It's the delegates, stupid

Reuters reminds us of a very important point for Super Tuesday:

In a hotly contested presidential race, votes are nice -- but it's delegates to this summer's nominating conventions that count....

More than half of all Democratic delegates will be up for grabs on Tuesday, and about 40 percent of Republican delegates are at stake in the biggest single day of presidential primary voting in campaign history.

"It's useful to win states, but states don't vote -- delegates do," said Harold Ickes, who is heading up the delegate operation for New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

It will be interesting to see how the media juggles "who won the most states" with "who won the most delegates." It's totally possible that one candidate could win a majority of the states while their opponent wins a majority of the delegates. In simple math, the one with the most delegates wins. But how will the media spin it? Hell, how will the candidates spin it? If one candidate has most of the states, won't that look like a blow-out? Is it a blow-out? Will the public TAKE it as a blow-out, possibly affecting future primaries? Will people be ticked at the media if the media says that the candidate with a majority of states ISN'T the real winner? This delegate thing is really a mess.