Today: South Carolina Dem Primary (With Updates)

UPDATE 6:49 PM: Has been projected the winner by MSNBC and CNN:

	Obama	218,963	54%	7	81% reporting
	Clinton	109,577	27%	1
	Edwards	75,453	19%	0
	Kucinich	443	0%	0

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UPDATE 5:24: CNN projects Obama will win based on exit polling.
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The first Democratic presidential primary in the South is being conducted today from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM EST in South Carolina. The results will begin to roll in at 5:00 PM MST right here at the SC Dem Party website, when the polls close. Cable outlets CNN and MSNBC will also be posting results online, and will begin TV coverage at 6:00 PM MST. Brave New Films will have live, online coverage.

At stake are 54 pledged delegates, out of 2025 total delegates needed to win the nomination. Unlike most Repub primary contests, Dem primaries and caucuses produce proportional allocation of delegates rather than winner take all. If you get a third of the vote, you get a third of the delegates, and the delegates are allocated by congressional district. On Super Tuesday, delegates will be up for grabs in 16 Dem primary states, including New Mexico, including 183 separate congressional districts. The way in which the delegates are allocated means it's important to win votes in every district, not just in major urban centers with large populations.

Battle for Delegates
Even if one of the Dem contenders happened, by some miracle, to win every single February 5th Super Tuesday contest, that candidate would still not have enough pledged delegates to the DNC Convention in August in Denver to be declared a winner. This is gonna be a long slog. If the delegate race stays close, the power of the so-called Superdelegates grows. Superdelegates are automatic delegates to the national convention, and consist of Dem elected officials and other party powerhouses like former presidential candidates. The may support any candidate they fancy. In a tight race, they may well make the difference in putting a candidate over the top.

Candidate endorsements from big-name Democrats often don't mean much in terms of primary votes. In a normal year, when the nominee becomes apparent early, the Superdelegates usually throw their votes to the winner at the convention, even if they had previously supported someone else. This year, however, they may have a chance to make or break a nominee at the convention.

At the moment, the pledged delegate count among the top three is Obama 38, Clinton 36, Edwards 18. If you count Michigan's delegates, which the DNC has ruled will not be counted because the state ignored party rules to move their primary up before Nevada, Hillary has 109. A total of 55 unpledged delegates have been elected so far, mostly the remnants from precincts in caucus states where candidates didn't achieve the "viable" percentage of votes -- usually 15 % -- and those voters didn't choose to switch to a candidate who had achieved viability.

Michigan and Florida
Until recently, Clinton was perfectly fine with the DNC's decision not to recognize primaries in Michigan and Florida because they broke party rules to move their elections into earlier than allowed time slots. Now that the race is coming down to a fight for delegates rather than a quick sprint to early victory, Clinton is whining publicly about the poor delegates in the two states who won't get seated at the national convention. Just so happens that Clinton was the only Dem who's name appeared officially on the Michigan ballot, and she's ahead in Florida, where none of the Dems has campaigned.

Now that there's a long battle brewing over delegates, Clinton has her surrogates out there bashing Chairman Howard Dean and the DNC for having the nerve to follow the rules and put some teeth behind them. Of course the Clinton bunch has always detested Dean for his emphasis on party building over wining and dining corporate hot shots, not to mention his willingness to criticize DLC Dems for their triangulating, spineless maneuvering to avoid taking a position that might draw criticism from Repubs.

The Dean attacks from the likes of Terry McAuliffe, Bruce Reed, Al From and others in the "centrist" Clintonista realm have been coming hot and heavy since 2003, and they continue today. The thought of this group being back in the limelight if Clinton wins is enough to make my hair stand up on end. How about you?

At any rate, if the race continues to be close in the delegate count, there may well be a floor fight in Denver over seating the delegations from Michigan and Florida -- delegates who might be able to put one of the contenders in the driver's seat, most likely Clinton. Should be a long, hot summer.

You can find our previous coverage of the 2008 presidential primaries in our archive.