Rules and Bylaws Committee

Yesterday the Rules and Bylaws Committee, tasked with ensuring the Democratic Party conducts its operations within the standards set by its own rules, met in Washington, DC to decide the fate of the Michigan and Floriday delegations.

Fairly early on in the day, they arrived at a compromise on how to resolve the Florida delegates, but the Michigan question took quite a bit longer. The final decisions, passed unanimously in the case of Floriday and by a 2/3 majority in the case of Michigan, are as follows:

1) Florida: the entire delegation will be seated and the votes will be allocates as they were cast. However, the value of each delegate will be cut in half so that each delegate will cast a half vote. This results in Hillary achieving a net gain of 19 delegates.

2) Michigan: again, the entire delegation will be seated, and each delegate will cast a half vote.
However, since it was impossible to determine how the voters might have cast their ballots in a full election (remembering that Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Bill Richardson had all chosen to remove their names from the ballot in compliance with their understanding of the party rules), the Committee heard many proposals for how the delegates could be awarded to candidates. In the end, they accepted the proposal of the Michigan state delegation itself, which suggested that the delegates be split 59-69 in favour of Hillary Clinton. Once accounting for the half votes, this would wind up with 34.5 for Hillary and 29.5 for Barack - a total gain of 5 delegates for Hillary.

So, we have arrived at a solution. Both solutions were voted for in large numbers by Hillary Clinton's supporters on the Committee (who significantly outnumbered Obama supporters there). Both solutions were supported by the leadership of the states in question. Both solutions ahve the support of the Obama camapaign, even though they cause him to lose delegates.

Harold Ickes, from the Clinton campaign has said that Hillary reserves the right to challenge this result at the convention. However, it's unclear whether she will ultimately chose to do this. Especially since, unlike the standing Rules committee which is weighted towards her supporters, the Convention Credentials committee will contain a majority of Obama supporters.

I think it is fairly safe to say that the Michigan and Florida delegate problem has been resolved.

Is it a perfectly fair solution? In my view, it is not. Those voters who in good faith chose not to participate in an election that they were told would not count have been left out unfairly. It is by no means certain that Hillary Clinton would have won in Michigan if Barack's name been on the ballot in the first place. In both states, there is no way of knowing what the outcome would be if both candidates had actually campaigned in the states - Barack has significantly improved his numbers in every state he has actively campaigned in so far.

HOWEVER, as I have said before - a perfectly fair resolution was not possible at this point in the process. This is a resolution arrived at within the rules after careful deliberation, with the input of both campaigns and the states in question. It honors the voters of these states but still applies a penalty for the state's non-compliance.

Barack Obama is down 24 delegates today. But he still leads in the pledged delegates. He still leads in super delegates. He still leads in states won. He still leads in the popular vote (by almost every measure of counting).

Neither candidate achieved the best possible outcome at the Rules and Bylaws Committee yesterday. However, it may be that we have achieved the best possible outcome for the country - the chance to put all this behind us.

Me, Media Darling

So the BBC News 24 piece today appeared a little after 5:15, with me, Margo and Daniel Rivkin (giving the general party perspective). As soon as we got off the set we were stopped by a producer from BBC World, which broadcasts globally, asking us to come back and do the same thing tonight at 9:00 PM. So basically, most of my Saturday consisted of travelling to BBC Television Centre, travelling to Islington (to meet my husband for dinner) and then travelling back again.

It was fun, though, and I felt I achieved my main goals which were 1) Not say anything completely stupid and 2) bring the discussion around to the importance of getting every American to vote in November.

Which reminds me, it's time for your regular nagging session: if you haven't already done so, go to www.votefromabroad.org. I shall be very put out with you if you are merely reading this and nodding your head without actually being prepared to vote. Already registered? Hurray for you! Now go find another American and register them. No rest for the righteous.

I'd be glad to answer any questions about the TV experience (yes, we got make up. Yes, we saw famous people - Andrew Lloyd Webber in the hallway for one. He's short.), just post them in comments.

More on the Rules and Bylaws Committee tomorrow, but it looks like we've got a reasonable compromise in the works in Florida, involving seating the full delegation at half votes. Michigan remains something of a pickle.

Just for the Record...

I think this proposal for how to resolve the Michigan delegate conundrum is reasonably fair and logical.

Both the Florida and Michigan delegates are impossible situations for the DNC - there simply is no way of resolving the problem that is fair to the voters of those states, to both remaining candidates, AND to the other states which did follow the rules from the outset.

And although there has been a lot of talk about supposed concerns over "disenfranchising" those voters who chose to participate in the beauty election primaries in these two states, it would be equally problematic (in my view) to then disenfranchise those people who chose not to participate in what they had been told was a non-binding election. The voter participation in both states was considerably lower than it has been in other states this cycle as a proportion of the population- we have to assume that this is at least in part because some people who would have otherwise voted believed the words of the party leadership when they insisted that this vote would not be valid.

Also, consider the fate of the Michigan voter who is not allowed to vote for his preferred candidate, even in the "beauty contest" race - only Clinton, Kucinich and Dodd were on the ballots there, leaving not only Obama voters but also Richardson, Edwards and Biden out in the cold.

It sucks - it really does. What about a full re-vote in both states. A clear and fair solution, right? Well, yes and no. First of all, there was a concerted campaign by Daily Kos in Michigan to persuade Democratic voters to vote in the Republican primary in order (ironically) to keep that race going for longer. This would prevent those people from then voting in a new Democratic primary.

What's more, this resolution of the problem would effectively turn these two states and their new elections into by far the most important races of the primary so far - thereby penalising each and every state that chose to play by the rules from the outset. Look down the line into the next cycle - in 4 years from now, doesn't this give each and every state an unbelievably strong incentive to break the party rules and set their primaries even earlier? If we're not careful we'll be chosing our next nominee before we've even managed to elect this one! This is precisely the outcome that Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were ALL trying to avoid when Dean proposed the penalties and the candidates agreed to support them.

I'm not saying that excluding the Michigan and Florida delegates from the Convention is in any way desirable - but I just don't see any solution at all that is fair to everyone. And I don't want to argue this from a narrow, pro-candidate position either - this is about the long term health of the party. When the Rules and Bylaws Committee meets on Saturday, they need to find a miraculous solution that will take all these factors into account, be acceptable to both campaigns, operate under a clear reading of the rules, and hopefully draw a close to the whole discussion so we can move on to fighting Republicans. I just can't think was that miracle solution might be!

Can you?

Josh Marshall is Getting Annoyed

Noted with agreement but without comment.

I've always assumed, as I think most people have, that once the nomination is settled the Florida and Michigan delegates will be seated. And I can see if Sen. Clinton wants to embrace this issue to claim a moral victory even while coming short of her goal of the nomination. As things currently stand, seating them would still leave Sen. Clinton behind in delegates.

But Sen. Clinton is doing much more than this. She is embarking on a gambit that is uncertain in its result and simply breathtaking in its cynicism.

I know many TPM Readers believe there is a deep moral and political issue at stake in the need to seat these delegations. I don't see it the same way. But I'm not here to say they're wrong and I'm right. It's a subjective question and I respect that many people think this. What I'm quite confident about is that Sen. Clinton and her top
advisors don't see it that way. Why do I think that? For a number of reasons. One of her most senior advisors, Harold Ickes, was on the DNC committee that voted to sanction Florida and Michigan by not including their delegates. Her campaign completely signed off on sanctions after that. And there are actually numerous quotes from the Senator herself saying those primaries didn't and wouldn't count. Michigan and Florida were sanctioned because they ignored the rules the DNC had set down for running this year's nomination process. The evidence is simply overwhelming that Sen. Clinton didn't think this was a problem at all -- until it became a vehicle to provide a rationale for her continued campaign.

Now, that's politics. One day you're on one side of an issue, the next you're on the other, all depending on the tactical necessities of the moment. But that's not what Clinton is doing. She's elevating it to a level of principle -- first principles -- on par with the great voting rights struggles of history. There's no longer any question that she's going to win the nomination. The whole point of the popular vote gambit was to make an argument to super-delegates. And that's fine since that's what super-delegates are there for -- to make the decision by whatever measure they choose. But they've made their decision. The super delegates are breaking overwhelmingly for Obama. They simply don't buy the arguments she's making. As Greg Sargent makes clear here. There are very good reasons to think Sen. Clinton won't take this to the convention, even as today she suggested she might. But that's sort of beside the point.

What she's doing is not securing her the nomination. Rather, she's gunning up a lot
of her supporters to believe that the nomination was stolen from her -- a belief
many won't soon abandon. And that on the basis of rationales and arguments
there's every reason to think she doesn't even believe in.