Why Didn’t I Get Picked?

1 comment March 15th, 2008

In today’s paper, I told you about the six local people who will get to attend the lavish Democratic and Republican national conventions.

These multi-million dollar parties are technically where the Republican and Democratic nominees for president get the official nod. In recent history, the country and the parties have known well before the conventions who will be the presumptive nominee.

This is because of one single word — delegates. These delegates are one part of the complex primary process we use to decide on one candidate for each party to advance to the general election in November. And no one has probably paid more attention to delegates like the country has this year.

In January, it became more and more clear that delegates were going to be an issue in the primary season, so I attempted to give you a lot of background information, including the delegates’ role at the conventions. Also Bernie Schoenberg, who also works for GateHouse newspapers, did a good job explaining what happens at the conventions.

Now after Illinois voters chose their Republican and Democratic delegates during the Feb. 5 primary, only some of those delegates could celebrate when the unofficial results came in. Those were the Republican delegates, because in Illinois, the top four vote-getting Republican delegates go to the convention.

On the Democrat side, however, the selection process is much more difficult. The votes people cast on Feb. 5 was only one part of the equation. In fact, the four people chosen from the 16th Congressional District (which includes Rockford) were ranked first, second, fourth and seventh in order of most votes received.

This is why Clinton delegate Barbara Giolitto was so surprised when I called her about being a delegate. Giolitto, who was a state representative for one term, took seventh place after Feb. 5. Rockford City Councilman Victory Bell and state Rep. Jack Franks, D-Marengo, actually received more votes than Giolitto.

So why did this happen?

Well, the national Democratic Party sets rules for the delegate process but allows the state Democratic Party to choose from a few options to ultimately decide how the Illinois delegates are chosen. Not only are the delegates doled out based on the proportional vote in a Congressional District, but other factors, such as gender equality, may play a role. Because of the proportional vote, Obama received three delegates from our district, and Clinton received one.

The gender equality factor is what allowed Giolitto to get the nod, and it is also the reason that Eleanor “Bobbie” Colbert did not. Colbert placed third, but Sunil Puri was able to leap frog her because Mary Tuite placed second and thus was the first woman to be selected.

And before you start thinking all these technicalities is a way for the Democratic Machine to control the delegates, these same rules prevented party chairman Michael Madigan’s wife, Shirely, from getting to join her fellow Democrats in Denver for the convention.

Other people have written about this process recently as well (including the even more confusing Michigan and Florida delegates):

• How Illinois delegates break down
• Explaining the Democrats’ two-state debacle
• A full view of the delegate count