So here’s the thing — it sucks that Florida and Michigan decided to ignore the DNC’s rules and move their primaries up. My understanding is that they knew it would cost them seats at the convention.
I should probably preface this little rant with the disclaimer that I hope to vote for Obama (again) in the fall.
If the DNC had said, “Oh, we’ll seat everyone, regardless of when their primaries were held,” and were now considering taking away states’ delegates, I’d be pretty outraged. On the other hand, since the DNC said, “These primaries are invalid,” and the “playing by the rules” thing to do was to boycott the elections, it now seems…unfair…to then seat the delegates from those states. The counterpoint, of course, is that no one should be denied a vote simply because their state party ignored a fairly arbitrary rule.
But. An election in which one candidate doesn’t even appear on the ballot — not because he didn’t have the support, but because he wasn’t supposed to campaign in the state — doesn’t sound to me like a valid election.
In my mind, the ideal solution would have been for Michigan and Florida to hold do-over primaries later in the season. Oh well.
I’m watching streaming video of the meeting right now.
The DNC rules committee probably will seat the Florida and Michigan delegates in some form, if only to appease voters in those states who the party needs in November, but the bigger, harder question involves apportionment. I’ve heard a proposal to seat half of the delegates from both states, with Obama receiving the uncommitted delegates from Michigan to account for the fact that he wasn’t on the ballot. I could live with that.
What I could not live with is a proposal from the Clinton campaign that the committee seat all of the delegates from both states, with Obama receiving none from Michigan. Based on what I’ve heard so far, though, I think this is unlikely. And even if the committee wanted to do this, concerns about the fallout probably would prevent it.
I believe we’ll both get our wish and have a second opportunity to vote for Obama in November. If he’s not on that ballot, I probably wouldn’t vote at all because I would know the Democratic nomination was stolen from the one candidate who might have made a difference.
You know…at the beginning of primary season, and even for a while after I touched the screen (can’t say pulled the lever!), I was pretty ambivalent, feeling that there was a lot to like about both candidates. But at this point, if Clinton were to receive the nomination because of the FL/MI debacle, or through the votes of superdelegates, I *would* feel like the nomination had been stolen. And while I originally would have had no problem voting for Clinton in the fall, under those circumstances, I would.
Perhaps she’ll take the opportunity today, after they’ve agreed to some reasonable compromise, to just go ahead and bow out. But I won’t hold my breath.
The decision by the DNC rules committee seems fair to me. The most heartening thing, though, was that the Obama campaign had the votes for a 50-50 split of the Michigan delegates — a clear indication to me that the party has no desire to give the nomination to Clinton and that any appeal of the decision to the credentials committee (which incidentally has the same co-chairs) would go precisely nowhere. And to be honest, Harold Ickes and his ilk should stop complaining because the rules committee would have been fully justified in throwing out the results in Michigan completely.
All of this means that Obama, who has more than a pocketful of superdelegates waiting to declare as soon as the polls close on Tuesday, should wrap up the nomination no later than Wednesday. It’s not over yet, but I’ve got the Dom ready on ice.