Forgive me if something like this has been asked before. I couldn’t find it on search.
As I understand it, when the various primary candidates drop out of the race, they generally “suspend” their campaigns, meaning that they still technically retain any delegates that they had earned. Hillary recently suspended her campaign.
I assume that if a meteor fell out of the sky* tomorrow and squished Obama, then Hillary would get the nomination, right? She still has her delegates, and I’d think the vast majority of superdelegates would support her at thispoint if Obama was suddenly out of the picture.
But what would happen if Hillary and Obama were sitting on a park bench tomorrow, and a meteor fell out of the sky and squished them both?
How would the nominee be chosen then?
I’m using the meteor as the instrument of death because I assume that there would be no questions of foul play there. I think we can count on meteors to be non-partisan.
Well, I believe Edwards still has some pledged delegates.
In actuality, the convention would just temporarily revert to the way it was for most of its existance: a back-room negotiation between power blocs. “Smoke-filled rooms” and all that.
I dunno. Who controls the satellites in orbit with the Area-51 gravity beams and such?
Except as Democrats, it’s illegal to smoke just about anywhere these days.
I’m done being silly. So on a serious note, what is the obligation of pledged delegates? Granted there are party rules, and they probably change state to state, but perhaps even some states have laws governing delegates. For example, my state has laws pertaining to faithless electors (electoral college). I’m not indicating that anything is enforceable, but more of a general curiosity of what the rules are.
IIRC, pledged delegates are committed to voting for their candidate, unless released by same, for at least a few votes. After that, they are free to vote for whomever they wish. But I have no idea where the cut-off is these days.
If both Hillary and Obama were killed in a freak accident it would, pretty much by definition, free up those delegates to vote for whomever they want. None of the other candidates retaining delegates have enough to make it matter. The freed up ones would dominate.
I’m certain that there are people on this very message board who would have no problem blaming it on George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and the executive boards of Diebold and Halliburton.
