Calling Roll

Much media hyperventilation, when not fixated on what the Clintons will say 5 minutes before they are scheduled to say it, has been on the typically unimportant roll call vote.

According to Mark "How Many Time Can I Plug Myself On My Own Blog" Halperin, "Delegates still are waiting to hear which states will get to announce their votes before they expect the balloting to be cut off."

First off, balloting and the roll call are two separate things. All the ballots will be handed out at the same time, and all of them will be handed in. At a certain point, the chair will start calling on states. Typically, this is in alphabetical order, but sometimes they switch up the rotation to allow for a certain state to be the one that puts the nominee over the top (I'm guessing Virginia or Ohio).

Once this happens, everybody cheers and screams and what not, and then they will most likely continue on with the roll call, because the person announcing their state's results is usually a Governor or Senator who wants to talk about the virtues of their state (ie "the great state of Tennessee, home to the Peanut butter and banana sandwhich...") and the DNC doesn't want to piss these VIPs off by not including them in on the process.

Now, even if they did stop the roll call after Obama had the requisite number of delegates, that still wouldn't change the final delegate count, which will have been entered into the record after the balloting forms were turned in before roll.

But hey, we could talk about what "could" happen and how Clinton's supporters "could" be dissed so we could continue this disunity meme that seems to have all the network times in a tizzy...so why let facts and tradition and rules get in the way?