Sam Poulten Type Error

For John, BLUF:  Mirror Imaging is bad.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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As is pointed out by Professor Elaine C. Kamarck, in her recent book, Primary Politics: Everything You Need to Know About How America Nominates Its Presidential Candidates, Superdelegates are a creature of the Democrat Party, with the Republicans being a trailing party.

Supposedly, the Republicans have 437 "unpledged" delegates to the RNC (out of 2470 total delegates, with 1237 needed to win).  The thing is, 168 are from the Republican Establishment (three per state, plus 3 each from other areas♠).  These are all pledged to vote, on the first ballot, based upon how their state, district or other political entity voted for.  So, those 168 are not free to pick their person.  This reduces the number of free floaters to 269.

The Democrats have about 717 super delegates out of 4768 total delegates (2,383 needed to win).  These folks are on their own, as shown by the Massachusetts superdelegate list, shown below.♥  Here is a list of all the Democrat superdelegates.

What happened with Mr Sam Poulten is that he was on the radio, two Thursdays ago, and he fell into mirror imaging.  He was talking about the Republicans and saying that the superdelegates would rule the roost.  Someone called in (who knows, but as a hint, he was a Republican) and said that it wasn't so on the First Round of voting.  This caller was shut down.  But, that doesn't change the facts.

On the first round, at the Republican Convention, the delegates from the political entities are committed to how the people in their political entity voted in the primary or caucus or other form of expressing an opinion.  After that it is Katie bar the door.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  DC, Guam, PR, American Samoa, Northern Marianas, Virgin Islands.
♥  Here is the Mass List of Democrat Superdelegates.

Ser	Delegate	State	Group	Candidate
1	Virginia Barnes	MA	DNC	Uncommitted
2	Debra Kozikowski	MA	DNC	Uncommitted
3	Thomas M. McGee	MA	DNC	Uncommitted
4	Susan Thomson	MA	DNC	Uncommitted
5	Gus Bickford	MA	DNC	Clinton
6	Kate Donaghue	MA	DNC	Clinton
7	Ray Jordan	MA	DNC	Clinton
8	Elaine Kamarck	MA	DNC	Clinton
9	David O'Brien	MA	DNC	Clinton
10	James Roosevelt	MA	DNC	Uncommitted
11	Marv McMoore, Jr.	MA	DNC	Uncommitted
12	Debra DeLee	MA	DPL	Uncommitted
13	Steve Grossman	MA	DPL	Clinton
14	Paul G. Kirk	MA	DPL	Sanders
15	Michael Capuano	MA	Rep.	Clinton
16	Katherine Clark	MA	Rep.	Clinton
17	William Keating	MA	Rep.	Clinton
18	Joseph P. Kennedy III	MA	Rep.	Clinton
19	Stephen F. Lynch	MA	Rep.	Clinton
20	Jim McGovern	MA	Rep.	Clinton
21	Seth Moulton	MA	Rep.	Clinton
22	Richard Neal	MA	Rep.	Clinton
23	Niki Tsongas	MA	Rep.	Clinton
24	Ed Markey	MA	Sen.	Clinton
25	Elizabeth Warren	MA	Sen.	Uncommitted