The Myth Of The Spoiler

[Pab Sungenis]

I've been thinking very hard about who I'm going to vote for on February 5th. A lot of people, both in the media and here on DU, have been knocking John Edwards as a "spoiler" with no hope of winning now, and that if he stays in the race it will "split" the "anti-Hillary" vote.

You know what? Let him stay in. And I'll probably vote for him after all. Why? Because I finally realized that the way the primary race is structured, there IS no "spoiler" and no way you can "split" the Anti-Hillary vote.

The nomination is not something you can win with a plurality, and none of the primaries (even the horrible excuse for a Michigan primary) are winner-take-all. If you reach a certain point, which Edwards has been doing consistently, then you get a proportional share of the delegates. If Hillary "wins" a state with 40%, she only gets 40% of the delegates; the majority of them are divided among her opponents.

When we get to Denver, it doesn't matter if Hillary has won 40 states if she only wins most of them with 40% of the vote. Bragging rights don't matter, delegates do. If she's even one delegate shy of the magic number then she doesn't get the nomination on the first ballot, and after the first ballot, all delegates are "unpledged" and all bets are off!

As a result, it doesn't matter if Barack Obama keeps getting fewer votes than Hillary, as long as he and John Edwards keep getting more votes between them than she does. At the convention, there will be some brokering and some bartering, and if Obama and Edwards have more than 50% of the delegates between them, they can unite to control the show. They can either come to an accomodation and throw their delegates behind one of the two of them, or they can wait for the second ballot, and throw their support behind a draft candidate.

If Hillary DOES get to the magic number, it's not going to be because enough people didn't switch from Edwards to Obama. Thus, let John stay in the race, make his case, and when we get to Denver either it won't have mattered at all, or it will make all the difference in the world.

©2008 P. Sungenis, All Rights Reserved.