A more subtle change was the distribution of delegates within each state. As part of the proportional system, Democrats award delegates based on statewide vote totals as well as results in individual congressional districts. The delegates, however, are not distributed evenly within a state, like they are in the Republican system.More evidence of the stupidity of a race-baiting strategy. We give the racists too much effing credit. Clinton is going to lose this primary, in large measure, because of some of stupidity that her surrogates seemed intent on spewing. Justice, oh lord. Sweet justice. Peace to Sullivan for the linkUnder Democratic rules, congressional districts with a history of strong support for Democratic candidates are rewarded with more delegates than districts that are more Republican. Some districts packed with Democratic voters can have as many as eight or nine delegates up for grabs, while more Republican districts in the same state have three or four.
The system is designed to benefit candidates who do well among loyal Democratic constituencies, and none is more loyal than black voters. Obama, who would be the first black candidate nominated by a major political party, has been winning 80 percent to 90 percent of the black vote in most primaries, according to exit polls.
"Black districts always have a large number of delegates because they are the highest performers for the Democratic Party," said Elaine Kamarck, a Harvard University professor who is writing a book about the Democratic nominating process.
"Once you had a black candidate you knew that he would be winning large numbers of delegates because of this phenomenon," said Kamarck, who is also a superdelegate supporting Clinton.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
That excerpt vindicates the Sean Wilentz interpretation as much as it vindicates yours: that Obama's campaign, having seen the benefits of swinging the AA vote (a benefit in itself, but even moreso because of the party's electoral version of a rewards program), was determined to paint Clinton as a racist and seized on miscellaneous innocuous comments to do it. In fact, this might swing things Wilentz's way--rather than saying the Clinton campaign and friends were mind-bogglingly stupid, I'd say the Obama campaign was more than just generically smart, because they read those delegate-allocation rules and saw some seriously low-hanging fruit, not just in South Carolina but in several other states.
Posted by Rich | June 1, 2008 9:20 PM