number of delegates

Much media hyperventilation, when not fixated on what the Clintons will say 5 minutes before they are scheduled to say it, has been on the typically unimportant roll call vote.

From AP:

Hillary Rodham Clinton will concede Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign officials said, effectively ending her bid to be the nation's first female president.

Thank goodness it will all be over this week.

After the DNC caved into pressure from Clinton supporters to seat Michigan and Florida at the convention with 1/2 a vote each, they still fell short of what is needed to steal the nomination from Barack Obama, who has the most delegates.

In a few hours the Democratic primary race will either be much clearer or much more muddled. It all hinges on what happens in Ohio and Texas, the two states most analysts believe Hillary Clinton must win in order to remain in the race. If she wins these states, the argument goes, she moves ahead. If not, she will drop out this week.

R. Neal looks at the numbers and declares the race for the Democratic nomination far from over:

An Arkansas editorialist argues that Mitt Romney may be correct that the GOP Primary has become a two-man race, he is simply wrong about the identity of the two men:

But if the race was a two-man contest, who are the two men ? After Super Tuesday, Romney may find himself the odd man out.

Bob Krumm is scared that the brokered convention that could result from a multi-candidate race on the Republican side may mean Ron Paul’s supporters will have some influence over the nominee:

Hillary won but Obama got exactly the same number of delegates to the nominating convention so actually it's a tie.

The Numbers

New Hampshire has more registered Republicans than Democrats but Hillary Clinton got 21.5% more votes than John McCain, the Republican winner.

The second place Democrat, Barack Obama, got 17% more votes than McCain.

It appears that the Republicans have chosen their

Sharon Cobb discusses how the Iowa Caucuses work:

The Republican caucus voting system in Iowa is relatively straightforward: You come in, you vote, typically through secret ballot, and the percentages of the group supporting each candidate decides what delegates will go on to the county convention.

The term caucus apparently comes from an Algonquin word meaning "gathering of tribal chiefs," and the main crux of the caucus system today is indeed a series of meetings. To see how this works, let's look at the Iowa caucuses -- the first "voting event" of the presidential election year.