archives

Good analysis from Karen Tumulty in TIME:

2. She didn't master the rules

Clinton picked people for her team primarily for their loyalty to her, instead of their mastery of the game. That became abundantly clear in a strategy session last year, according to two people who were there. As aides looked over the campaign calendar, chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted that an early win in California would put her over the top because she would pick up all the state's 370 delegates. It sounded smart, but as every high school civics student now knows, Penn was wrong: Democrats, unlike the Republicans, apportion their delegates according to vote totals, rather than allowing any state to award them winner-take-all. Sitting nearby, veteran Democratic insider Harold M. Ickes, who had helped write those rules, was horrified — and let Penn know it. "How can it possibly be," Ickes asked, "that the much-vaunted chief strategist doesn't understand proportional allocation?"

Deseret News:

Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, still hasn't made up his mind about which Democratic presidential candidate to support — even though the party's state chairman sees the race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama winding down.

"I really want to keep my powder dry until this process is done," Matheson, the only one of Utah's so-called superdelegates to the Democratic National Convention in August not committed to a candidate, told the Deseret News Wednesday. [...]

"Neither of the campaigns have been knocking at my door," Matheson said. "I have made it real clear that I'd like to watch this process play out. I am learning, I think all of us are learning, more about the candidates every day as this campaign rolls through all 50 states."

But unless Matheson is committed to voting for the candidate with the most pledged delegates at the end of the process, what's the point of waiting? What more are we learning?