Politics:A Primer on the GOP?s Insanely Complicated Delegate Math

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Politics A Primer on the GOP's Insanely Complicated Delegate Math How many delegates have the Republican candidates won so far? Nobody actually knows. By David Weigel Posted Friday, Mar 23, 2012, at 11:37 PM ET On Saturday, sometime after 8 p.m. Eastern, CNN will get to make a call: Rick Santorum has won the Louisiana primary. The color on the election board will change from blank to purple, because for whatever reason that's the color Santorum's been assigned. Wolf Blitzer will pronounce this "very interesting" or a development that CNN is "watching closely." If we're lucky, he'll do both. It'll be fun. It won't actually tell us who's getting most of Louisiana's 46 delegates to the Republican National Convention. Only 20 delegates will be assigned tomorrow, split between whichever candidates get more than 25 percent of the vote. The leftover delegates, and 23 more besides, will sit in limbo until June 2, when Republicans will meet in Shreveport to parcel them out. Hang on, sorry. Right before that, in April, there'll be district conventions that assign delegates for Shreveport. And none of these newly empowered Republicans have to pay attention to primary results. This is extremely confusing, isn't it? Now you know why Mitt Romney's rivals, seemingly bested by the cruel God of Math, are confident that they can still take him out. In Louisiana today, set for his worst defeat in the South so far, Newt Gingrich was musing about the rule that allows anyone to be nominated if enough delegates in five states make it so. "My hope is we will find five states," he said, "and I also think, frankly ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate The Crazy Arizona Bill That Would Let Employers Discriminate Against Women for Taking Birth Control The Weirdest Book Ever Written About the Civil War What Happened When the French Made a Movie About the American Teen "Pregnancy Pact"	Advertisement
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