2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: SOUTH CAROLINA

[vacuum]

Good site. They have info on other states too.




2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: SOUTH CAROLINA (http://frontloading.blogspot.fr/2015/10/2016-republican-delegate-allocation_14.html)
This is part three of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated (http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2015/04/republican-proportionality-rules.html) its (http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2015/04/republican-proportionality-rules_17.html) rules (http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2015/04/republican-proportionality-rules_19.html), cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable.
SOUTH CAROLINA

Election type: primary
Date: February 20 (http://frontloading.blogspot.com/p/2016-presidential-primary-calendar.html)
Number of delegates: 50 [26 at-large, 21 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: winner-take-most/winner-take-all by congressional district
Threshold to qualify for delegates: n/a
2012: winner-take-most (http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2011/12/2012-republican-delegate-allocation_16.html)/winner-take-all by congressional district (http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2012/01/follow-up-on-south-carolina-republican.html)

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South Carolina is unique among its carve-out state brethren. Sure, the presidential primary in the Palmetto state is First in the South, but the South Carolina primary represents the lone exception to the proportional delegate allocation that the other three states -- Iowa (http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2015/10/2016-republican-delegate-allocation-iowa.html), New Hampshire (http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2015/10/2016-republican-delegate-allocation-new.html) and Nevada -- use. Actually, that distinction means South Carolina is the only non-proportional state (at least by the Republican National Committee's standards) before March 15 opens the post-proportionlity period (http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2015/10/2016-republican-delegate-allocation.html) of the 2016 presidential primary calendar (http://frontloading.blogspot.com/p/2016-presidential-primary-calendar.html).

The other three carve-out states utilize an allocation system that proportionally allocates their respective shares of delegates based on the statewide result of the primary/caucus. South Carolina, on the other hand, is a state where the distinction between at-large and congressional district delegates matters. The key here is that in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, the statewide vote affects a pool of delegates that includes at-large, congressional district and sometimes automatic delegates. In South Carolina the pool is separated. The statewide vote dictates who wins the 29 at-large and automatic delegates, and the results in the state's seven congressional districts directs the allocation of each district's respective three delegates.

If a candidate wins the statewide vote, that candidate claims all 29 delegates. If a candidate receives a plurality in one of the seven congressional districts, that candidate is awarded all three delegates from that district.

A statewide win means that the resulting allocation of delegates is weighted in favor of the winner. Said candidate would not only claim over half of the available delegates (29 out of 50), but would also be well-positioned on the congressional district level as well. Winning statewide tends to but does not necessarily mean doing well in the congressional district vote. While Newt Gingrich won South Carolina in 2012, he lost one congressional district and its two delegates to Mitt Romney (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SWwL44aOcCU/T1-hYNOhebI/AAAAAAAAD9I/2Ln9ZkKCu6A/s1600/southcarolina_2012.jpg). Similarly, John McCain won South Carolina in 2008, but split the then six congressional district with Mike Huckabee, yielding the former Arkansas governor 6 delegates.

In both cases, the winner left the South Carolina primary with at least a three to one delegate advantage over the next closest competitor. And in Gingrich's case, it was more than 10:1.

The South Carolina Republican allocation method (https://www.scribd.com/doc/277242381/SCGOP-Rules-2015), then, is built to advantage the winner more than a strictly proportional method of allocation, but less than a strictly winner-take-all scheme. It should be noted however, if a candidate wins statewide and in each of the seven congressional districts, then South Carolina essentially becomes a winner-take-all state.

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One additional area where there is some observed variation between states concerns how and how long delegates are bound to particular candidates at the national convention. The South Carolina Republican version of this has the delegates voting for the statewide winner or the winner of the congressional district on the first ballot only. If that candidate/those candidates is/are not nominated then those delegates are bound to the second or third place finisher statewide or at the congressional district level. If none of those three are nominated, then the delegates are unbound.

Presumably, the system works the same way for candidates who may have won South Carolina delegates, but who subsequently withdraw from the race. Those candidates are less likely -- obviously -- to have their name placed in nomination at the convention in Cleveland. But should a winning candidate withdraw, then their delegates are then bound to the second place finisher. If that candidate drops out, then the delegates go to the third top vote-getter. In both cases, that delegate transference is dependent upon the candidate ultimately being nominated. If not, then those delegates will be unbound free agents.

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State allocation rules are archived here (http://frontloading.blogspot.com/p/2016-republican-delegate-allocation-by.html).

[vacuum]

Dirty nasty stuff will happen in SC, as it always does.

Warning: The dirty tricks are about to start

In South Carolina, a 'viper's nest' awaits, especially on the GOP side.
By Darren Samuelsohn (http://www.politico.com/staff/darren-samuelsohn)
02/11/16 05:12 AM EST



In the run-up to their big presidential campaign moments, the big media players in Iowa (http://data.desmoinesregister.com/iowa-caucus/candidate-tracker/index.php) and New Hampshire (http://www.necn.com/news/politics/New-Hampshire-Candidate-Tracker-295977311.html) gave voters a useful online feature, an interactive calendar that let them track where candidates were appearing in person.

Down in South Carolina, it’s different. The interactive site du jour launched last week is the Charleston Post and Courier’s “Whisper Campaign” (http://data.postandcourier.com/whisper-campaign/)— a digital tool that begs the public to help keep tabs on the coming blizzard of dirty tricks.

As the White House hopefuls descend on South Carolina, site of the crucial Feb. 20 GOP primary and then the Democratic contest a week later, they're also heading straight into what might be the seamiest underbelly of American politics. This is a state famous for telephone pollsters implying John McCain had an illegitimate child and the bogus Mitt Romney Christmas card (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/22434242/ns/politics-decision_08/t/bogus-romney-card-sent-sc-republicans/#.VrvTWLkrIsk) with controversial quotes from the Book of Mormon. Fliers dropped on South Carolina doorsteps have told people the wrong date to vote; this is where political rivals have bantered openly with racial slurs and innuendos about sexual trysts.

The state has earned its reputation the hard way: It’s where the late GOP operative Lee Atwater was born, the man who turned negative campaigning into an art form in the 1988 presidential race, starting with his home state. While Iowa and New Hampshire tend to get a year’s worth of up-close and personal attention from the presidential field, South Carolinians usually experience the race in a quick burst of attention once the national spotlight shifts their way, forcing the campaigns into the quickest, often nastiest tactics they can think of to shape the race. And with a larger and far more diverse electorate than the first two states, there are more people with sensitivities to exploit.

“South Carolina on the Republican side is a viper’s nest,” said Neil Sroka, the head of Barack Obama’s digital team in the state during his 2008 campaign.

While the entire slate of candidates is susceptible to attacks from left field, one name running in 2016 repeatedly rises to the top as the most likely to face the kinds of dirty tricks South Carolina is known for: Donald Trump. The real estate mogul has so far weathered months of media scrutiny and survived a seemingly endless run of political obituaries based on the words that have come directly out of his mouth. But for a field of desperate rival Republicans now serious about blocking him from becoming their party’s nominee, the intense days leading up to the GOP primary represent the last, best chance to come up with a smear that sticks.
“No one has talked about the three marriages yet. No one has talked about the casinos. I suspect we’ll see that come Monday,” said Katon Dawson, a longtime GOP operative in South Carolina. “Someone has to take the bark off of him or he’s going to take this primary walking away.”

This presidential campaign has already seen its share of ugly moments. In Iowa, Ted Cruz staffers spread the false rumor as the caucuses were just kicking off that Ben Carson’s campaign was finished. There were also reams of paper scattered into the air outside a Chris Christie town hall in Ames featuring the New Jersey governor’s 2009 statement supporting Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court. In Manchester, New Hampshire, last weekend, copies of a Boston Herald front page with the headline “Choke!” somehow found their way onto the dashboards of cars parked outside a Marco Rubio rally, according to a Washington Post reporter (https://twitter.com/WaPoSean/status/696431792375644160).
Now comes South Carolina. As far back as December, one popular local political blog began reporting that a “mistress bomb” was about to rock one of the GOP campaigns. The Post and Courier’s “Whisper Campaign” site has already collected eight suspect submissions from its readers — five unusual phone calls, one strange mailer and two cases of stolen yard signs. It goes into detail on some of the reports but warns that the information has “not necessarily been vetted for accuracy.”

Political insiders in South Carolina say it’s only a matter of time before the rumor mill really starts churning. “There are real stakes involved, so naturally elbows would come out and they have come out in South Carolina,” said GOP Rep. Mark Sanford. “It is a contact sport, and on a variety of occasions there are at times unethical things. It's a full contact sport.”

While he said he so far wasn’t aware of anything major about to drop, Sanford predicted that, if “tradition holds true, we’ll start hearing about them” before the primary.

As the machinery kicks into gear, one big question hangs over the campaigns this year: Does dirty trickery have quite the same punch in the age of social media? While it can be amplified by Twitter, and spread quickly on Facebook or Instagram, the huge variety of info-streams can also dilute the impact of any single stunt. It can even come back to bite the candidate in question. When Cruz’s campaign started incorrectly circulating word of Carson’s premature exit on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, based on a faulty reading of the first in a series of CNN reporter’s tweets, Carson’s campaign quickly complained — and Cruz was forced to apologize and play defense. The Texas senator also got stung when his campaign sent out official-looking letterhead warning of "VOTING VIOLATIONS” if residents didn’t get to their caucus site. It’s actually a familiar tactic from previous years, but this time the campaign lit up Twitter (http://journal.ijreview.com/2016/01/252498-said-undecided-iowan-received-controversial-mailer-ted-cruz/) when pictures of the mailers surfaced.

“It’s dangerous territory,” said Chip Felkel, a Greenville-based GOP operative not affiliated with a 2016 candidate. “There’s enough volatility and visceral anger and cynicism with the process. ... If they get found out before the primary it can bite them seriously.”

In South Carolina, political operatives often work overtime to avoid getting connected to a low-blow attack, but they don’t always succeed in covering their tracks. In 2007, reporters (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2007/09/antithompson-site-connects-to.html) deduced that Romney consultants had built a “Phoney Fred” website that took aim at rival candidate Fred Thompson. In the 2000 GOP primary campaign, which featured a heated clash between McCain and George W. Bush, the Arizona senator was hit with rumors that he had an out-of-wedlock black daughter. (In reality, the McCains had adopted a child from Bangladesh.) Observers quickly started pointing fingers (http://www.thenation.com/article/dirty-tricks-south-carolina-and-john-mccain/) at Bush campaign operatives, including Karl Rove (http://www.seattlepi.com/local/opinion/article/Rove-s-dirty-tricks-Let-us-count-the-ways-1246665.php), though in the years since, Rove has consistently denied (http://www.politico.com/story/2010/03/rove-denies-role-in-mccain-rumor-034075) playing a role and actually put the blame on an unnamed professor at Bob Jones University.

“That wasn’t a whisper. That was a phone call,” Dawson, a former state GOP party chairman, says of the scheme. “‘If you knew he had fathered an illegitimate African-American child would you vote for him?’ I remember the call like it was yesterday. So does John McCain.”

That 2000 attack in South Carolina was a quintessential example of just why the dirty trick survives. Combined with false rumors that his wife Cindy had a drug addiction, the call went a long way toward ending McCain’s first foray for the White House. Just days after he had defeated Bush in the New Hampshire primary, McCain’s momentum was killed when he lost South Carolina by 11 percentage points.

Headed into South Carolina in 2016, it’s unclear what exactly Trump’s opponents could dredge up to knock down someone who has lived in the public spotlight, gleefully unfiltered, for decades. “What more could possibly be said about Donald Trump that hasn’t already been reported by the New York Post?” asked Felkel.

Trump himself brushed aside questions about South Carolina’s penchant for campaign tactics that often land below the belt. “Well, we’ve already had dirty tricks in this campaign,” he told CNN (http://bcove.me/g536eitr) on Tuesday night just hours after he was declared the winner in New Hampshire. “I’m ready for whatever they want to throw at me and that’s fine.”

Dawson, who initially backed Lindsey Graham’s presidential bid but is now neutral, said Trump could even end up looking even better, depending on what he does in response to the sharpest attacks.
“You get rewarded,” he said, “by how you handle it.”

Lauren French contributed to this report.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/south-carolina-dirty-tricks-republicans-219116#ixzz3zsfAtsmT

[mick silver]

rednecks there love trump ............http://uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/dropzone/2016/02/henwoodhrc.jpg

[Ares]

rednecks there love trump ............http://uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/dropzone/2016/02/henwoodhrc.jpg

I currently reside in South Carolina. I see some Trump signs, but I mostly see Cruz, Carson and Rubio signs. I've even seen people putting out the Cruz signs along the highway to and from work.

Just an on the ground observation and it's a very small slice of this state.

[EE_]

I currently reside in South Carolina. I see some Trump signs, but I mostly see Cruz, Carson and Rubio signs. I've even seen people putting out the Cruz signs along the highway to and from work.

Just an on the ground observation and it's a very small slice of this state.

Tracking Dirty Tricks in South Carolina

February 11, 2016By Taegan Goddard9 Comments
The Charleston Post and Courier introduced a digital tool that asks readers to help keep tabs on the coming wave of dirty tricks.

Politico: “This is a state famous for telephone pollsters implying John McCain had an illegitimate child, and the bogus Mitt Romney Christmas card with controversial quotes from the Book of Mormon. Fliers dropped on South Carolina doorsteps have told people the wrong date to vote; this is where political rivals have bantered openly with racial slurs and innuendo about sexual trysts.” https://politicalwire.com/2016/02/11/tracking-dirty-tricks-in-south-carolina/



South Carolina has a reputation for dirty campaign tricks. Help us track them.
http://data.postandcourier.com/whisper-campaign/

Please use the form below to submit examples of questionable campaign activity to The Post and Courier. You can include photos and videos of material you encounter like fliers in the mail or phone calls you receive. We may use your information for reporting on this topic, but otherwise your information will remain confidential. It will not be sold or used for any other commercial purposes.

[Glass]

I know the stuff below is about democrat but wondering if the same thing goes for Repubs?

I'm reading all this stuff about super delgates and how they don't have to vote the way the electors voted on them. So if they got up with a lot of Bernie votes, they don't have to vote for Bernie.

And about half the the Super Dels have already said they are voting for Hillarious. So the margin for a Hillarious victory gets miniscule very quickly on that basis.

I thought our Aussie proportional preference voting was a debacle. At least it is comprehensible. The US system is quite bizarre IMO.

[Cebu_4_2]

I know the stuff below is about democrat but wondering if the same thing goes for Repubs?

I'm reading all this stuff about super delgates and how they don't have to vote the way the electors voted on them. So if they got up with a lot of Bernie votes, they don't have to vote for Bernie.

And about half the the Super Dels have already said they are voting for Hillarious. So the margin for a Hillarious victory gets miniscule very quickly on that basis.

I thought our Aussie proportional preference voting was a debacle. At least it is comprehensible. The US system is quite bizarre IMO.

System here is fuck. I really hope we can see the day of Trump vs Hillary.