There hardly could be a dumber way to select a presidential candidate than the way we do it. (The election, determined by the Electoral College, isn’t much better). The nominating process takes forever, subjecting every public issue not only to partisan interpretation but to competition to see who can most distort it. It costs hundreds of millions of dollars, reducing the field to the rich or servants of the rich. The danger that an election will, in effect, by bought, is greater thanks to Citizens United.
An early poll among a fraction of Republican voters in a small, unrepresentative state, forced one candidate, Tim Pawlenty, from the race before the primary season began. Now, after months of debates and attack ads, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and John Hunstman have dropped out, and the race is down to four, none greatly popular with GOP voters, let alone a good choice to be president. To be sure, the present state of the Republican Party all but guarantees a relatively poor choice, but the process aggravates that tendency.
The delegate-allocation process is somewhat less than transparent and not overly logical. Through February 22, the Republicans have held nine contests — four primaries and five sets of caucuses — but not all of the available delegates were determined by those contests; some will be chosen later and the contest results may be influential in the eventual choice or they may be irrelevant. For that reason, the number of delegates awarded to date varies with the source, ranging from something over 200 to about half that number, out of a total of 2,286. After all the expense, effort and mud slinging, that’s where things stand.
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