heh, heh, Josh Marshall spells it out about caucuses and caucus delegates

[antigop]

Obama supporters take note:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/182722.php

Here's what I mean. Caucuses rarely if at all vote directly for national convention delegates (I'm going to hedge here a bit because I don't know the ins and outs of every states rules.) Generally speaking, they choose delegates to a state convention, which in turn chooses delegates to the national convention. In some states I think there are even intervening county conventions. But the key point is that unlike in primaries where the delegates really get picked on primary night, that's not what happens with caucuses. When you have a caucus in state such-and-such and they say Obama got X number of delegates, that's just an estimate. He doesn't really have them yet. What it really means is that he got X number of delegates and if they all go to the state convention and vote for Obama then he'll get the estimated number of delegates, or something very close to that number.

The point is that there's a lot of potential haggling and funny-business possible between what's actually set in stone now and what people are expecting come convention time. TPM Reader AO sent in this AP article from February which notes that back in 1984 Gary Hart actually lost delegates through the course of this sifting process.

Yep. Delegates can vote for whomever they want.

<edit to add> And it looks as if HRC will take advantage of this....

NOTE: As I have repeatedly stated, I am NOT an HRC supporter, but I am NOT a fan of caucuses. Check my previous posts. I have NEVER supported her. And since I can only briefly check-in at lunch, I will not be able to respond to this thread until possibly later this evening (if at all).