Delegating Authority?

Watching the Sunday talkshows this morning, I eagerly freeze the screen (thank goodness for the DVR function that my girlfriend pays for), to jot down some key election data that is hard to come by:

Democratic Party Delegates as of today:

_____________Elected____Super_____Total
H. Clinton........944........263........1,207
B. Obama........1,009.....174........1,183


Then, 30 minutes later with the McLaughlin Group, I got different facts: Big John tells me something different:

_____________Total
H. Clinton......1,158
B. Obama......1,072


What's going on here? Is it just me, or is it impossible to get good numbers on these delegates? And super difficult to get numbers (and names?) on the Super Delegates?

As I move from flatscreen to print, I find that Clark Hoyt, the Public Editor of The New York Times, agrees with me:

When it comes to counting delegates, where Clinton and Obama are almost evenly matched, the numbers are everything, and they have been difficult to pin down because of the party’s complex rules for apportioning the delegates who will actually select the nominee at the national convention in Denver this summer. The Times took a look at the confusion in a news article on Saturday.

Late last week, The Times, the Associated Press, MSNBC and CNN all had different delegate totals. MSNBC had Obama ahead. The others had Clinton ahead by varying spreads.

Sheldon Gawiser, the director of elections for NBC News, said the differences are largely explained by three things: how news organizations count the 796 so-called superdelegates, who are officeholders and members of the Democratic National Committee with automatic votes in Denver; how they account for states that have held caucuses but have not yet chosen their delegates; and how they project the apportionment of delegates within Congressional districts where the vote was close.

The Times and others are polling the superdelegates, but even if those party leaders support one candidate now, nothing says they cannot change their minds....

[Sheldon] Gawiser [the director of elections for NBC News] said the Democrats’ nominating rules are so byzantine that NBC is using a 225-page manual to figure out delegate allocation from last Tuesday’s vote. “This is no way to elect a dog catcher, let alone nominate a president,” he said.

Perhaps one has to be campaign staff or a party insider to really follow the numbers? While that encourages civic participation, it does not bode well for democratic accountability.