I’ve been approached a few times now with people asking me, “Just how does this primary thing work?” In light of that, I figured I’d stave off the analysis slash angry ranting and give a quick explanation as to just how Democracy goes down.

The purpose of the primary is for each party to pick its nominee. Think of it like a quarter-final or a qualifying round. Each candidate campaigns in each state, trying to win delegates. This is where most people end up confused, and don’t feel bad; it took me a few tries to fully grasp this process.

A delegate is anyone who is selected to pledge their support for a given candidate, and there are a certain number for each state, depending on population. Hence, states like California and New York have huge numbers of delegates, and a state like New Jersey has a moderate number. In simple terms, when a given state has its primary, each candidate wins a percentage of the vote and gets a proportion of the delegates, and whoever gets the most delegates in said primary goes on to the general election.

But like everything in this whacky life, it is not that simple.

Delegates can pledge their support to a candidate. This means that they agree to support Candidate A no matter what. A given voting district can have all of their delegates support one candidate, so voting for Candidate B in that area would not matter anyway. Another way the votes get skewed is jerrymandering. This is when a concentration of one ethnic group or voters who always vote to one side is jammed into one voting district. For example, Obama can claim he won 80% of the black vote in Alabama, but that otherwise crushing lead amounts to only two or three districts, meaning he only gets a few delegates for a massive portion of the vote.

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Do my eyes deceive me? Is that John Mellencamp? If so, this post is already off to a bad start.

Who on the John Edwards’ campaign staff thought appearing at a John Mellencamp concert was a good idea? Was Bruce Springsteen busy? Was Bruce Springsteen tied up in John Mellencamp’s basement sleeping off a sedative when the campaign’s communication staff called artists? “Hey, John here, John Mellencamp.” “Hi John, I’m calling on behalf of John Ed…” “BRUCE IS BUSY I’LL DO IT.”

If Mellencamp was running for president and he appeared at his own concert, he’d lose votes. This is assuming that he’d have votes left after the “America’s Just One Big Small Town”, “Terrorists Don’t Suck Chili Dogs”, and “We Need A Cougar In The White House” campaign slogans.

January 30thwas the date of another round of Republican debates between the four remaining contenders: Ron Paul, John McCain, Mitt “Who-The-Hell-Names-Her-Kid-Mitt?” Romney and Mike Huckabee. The debates were held in the Regan library, Air Force One parked behind the four candidates, and Nancy Regan flanked by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the audience. It doesn’t get more patriotic than that. As with all CNN mandated debates Anderson Cooper moderated, and speaking from a completely objective point of view he has got to be the worst moderator in the history of presidential primary debates.

The debate was rather unremarkable and there isn’t so much one could say about it. Cooper clearly favored giving McCain and Romney the most camera time. He would occasionally throw a question at Huckabee and actually cut off Paul’s answer to a question in favor of letting McCain answer. From what I could gather, because let’s face it, political rhetoric is kind of hard to decipher and is almost a language unto itself, Romney and McCain pretty much agree on everything except the war, an issue that everyone is doing their best to avoid. As far as other issues, the economy and immigration took center stage, and the answers were basically, “What economic crisis? Oh yeah, the one that over 60% of the nation says we’re in. Well, let’s kick all the immigrants out. That’ll solve everything.”

I’ve been saying for a while now that the Republican party is in trouble when the only two people who make a damn bit of sense or McCain and Paul, and given that more time was spent arguing with Romney over some quote for almost five minutes, which, for you non-debate team nerds out there, is an eternity in an hour and a half debate, and trying not to fall asleep, McCain has left that pedestal.

I’m not quite sure what the Republicans hope to accomplish by invoking the ghost of Reagan. The final question of the debate speaks for itself I think: would Ronald Reagan endorse you for president? It quickly turned into a “mine is bigger than yours” match between Romney and McCain, however, McCain wins as far as an entertaining answer. He did not so much answer why as much as drop Reagan’s name about two dozen times (I’m not kidding) and eventually got lost in own rhetoric. Ron Paul cited Reagan as a vessel of change and aligned himself with that. Huckabee, however, was the only candidate smart enough to play the humble card and said that it was pretentious to guess weather Reagan would endorse him or not. Maybe they all had to be nice because his widow was in the audience. I don’t know.

I am not trying to come across as harsh just because I don’t vote Republican. What I fail to understand is why these multi-million dollar media spectacles have so little substance behind them. In light of the obvious short changing of speakers to asking trite questions about who Ronnie would love more, the sham is becoming pretty see-through. The democrats are guilty of this as well, making the overall assessment of the debates very bi-partisan.

If you missed it, check out YouTube for the debates and go watch yourself some politics in action.