You better reread, quick!!! lol

OK, yeah, you need to back up a bit and take a breather. I don't know if you think pledged delegates are as wishy-washy as superdelegates or something, but here's the thing...when they're selected, they get vetted pretty damn thoroughly. Why? So that the campaigns can be as sure as possible that they don't defect as long as the candidate is still in the race.

Yes, pledged delegates aren't 100% bound to a candidate and can change, but at best, you're only going to be looking at a small trickle of them. If you're thinking that this will open a floodgate, you're deluding yourself.

If you haven't noticed by now, all the superdelegate switchers have been from Clinton to Obama, going to the side of the leading candidate.  If Clinton thinks she can persuade pledged delegates to support her after Obama has hit 2025 she is welcome to try.  Don't think she will be very successful.

If any of Obama's pledged delegates were thinking about endorsing Clinton, I get the feeling they would have done so already.

The vast majority of pledged delegates are partisans reviewed heavily by the candidates.  One out of 3000 has chosen to change his mind.  Don't hold your breath waiting for a second.

If pledged delegates start becoming poachable then the only solid metric remaining will be popular vote, which will be in Hillary's pocket after May 20th.  

Maybe some Washington, Minnesota, and Colorado Democratic delegates elected by those archaic and fraud-prone caucuses will show a conscience here.  

Given that they reference the governor or Senator from Maryland can "release" Clinton's delegates, perhaps Rendell and Strickland can do the same from Clinton in Pennsylvania and Ohio.  Why not New York as well?

Johnson wants to jump on the bandwagon and that's bad news for Obama?  Whatever.

HAHA, this guy switched sides so fast for so many times; his head must be spinning.  But why am I not surprised?

Also, we all know that technically it is the electoral delegates that choose our president, not the states themselves, and that in many states there are no requirements that the electors actually vote with their states.  So theoretically a president could lose the electoral vote in November, but still win due to electoral delegates switching (in states that allow it, some states actually have laws preventing this).

However.

This is EXCEEDINGLY RARE.

You can read up on these "faithless electors" here.  In most cases they are protest votes after the outcome is already known.  Some of them are simply mistakes.  None of them have actually changed an election though.

This is probably the first and last pledged delegate we see switch of this year.

one of mydd's worst posters.

What does that make you? Sir?

"I'm your worst nightmare... an 8 year old with a badge."

Jokes aside, I don't see how this ranks among Obama's worst nightmare scenarios.  This simply isn't going to change things one way or the other unless a large number of pledged delegates to follow suit, and that's simply not going to happen.  Even if a few rogue pledged delegates change their votes, that doesn't mean we throw out that metric to decide the winner when it is the one we've been using all along.  This primary is about delegates, and just about everyone on both sides of our aisle acknowledges this fact.

I'm not clear from that article how Clinton got saddled with this delegate as one of her pledged delegates. Given that he was a Obama supporter until shortly before the primary, I wouldn't have wanted him as one of my pledged delegates if I were Clinton.

One pledged delegate proves to be an unloyal twit and this is a nightmare?

It's getting so pathetic, it's sad here.

How is it that you manage to misinterpret everything every time?

While I love the irony of the situation (since Clinton was the one to point out this is fair game), I do not think it is right and I hope this guy gets smacked down hard and Obama rejetcs this joker and tells him to stick with his original pledge.

While I know Pledged Delegates can flip, I dont want them to.  I want them to represent the 'will of the people' as they pledged they would.  Otherwise its a mockery.

DKos had a diary on this as well and the majority of the people there agreed - they dont want this guy flipping, out of principle (not fear of some sort of flood the other way).

And also, this politican apparently is a tool and is just seeing which way the wind is blowing.

Please ban this tool.  How you can let a piece of garbage like this on this site is beyond me.

Overall, the quality of the people here are great and while many of us disagree we still keep things mostly above board, but this guy/gal DTaylor is scum.

Anybody who advocated 'assasination insurance' against one of our two candidates should be removed immediately.  Please do not let this great site go completely into the toilet.

Please ban him/her.

DTaylor,

Ever since you made those statements about Iraq and Iran causing 9/11 and how Obama was responsible for Saddam's tyranny, I fail to see how I, or anyone else for the matter, can take anything you say seriously.

I'm sorry. I'm just not comfortable with an active effort to get pledged delegates to switch; it kind of defeats the purpose of voting.

There are certain situations where it may be okay, in very extreme situations, but rest assured, neither Barack nor Hillary will ever hit one of those "extreme situations".

If you want to get into a debate on how the pledged delegate system is bullshitty, then I'm down for that, because I think it has quite a few errors in it that need to be corrected. Like how a win in Idaho can be more valuable than a win in Pennsylvania, for example.

But in terms of this, I think it's wrong for people to switch. It undermines alot of things that we hold valuable.

Jack B Johnson originally allowed his name to be listed as a supporter by the Obama campaign in December.

He was not chosen as a 'Clinton' delegate by voters at the ballot, he was selected in consultation with the Clinton campaign by the Maryland Democratic State Central Committee.

This diary is evidence of a stuff up by a campaign in selecting a delegate, in this case a stuff up by the Clinton campaign.

It is not evidence of something that will happen a lot in the future, let alone being Obama's worst nightmare.

The party insiders will be choosing the candidate in June and it's no secret that Obama is their overwhelming favorite. Obama is ahead with the party insiders (the super delegates) as well as every other metric.

Great news for Clinton? Some of the stuff posted here is so delusional it would embarrass Baghdad Bob.

Huh?  The Clinton campaign has been trying to move pledged delegates for weeks now.  Net result?  Obama +1.

Forget all the childish back and forth above.  The diarist is making a foolish argument.

The delegate whose "switch" spells Sen. Obama's doom is identified in the first two paragraphs:

Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson, a Democratic convention delegate pledged to support Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, said yesterday that he thinks Sen. Barack Obama has "in a real sense" won the Democratic nomination and that he now plans to support Obama at the August convention.

Johnson, who endorsed Clinton nine days before Maryland's February primary, said will urge Gov. Martin O'Malley and Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, who co-chair Clinton's Maryland campaign,to bring all of her delegates to Obama's camp for the sake of party unity.

Rosalind S. Helderman, "Pr. George's Executive Switches To Obama", WP, May 13, 2008, p. B01

Now it is true that Johnson was briefly an Obama delegate before the MD primary, switched to Clinton, then only now back to Obama.

But it is a logical impossibility to conclude that this is worse news for Obama than for Clinton.

     1.    The most recent and likely durable shift given the race dynamics and stated reasons is a net positive for Obama.
     2.    Unlike before, Johnson is actively encouraging the state party leaders to consolidate behind Obama.
     3.    Johnson repeats the narrative most favorable at this point to Obama ('Obama has won the nomination').
     4.    If this is a signal it's OK to switch, it is a much stronger signal it's OK switching from Sen. Clinton to Obama.

There are delusional arguments and then there are those that are...what?...patently absurd.  Choose whatever you wish, so long as you do not choose 'persuasive'.

Or perhaps this diary does not even rise to the level of 'argument' as traditionally understood.

to see this as bad news for Obama.  In reality, nothing has changed in that pledged delegates have always been free to switch; but their absolute loyalty to their candidate is what makes them pledged delegates to start with.

That one Clinton supporter has abandoned that entrenched loyalty to support Obama is indicative of just how bad things are for Clinton; it's surely not a bad thing for Obama.  His delegates have always been free to switch; but that haven't.  But now Clinton's has.

The Democratic party is in turmoil; basically they created broker election. A party that talks about Democracy but doesn't really believe in it.

Ya. I'm sure this is his worst nightmare.

There's always going to be a bozo or two in the bunch. Even in the electoral college there's been cases of people not voting the way their state did. I don't know why we allow the "official" rules to be so loose in the party and don't codify the actual rules by which the system works. I wouldn't expect any massive movement of pledged delegates either way. This is just a guy looking for his 15 minutes of fame.

I love this, a delegate drops his support for Hillary and signs on with Obama but somehow in the twisted Alice-in-Wonderland logic of MyDD it's "Great News For Hillary"?  I had to read the linked article twice and this diary three times to make sure that I'd read them right.  Amazing.

I read all the way through this diary, and I couldn't find any place where it reports that Obama just discovered that he had a final exam today for a class he hadn't been attending, and, by the way, he had no pants. What's up with that?

I don't think this helps Clinton, disagree with your premise.

That said, I think this is garbage.  I am an Obama supporter, but I don't care for this at all.  That delegate was elected on the basis of a vote to represent Clinton.  He should represent her.  I don't find this democratic at all.

is Hillary Clinton's George Wallace strategy in West Virginia.

Echoing Wallace, Clinton says, "Let's send them a message.", meaning he can't win he's black.

Another pointless, divicive diary.

It doesn't surprise that a few might switch from one candidate to another.  It's a mass defection (no matter which candidate it helps) that worries me, and I don't think that will happen.

the outrage would be spectacular. But, since we are busy fixing the nomination for Obama, then it's OK.

"If that occurs Obama may face a situation where its insider politics and the party chooses who the party wants.

Hillary Clinton has the majority of the Democratic party votes."

By definition, the Superdelegates are party insiders, and the majority of them are for Obama, with more every day.

So how does Hillary score on this metric?