On the left side of this blog I’ve tried to keep track of two things: (1) Who is running for President and (2) How many delegates are committed in the Democrat’s race. John McCain has already wrapped up the Republican nomination and the other parties don’t have the primaries.

In terms of who is running, that is getting a little complicated. I periodically try to click on the links to make sure all the candidates are still running. Especially with the independent candidates I get the feeling there isn’t much going on. The pages don’t seem to be updated much but no pages have gone down and nobody has announced pulling out of the race. The one change is that there does seem to be some party hopping. Mike Gravel began the race as a Democrat but has switched to the Libertarian party. On the other side of the aisle, Alan Keyes has announced that he has left the Republican Party but I’m not sure where he is going. Since he is still running for President I’ll keep him with the Republicans until he announces where he is going. Also, Bob Barr has announced that he is thinking of running as a Libertarian but hasn’t decided. I’ll include him if/when he decides to run.

The delegate race is the same mess it’s been all along. I’ve removed the delegate count for the Republicans since there’s no longer a race. Almost every news outlet counts superdelegates who have committed to a candidate; I haven’t since they don’t need to commit until the convention and can change their minds.

It’s not the easiest thing in the world to keep up with this, but I have to confess that I’m loving it. Frankly, it’s democracy in action and I think the Founding Fathers (and Mothers) would be pleased to see it.