Bell Curve The Law Talking Guy Raised by Republicans U.S. West
Well, he's kind of had it in for me ever since I accidentally ran over his dog. Actually, replace "accidentally" with "repeatedly," and replace "dog" with "son."

Monday, August 04, 2008

The End.. . or is it?

Today, the Obama campaign asked the credentials committee (which it will control) to reinstate the full votes of all MI and FL delegates. For Florida, this is everything HRC wanted. For Michigan, not quite, because it preserves the (minor) difference between an allocation based on the Jan 15 vote (where only Clinton was on the ballot) and the allocation (still favoring Clinton)subsequently approved by the Michigan Democratic Party. This does not change the dynamics of the convention. Obama retains the crucial lead in pledged delegates and unpledged delegates (otherwise he would not have agreed to this new proposal). So now the Michigan and Florida Democratic party central committees are getting everything they asked for. And the DNC is faced with the problem it tried to solve with 1/2 votes: no consequences for violating its scheduling rules.

I believe the BEST way to "punish" a state for violatin g the scheduling rules is to deny it any superdelegate seats. Basically, it lets the voters get their full pledged delegations, but tells the party pooh-bahs that they will lose their right to party with the party if they don't play ball (schmoozing being the whole point of the convention). But nobody ever asks me.

5 comments:

Raised By Republicans said...

A ban on superdelegates would be great. The people who actually scheduled the Fl and MI primaries were superdelegates. Punishments always work best when they punish the perpetrators instead of bystanders.

Dr. Strangelove said...

When LTG writes that reinstating full votes for FL and MI delegates is, "everything HRC wanted," I presume he is being sarcastic. While that statement is technically correct, what Hillary really wanted, of course, was to have the votes when they mattered. Obama is free to restore the delegates to MI and FL precisely because their votes no longer have any value.

And so in the end, the outcome is among the worst of all possible worlds. The voters in MI and FL get shafted. The DNC looks impotent. And meanwhile, the state party officials all get to go to the party.

Anonymous said...

That politics Chicago-style, Dr. S. And it's the type HRC unfortunately didn't learn because she came to the political front in Arkansas.

Remember that New Yorker everyone was all upset over? I finally read the very long article in there about Obama. Great article, worth reading! This guy is very smart and he only has to screw up once to learn his lesson. And he learned to work all sort of systems his way to get what he wanted, including schmoozing with the right people in Chicago to get a new Congressional district drawn up that would be a challenge to win, but that would diversify his "base". Rather than run a Republican gerrymandered district that would force him to win hostile Democratic voters outside his Ward, he worked a district that included Hyde Park (his ward), and all of the North Lake area (a.k.a Chicago's Gold Coast) that was largely Republican, but anti-Daley. So he figured out that it would be easier to appeal to rich, white, Republicans than to ideological black democrats. He wanted to position himself outside of Black politics while still taping that resource in his campaign. This guy takes calculated risks and knows how to win. He is cocky, sure of himself, and knows what he is capable of. He may well be able to conquer the DC elite that in the past gave troubles to "outsiders". As the New Yorker says, he manages to cultivate an "outsider" image while knowing very well how to pay "inside politics".

Raised By Republicans said...

US West,

Don't sell the Clintons short. They know how to play hard ball politics. They just got beat at it fair and square. No shame in that.

But you are right, Obama's secret weapon is that he is a much more experienced politician than people give him credit for. And, as you point out, he's been playing in a very tough division (Chicago).

The Law Talking Guy said...

The voters in MI and FL were shafted by their own Democratic Party Central Committees who broke the rules. Period. They created the problem that ensued. Once they tripped that fatal switch, there was no good solution. I am just glad to see an end put to the threat of a floor fight.