Friday, January 11, 2008

Electoral reality vs. media spin

Very few people will tell you this, but in terms of the actual results of the New Hampshire primary, Clinton and Obama tied.

Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama each won nine delegates in New Hampshire's Democratic primary, followed by former Sen. John Edwards with 4 delegates, an AP analysis of primary results shows. All 22 of New Hampshire's delegates to the national convention this summer have been allocated.

This just kills me, because the entire conversation about New Hampshire for weeks has been predicated on the assumption that there are winners and losers, whereas in fact delegates are assigned proportionately (so that the losers are everyone other than the top three in each party, who took home no delegates at all).

This is a perfect, and maddening, example of how the media urge to create a horserace story actually ends up lying to us about the real process of our democracy.



(Proportionately cross-posted)