"Pledged" Delegates

Here is a nice twist: at the Democratic convention, technically ALL delegates are super-delegates. Pledged delegates are delegates that the candidate wins in primaries, who pledge their support to the candidate. Often they are selected because they are strong Obama/Clinton/Edwards partisans, and they sign a public pledge of support to their candidate. But their obligation ends there. As illustrated in this article pledged delegates can technically vote for whomever they wish, even on the first ballot. This makes them strikingly similar to the famed super-delegates.

The convention is going to be a mess. I retract my previous optimistic statement about the Clinton campaign. They're going to fight tooth and nail.