Seat or nor seat? D Day for the Democrats

[President Bartlet]

So far no white smoke out of this important meeting. Bleary-eyed Democrats failed to reach consensus early Saturday morning on a plan to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations — setting up a potentially explosive hearing later in the day between supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on how to address this politically sensitive situation.

The chief lawyer for Sen. Hillary Clinton campaign said the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws panel is compelled to seat both delegations from Florida and Michigan fully and not award Sen. Barack Obama any delegates from Michigan.

It is a bedrock principle of our party that every vote must be counted, and thereby every elected delegate should be seated," Utrecht wrote.
"The states have already been punished because no campaign activity was conducted in Florida or Michigan. There is no requirement or need to punish their duly elected delegates who represent the 2.3 million voters in Michigan and Florida who participated in the nominating process." Read the full letter (pdf)

Utrecht also made clear that the campaign will not accept a resolution in Michigan that awards Obama any delegates, because the Illinois senator took his name off the ballot there.

To me this sums up the two-faced nature of Clinton and her campaign. Obama's followed the rules in relation to these two states - does her lawyer seriously think that had there been a proper contest then Obama would have got no votes and no delegates - he probably would have got enough to ensured that he would have clinched the nomination - given how close he is now to reaching the magic figure - and I think that is Billary's problem - still deluded to thinking she can win. Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod said his campaign wants "a resolution that allows Florida and Michigan to come to the convention, participate in the convention and do it within the rules of the party."

But Axelrod took issue with the Clinton campaign's approach to the issue.

"Everybody agreed that these contests would not be valid," he said, adding that Clinton reconsidered "when the race began to turn and her situation changed."


Roll on next week when Obama will clinch the nomination - because the longer this process oes on the more and more I loss respect for Billary.

[KingKane]

I got this a while back and further below was my reply.

Dear Daniel,
Michigan & Florida - Make Sure They Have a Voice!

Millions of voters in Florida and Michigan are depending on you to help make sure they have a voice in this race. Will you stand up for them today?

Thanks to your efforts, thanks to the hundreds of thousands of people who have already spoken out, the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee is meeting May 31 to make a decision about whether or not the votes in Michigan and Florida will count.

Now I need you to urge the DNC to make the right decision on May 31. I need you to remind them that in the Democratic Party, we count every vote.

Tell the Democratic National Committee to count the votes of Florida and Michigan.

On May 31, the DNC has a chance to make it clear that the people of Florida and Michigan have a voice in our party. The decision is especially critical given the important role these states will play in November.

And your voice could make the difference for the millions of people who went to the polls in those two states to make their choice for president.

---

- See here's my problem with the Clinton message, the lesson of 2000 was that every voter should get an equal chance to vote and have their vote counted. And we all can see that in Florida and Michigan many voters did not get an opportunity to participate in a fair and open primary process. To now retrospectively discount the votes of those who could not choose the candidate of their choice is just plain wrong.

And for that reason I believe that to seek to claim the nomination on the basis of a partial primary process in these two states is illegitimate. Senator Clinton has run an inspiring race but to now try and claim the nomination while ignoring those excluded from the Florida and Michigan primary processes is unbecoming the person and candidate that people have come to know her to be.

In the Democratic Party, everyone gets to vote for the candidate of their choice, every vote is equal and then and only then every vote is counted.

[Squire Allworthy]

Correct me if I am wrong but both Obama and Clinton were on the Florida ballot and in Michigan Obama chose to remove his name from the ballot.

[Keith-M]

Correct me if I am wrong but both Obama and Clinton were on the Florida ballot and in Michigan Obama chose to remove his name from the ballot.

Correct, and now that the race is all but over they can allocate seats in two key states for November, without doing any damage to Obama. Split the votes 50/50 or proportionally in FLA and 50/50 in Michigan. It makes no difference, Obama is the candidate as I've been saying for months.

[KingKane]

Correct me if I am wrong but both Obama and Clinton were on the Florida ballot and in Michigan Obama chose to remove his name from the ballot.

No one other than Clinton was on the ballot in Michigan at the request of the DNC! She left her name on it, and in Florida no one campaigned but it seems people did campaign for Clinton on the ground. If the head of the party organisation tells you to absent your name from the ballot and then takes no action against the one who stayed on the ballot then what sort party member are you? I have no problem with the half vote solution and letting them get a proportionate amount of delegates for Florida, and let her have the 55% she got in Michigan and give the other 45% to Obama.

[Squire Allworthy]

Why bother with the 50%, would it really make any difference at this stage if 100%? Obama will be nominated one way or the other unless he really fouls up.

[KingKane]

Why bother with the 50%, would it really make any difference at this stage if 100%? Obama will be nominated one way or the other unless he really fouls up.

I think the issue is that if they go with 100% then there has been absolutely no sanction on the local organisations in Michigan and Florida for moving their primary dates up in the calendar and front loading the primary process. The concern would be if nothing happens even more states will try and move up and then the process because harder for all but those who can afford to be advertising in all states simultaneously.

Also, the 50% option is what the Republicans did.

Frankly, I think the local organisations did their voters as huge disservice as they voted so early that they lost their influence. If Florida had voted in early March as it used it, it could have had much more impact on the race.

[gendjinn]

Florida has been seated with half a vote for each delegate. Michigan is looking like the compromise will be that every other candidate that took their name off the ballot will signoff on the 45% uncommitted vote going to Obama - Biden, Richardson, Edwards - probably with the same half vote per delegate but this has not been decided yet. This will net Clinton 29 delegates for both states.

[Squire Allworthy]

Why wasn't there all this fuss with Maine and S Carolina which apparently also broke the rules? Why treat various states differently?

[KingKane]

Why wasn't there all this fuss with Maine and S Carolina which apparently also broke the rules? Why treat various states differently?

What rules did they break?