Delegate System in the U.S. Election

When I read the news that Rick Santorum will still gain half the state’s delegates and Romney’s victory in Michigan is less remarkable than it seems to be, because Michigan is a proportional state rather than a winner-take-all state, I was confused by the delegate system. I only had a vague concept of delegate but could not clearly identify its differences for different parties. Here is an article from the Council on Foreign Relations. It also gives an overview of superdelegate, which is mentioned in Wayne’s piece we read for class. I find this piece informative and neat, so I would like to share!

Here's the link:

http://www.cfr.org/us-election-2008/role-delegates-us-presidential-nominating-process/p15414