pm eastern, both AP and NBC changed their delegate counts to reflect 13 for Obama and 12 for Clinton. The Obama campaign immediately started referring to the Nevada results as a “shared victory.”
Could Clinton have “won” the state while “losing” the delegates? Based on the bizarre rules, it’s possible … but complicated. The truth is, neither Clinton nor Obama won any Nevada delegates yesterday.
Last night, apparently hoping to clarify matters, the Nevada Democratic Party issued a statement. Helping to highlight just how byzantine this process really is, the statement turned out to be wrong. So, the party issued a corrected one:
Just like in Iowa, what were awarded today were delegates to the county convention, of which Sen. Clinton won the majority. No national convention delegates were awarded. That said, if the delegate preferences remain unchanged between now and April 2008, the calculations of national convention delegates being circulated by The Associated Press are correct. We look forward to our county and state conventions, where we will choose the delegates for the nominee that Nevadans support.
Ben Smith helps translate:
First note: There are two kind of delegates. The more important kind, nationally speaking, are the latter, of which Obama — according to a revised AP count — is expected to emerge with 13 to Clinton’s 12.
That’s the technical grounds on which Obama claimed a kind of victory. The Clinton campaign’s and the Nevada party’s objections to this earlier this evening were yet more technical, but also accurate: The national delegates haven’t yet been formally awarded.
“The Obama campaign is wrong. Delegates for the national convention will not be determined until April 19,” said Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson.
But the only plausible scenario in which the awarding of delegates chances is one in which one of the candidates drops out of the race and endorses the other. In which case it’ll be academic. So in the only likely scenario that matters, Obama will wind up with one more delegate out of Nevada, an all-but-meaningless number in any case.
Just for good measure, last night, the Obama campaign was needling the Clinton camp by circulating a recent quote from Howard Wolfson, who said, “This is a race for delegates…It is not a battle for individual states. As David knows, we are well past the time when any state will have a disproportionate influence on the nominating process.”
For more on the delegate count, Chris Hayes and Ari Melber, who help make sense of what is obviously a very silly process.