What is Super Tuesday? Which states are voting? Which are primaries and which are caucuses? How many delegates are up for grabs in each state? How will delegates be allocated, proportionally or winner-take-all?At the risk of giving my college English professor a heart attack, let me link you to the Wikipedia page explaining the answers to all those questions above: this is a really good run down of what happens on Super Tuesday.
Where are we right now with the delegate count?
Here's CNN's delegate scorecard, but I see different delegate count figures all over the place. Even "trusted" sources of news like CNN differ in their count against other "trusted" sources of news. It's so aggravating I could tear my hair out. Here's The New York Times' delegate count. They can't even agree with CNN over how many delegates each candidate won in a given state, much less the overall delegate count.
Can someone link me to a good source explaining the actual delegate count and analyzing the apparently wildly differing methods of reckoning these totals? You'd think the media could... you know... tell us the truth, but they can't even report the same numbers for simple facts as cut-and-dry as delegate totals. This is why we need an independent, free, and fearless media... that is well-funded enough to do some heavy lifting in terms of sifting through all this noise and getting to the root facts-- then reporting it in a way that helps people understand the world they live in and what's happening in it better.
What's projected to happen on Super Tuesday? Which candidates are likely to win which states? How will Ron Paul do on Super Tuesday?
Ron Paul told CBS News' Face the Nation that he believes he will win a majority of the delegates on Super Tuesday, and that he'll win the three of the seven states that are holding caucuses: Alaska, North Dakota and Idaho (Hat tip: Daily Paul).
This is in keeping with his strategy of targeting small caucus states where advertising is inexpensive and a small, committed following can carry the day, but so far the strategy hasn't netted him a full-blown first place win anywhere. Though he outspent and out-organized Santorum in Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota, he lost all three caucuses to the former Pennsylvania Senator, and only even placed second in one of them-- Minnesota. Paul also lost two other caucus states-- Nevada and Maine to Mitt Romney.
Famed election analyst and statistician Nate Silver is projecting a last place delegate finish for Ron Paul by the end of the day tomorrow, not the majority of delegates the Texas congressman is hoping for. As for the three caucus states, he's calling North Dakota for Santorum, Idaho for Mitt Romney, and Alaska a toss up for Romney and Paul. As of Monday morning, the remarkably predictive betting website, InTrade is giving Mitt Romney an 88% chance of winning the GOP nomination, a 70% chance of winning Alaska on Super Tuesday (Paul has 19% in Alaska on InTrade), a 73% chance of winning North Dakota, and a 95% chance of winning Idaho. Sadly, I'm going to have to go with InTrade on this one.
Meanwhile at Reason Magazine, Brian Doherty writes of the sharp contrast between Ron Paul and Rick Santorum, asking, "Is the soul of the Republican Party even worth fighting for?"
Wes Messamore,
Editor in Chief, THL
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