With hopes of wringing some Democratic presidential convention delegates out of Barack Obama's home state, officials for Hillary Clinton's campaign said today they will bring paid staff into Illinois starting next week en route to the Feb. 5 primary.
Though the numbers of paid workers aren't known at this point pending the results of this weekend's Nevada caucuses and the work going on for the South Carolina Democratic primary, their jobs are to try to buttress a volunteer force of congressional district leaders who helped organize the Clinton campaign's delegate slates.
delegates are selected by congressional district. if a candidate receives votes above a certain threshold -- which is different for each congressional district -- they are eligible to receive a delegate(s). the threshold ranges from 25% in the 4th congressional district to 15% in other congressional districts. the number of delegates is determined by the democratic vote for president from that congressional district in prior years.
obama and hillary were the only presidential campaigns to offer full delegate slates in illinois. edwards and richardson offered partial slates (richardson, iirc, actually had more delegate candidates). kucinich is on the ballot, but did not put up a single delegate. candidates for delegate to the national convention are required to collect their own petition signatures (although petitions are by congressional district or slate), separate from the signatures collected to put the presidential candidate on the ballot. these are often considered harder to gather than signatures for national candidates. however, slates can be put on the ballot just by offering up nominating papers, since the signature requirements are only enforced if someone challenges them. there has never been a challenge to convention delegate candidates.
hillary's decision to fight for delegates in illinois mirrors the obama campaign's decision to fight for delegates in new york (where delegates are also divided by congressional district). one assumes, although there has been no confirmation, that the clinton campaign will be bringing in spanish-speaking staff and that they intend to fight for delegates primarily in the 4th congressional district, currently held by luis gutierrez. the 4th cd is the home of alderman danny solis (25th ward), who is the biggest politician in illinois to have endorsed hillary. he is also the brother to hillary's campaign manager (patty solis). the clinton campaign can expect to do better outside of the city of chicago, where the machine will be manning virtually every precinct, picking up delegates here and there.
