2,025 is the Magic Number

In my previous column I wrote that 2,024 delegates are required for either Barack or Hilary to get a majority of delegates. Having predicted a brokered convention I went to the Democratic convention site to do some research and discovered that minus the delegates from Florida and Michigan a candidate needs 2,025 delegates to achieve a majority. Based on the math I did in a previous column (The Unbelievable Comes True) neither Barack nor Hilary can get to that number by the end of the primary season. In an effort to find out what happens then, I went to the DNC convention site and discovered no specific rule as to how the nominee would be determined other than the convention would be brokered. If the DNC follows the precedent of previous conventions before the creation of super-delegates, ballots will be taken for the nominees and if no one is chosen on the first ballet there will be additional ballots until a candidate is chosen. That is how it worked in the "old' days when deals in smoke-filled rooms were the order of the day. Could we have a non-smoke-filled room decision this year? It's very possible. In such an environment Barack and Hilary could lose the nomination to a candidate the Democrats perceive to have a better chance of winning in November, especially if Barack remains radioactive and Hilary's negatives stay above 50-percent. It's possible that the concept of the first black or first women President could give way to a ticket with a greater chance of winning because more than having the first black or the first woman President, the Democrats want to win the White House. In the same way Barack threw his Caucasian mother under the bus in his Philadelphia speech, the Democrats will dump Clinton and Obama if they come to think they cannot win in November.