Talk:2008 California Democratic presidential primary

Understanding the article in Europe
I do not know if Americans understand this article or not. Europeans won't.

The article tells us: "370 of the 441 delegates from California are selected from the results of the primary. 241 of these delegates are awarded at the Congressional district level, and the remaining 129 are selected by the statewide primary vote." Okay so far.

Then (Feb. 6th) it tells us - with "100 % precincts reporting" - that Clinton got 42 and Obama got 23 delegates. That's a sum of 65. How does that number suit to the others? All of the numbers in the article seem inconsistent. Maybe they are right, but it's not possible to understand why.

Could anybody explain these numbers?

Michael B., Austria


 * The 42 and 23 may have been part of an estimated allocation of the 71 "superdelegates"; see below. Wdfarmer (talk) 02:10, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

370 delegates vs 441
"370 of the 441 delegates from California are selected from the results of the primary. 241 of these delegates are awarded at the Congressional district level, and the remaining 129 are selected by the statewide primary vote. Candidates must receive 15% in the district or statewide to receive delegates."

The 370 delegates part is well explained, but what about the 71 delegates that differs between 370 and 441? How and when are those deleates awarded? Hasselby (talk) 12:04, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The remaining 71 delegates get assigned by Chelsea Clinton. --Jon Stewart —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.186.232.27 (talk) 13:38, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * For our European viewers: "That was a joke, son." The remaining 71 delegates are "superdelegates". Under Democratic Party rules, they are free to assign their support to any candidate, regardless of public opinion.  The Democratic Party created superdelegates in order to allow public participation in the nominating process, without giving up too much of the influence that the party bosses had held in the past. Wdfarmer (talk) 02:10, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Updated voters and delegates
I've updated the voter numbers, and recomputed the percentages and the totals, for both this article and its summary section, based on the latest California Secretary of State numbers. Those numbers don't match CBS News or The Green Pages at the moment.

I've also updated the delegate count in both articles, which was out-of-date or vandalized.

Wdfarmer (talk) 02:14, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

placement of the key
Why does the key appear before the chart and not after? It should be after. Kingturtle (talk) 13:09, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

delegate count
the stated source is not showing a delegate count. Please update the citation. Northwesterner1 (talk) 11:53, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

LA County Recount
No mention of the LA recount? Does anyone know what effect this had on the delegate count? http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/03/05/news/politics/16_36_323_4_08.txt 86.145.1.63 (talk) 08:33, 12 March 2008 (UTC)