Delegates Count, but How do you Count Them?

The headlines are confusing. Sen. Hillary Clinton "won" California. She "won" New York. But Sen. Barack Obama was the "victor" in more Super Tuesday states.

It's hard to define winners in a Democratic race when delegates are awarded proportionally. The difference between Clinton netting 52 percent of the vote in the Golden State and Obama taking home 42 percent is, well, more subtle than you'd expect.

Delegate crunching is both an art and a science, and the task can be can annoyingly open to interpretation.

So, in the aftermath of Tuesday's primaries and caucuses, which of the Democratic presidential contenders is actually closer to having the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch the nomination?

Sorry folks, the answer to that question won't be clear for a while.

One reason: Democratic Party rules on selecting delegates to the national convention — the body that formally nominates the presidential candidate — are neither simple nor straightforward.

Let's take California as an example of how the delegate count works.

California Democrats award 129 delegates in proportion to statewide vote.

Clinton won the state with 52 percent of the votes cast.

This part seems easy: 129 multiplied by .52 equals 67, so Clinton gets 67 of the statewide delegates.

But the state Democrats also award 241 other delegates proportionally depending on each candidate's vote tally in each of the state's 53 congressional districts.

The tricky part is figuring out who really won each congressional district.