'Super delegate' tally remains slippery

WASHINGTON -- While Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama wage an intense contest to win the support of "super delegates" who may decide the party's nomination, getting an exact count of those elected officials and party insiders depends on the day of week.

Vacancies, deaths, elections and even moving from one state to another can alter the super-delegate rolls. Consider New York.

When Eliot Spitzer officially departs as governor Monday, the state will be down one super delegate. His successor, Lt. Gov. David Paterson, is already a super delegate as a member of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), but Paterson will not get two presidential votes. Spitzer and Paterson had announced support for Clinton.

All super delegates are free to back whomever they choose at the national convention.

As of Wednesday afternoon, there were 796 super delegates, said DNC spokeswoman Stacie Paxton. "On Monday, I'm guessing it will be at 795 again," she said.

"It's a floating crap game," Democratic strategist Peter Fenn said of the ever-shifting count. "The rules are so arcane and wacky, you'd have to have a Ph.D. in math and political science to figure it out."

Kenneth Curtis, a former two-term Maine governor, has found himself on the short end of the delegate math. Curtis is a Democratic super delegate by virtue of his position as a former DNC chairman. Two years ago, he left Maine and moved to Sarasota, Fla., "for the weather."

Now, Curtis is out in the cold because the DNC has stripped Florida — along with Michigan — of all its delegates as punishment for moving its primary earlier. Clinton won the primary Jan. 29. Neither Democrat campaigned in the state, and the candidates and state officials are squabbling over how to count Florida's 211 delegates, which include the state's 26 super delegates. Michigan has 156 delegates, including 28 super delegates.

Curtis, a Clinton supporter, said he finds the DNC's sanctions "troubling" and will skip the national convention in Denver if the Florida primary isn't resolved. "Unless my vote counts, I don't think I can go through all the hoopla of a national convention again," said Curtis, 77.