Rich Lowry explains how Democrats in 2008, unlike 2000, do not want to "count every vote" because they want Obama, not Hillary. His best paragraphs show how Idaho last night (Obama won yesterday's caucus by 65 - 35%) gave Obama more net delegates (12) than New Jersey gave Hill (11), under the loopy counting rules devised by the Democrats:
The metric the superdelegates are using is who won the most pledged delegates (Obama leads by roughly 150). This is entirely reasonable, given that pledged delegates were the prize both candidates were competing for. But the Democratic delegate-allocation rules can make the Electoral College that Democrats maligned back in 2000 look robustly representative by comparison.
Obama won more net delegates from Idaho (12) in winning the state by 13,000 votes out of 20,000 cast than Clinton netted from New Jersey (11) in winning the state by more than 100,000 votes out of 1 million votes cast. Obama dominated in small caucus states - where a tiny percentage of tiny electorates participated - and through strange wrinkles in the rules won more delegates in states like New Hampshire and Nevada where Clinton notionally won.
Thus, not only are Democrats not counting every vote, but some votes count for far more than others. Which, as Lowry notes, is precisely the situation with the Electoral College that Democrats excoriated in 2000 because Al Gore won more votes than the winner.
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