Mich. DNC member: Plan to split delegates flawed

LANSING, Mich. — A top Clinton supporter in Michigan said Thursday the state Democratic Party's plan to split the convention delegates between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama is "fatally flawed."

Democratic National Committee member Joel Ferguson sent a letter Thursday to the co-chairs of the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee seeking to seat all of Michigan's delegates based on the results of the disputed Jan. 15 election. Failing that, he says the pledged delegates should get a half-vote each and superdelegates should get a full vote, a plan Florida also is proposing.

Clinton, who won Michigan's primary, wants to have the full delegation seated. Obama, who is close to having enough delegates to lock up the nomination, has opposed that, noting he took his name off the Michigan ballot after the DNC said it would strip the state of its delegates as punishment for moving up its primary date in violation of party rules.

The rules committee is to meet Saturday to hear plans for seating delegates from Michigan and Florida, which was also stripped of its delegates for holding a January primary.

His letter puts him at odds with the Michigan Democratic Party's chairman and executive committee, which support a proposed 69-59 split.

State Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer disagreed with Ferguson.

Under Ferguson's plan, Clinton would get 73 pledged delegates for winning the Michigan presidential primary, while "uncommitted" would get 55. The Clinton campaign has maintained that Obama should not get any Michigan delegates even though many of his supporters voted for "uncommitted."

"I am convinced that neither the RBC nor the DNC have the authority to take pledged delegates allocated to Hillary Clinton by virtue of the popular vote and assign them to either Uncommitted or to Barack Obama as the challenge seeks," Ferguson wrote in his letter.

The plan to split the delegates 69-59 was drawn up by a four-member team of prominent Michigan Democrats.

"We spent a lot of time working with both campaigns trying to figure out a solution," DNC member Debbie Dingell, who helped draw up the plan, said Thursday. "This is a consensus that was agreed to and the entire executive committee supported. At this point, we're fighting for a principle that's important."

Comments

[bumchicken]

The most democratic solution for both Florida and Michigan is to penalize both states by stripping them of their superdelegates (those party-types who are most responsible for messing up, or failing to prevent the messing up, of this whole thing in the first place) and replacing them with "regular" so-called pledged delegates who will be apportioned according to the voting that took place when it did. That means both states would still get their full allotment of delegates (157 in Michigan and 211 in Florida), but a price for breaking the rules would be paid by those who had the most power to enforce them and not by everyone else.

[Peteyman]

How about a 0:0 MI compromise, and just seat the FL delegates as is?

[condew]

What about the voters who trusted the word of the Democratic party that this primary would not count, and so stayed home? What are you going to do for them? Nobody should ever be penalized for trusting that the party means what it says, and to honor these "elections" is to betray the candidates and the voters who believed the party while you reward the leaders and voters who thumbed their noses at the part and participated in spite of the knowing and blatant violation of the rules.

[Kingbreaker]

Absolute bullshit.

The people who turned up in FL were property owners, IE, OLD FOLKS. I wonder which candidate benefits from THAT demographic?

The only viable solution was for Hillary not to make an issue of this. Oh well.

[starboymikey]

The only solution the Clintons will not consider to be *fatally flawed* is one that awards her the nomination.

[condew]

Exactly, so why disgrace the party by going back on its word?

[levibatgirl]

Get it straight Hillary. You are NOT the one that we want!!!

[condew]

At this point, not only is she not going to be the nominee, or the VP, I think any Democrat who runs against her for her senate seat will be extreemely well funded.

In the end she will be free to have lunch in West Virginia every day with Geraldine Ferraro, and commiserate over ungrateful blacks, men who don't know their place, and her pending divorce.

[Testtubebaby]

Okay, if they half to seat Mi and FL at least take the superdelegates away. Those are the ones that caused this mess....now that's suffering.

[Testtubebaby]

"have"

[condew]

There's no point in even giving half, she is out to destroy what she cannot have by any means she can think of. No compromise will be adequate, so stand on principal.

[Rianna]

Hillary "the desperate" Clinton is going to make this into a circus. She is going to intimidate the Democratic officials, and the Super delegates, into giving her this nomination. What a dirty, vicious, woman. I don't care if she uses Roves map to prove some stupid point (you can bet Rove wants to run
against her, so hence that stupid map), she is not the front runner, and although they have tried to blur the process, she does not deserve the nomination. Obama should be given the chance to choose his VP, and begin campaigning against the Rethuglicans. What is wrong with these selfish, trashy people?
Are their ambitions to get back into the WH so strong, that they are willing to damage the Democratic chances in November? I hate to say this, but what the right wingers claim about the Clintons are true.
They have turned many Democrats off, and despite her claims, someone with her high negatives cannot win, and she will only galvanize the rethuglicans into voting for McCain, if she runs.

[liseworks]

She's losing ALL credibility with Americans, other Dems, many in the WH & Sds - believe me she doesn't stand a chance of intimidating anyone anymore - she's lost most peoples' total respect -
Except that big bus load, mind you ....

[Raymondf]

You'll never se Rove run for anything except the border.

[realistxxx]

The Clintons have been a circus since they entered the national spotlight.

They are a soap opera with a poor script, bad directing and really horrific acting.

If they weren't real their would have been cancelled long ago.

Drama follows them wherever they go. Do they feed on it, even cultivate it? Or is it just karma.

I defended them for years... I am weary and just want them to go away.

[condew]

35 Things The Obama Campaign Never Did (Updated):
http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/29/74434/5079/741/523016

Maybe it is time to mention a few of Hillary's problems that Obama was to polite to mention:

17. They never brought up the fact that Democrats saw a 30% decline (from 30 governorships to 21) in the number of state houses controlled from the time the Clinton's came to power to the time they left office. But they could have.

21. They never brought up the fact that when the Clintons came to power the Democrats controlled the Senate but that changed just two years later. But they could have.

Thanks to http://thejoshuablog.com/ for the link.

[NotMcCain]

Dear Hillary Supporters,

Please consider this: no matter what her campaign is publicly saying, they know she has lost.

Despite what she is saying, they also know Obama has won, FAIR and SQUARE. If Michigan and Florida had voted fairly, Obama would still be winning due to proportional delegates.

To argue she's "won the popular vote" means only counting votes for HER in Michigan. If the situation were reversed, would you think that was fair for OBAMA to insist on?

She could be saving time and money by ENTHUSIASTICALLY backing the party nominee. She could be gaining back her reputation and winning admirers back by LEADING Democrats to come together around the party's nominee for the fall.

That she knows she's lost, and yet still spends day after day attacking the election process (and misleadingly framing it as a "civil rights" issue), makes it seem her only motivation is to weaken the Democratic nominee and strengthen McCain.

All these stunts about the rules (which she agreed to and wholeheartedly supported until she began losing) are intended for one purpose only: to divide the party and weaken Obama in the fall.

Democrats should reject this tactic and show the Clintons that voters are not the easily manipulated sheep they (still) think we are.

[Raymondf]

She may put on a good front, but deep down, If she don't get the nomination. She has time left in the senate she will ruin the party.

[TopDog]

Clinton is fatally flawed. Has been from Day 1.

[Testtubebaby]

Michigan is full of it and should suffer the most. None of their delegates should be seated...NOT ONE

[Raymondf]

I may be wrong, but I think Hillary is in it until August.28th unless the super dels. make up their minds Next week. Then we will see. Thats the reason I am a Registered non-partisan. Although I can't vote in the primaries in my state. I can vote and be counted in November.

[halyscomet]

I agree. They better go ALL the way next week.

[Liam]

Even the supers won't deter her, because until they actually vote in August, they're free to "float". All she wants is not to get EVERYTHING she's asking for this weekend, so she can justify protesting it, which sends it to the second committee (the name of which I can't come up with) that meets in August.

And if she DOES get everything she wants, she'll use the fact that it's now close and by her very flawed math, she's got the most popular votes, to justify staying in it and trying to sway the supers.

I'm pretty certain no matter what happens, she's in it until she can make a huge stink at the convention in August.

Although I admit, if all of the remaining supers came out for Obama, the news media would probably stop covering her and she'd end up looking like even more of a joke.

Liam.

[Kingbreaker]

I believe the committee that meets in Denver is called the Credentials committee.

But I've been thinking the same thing as you for the past couple weeks.

[betz55]

What kind of scarf is she wearing... yea.... from here it looks like something suspicious ?

[Law35]

And the hits just keep on coming.... At this point, she doesn't even care how bad, how sad, how delusional she looks. Legacy lost.

[Freedomscap]

I think even the media people are getting exasperated by the nonsense.

[Testtubebaby]

You've got to be kidding me. The Media loves this mess! This is their bread and butter. They are egging this mess on to see how far it will go. No, they want it to go to Denver and beyond. The media is a bunch of bums.

[bujeeboo]

At this point, I think she should also step down from the DLC.

[timeforachangenow]

yeah....and run as an independant....8)

Now how's that grab you...8)

[Raymondf]

It's Bill and Hillarys money if they want to spend it let um. Bill, and Hillary can pay off the debt in about a year. He makes 150,000 everytime he speaks some where. He's writing another book. Hillary has her senate salary, plus 2 or three book deals going. I wouldn't feel to sorry for them.

[Countess]

A democratic party led by Hillary Clinton would be a huge step backward on race relations, foreign policy and ethics. She like George W. Bush is unfit to lead.

[liseworks]

But she's fit to unlead, you gotta give her that !

[obamagal]

ROTFLOL!

[obamagal]

If you look at Bush's patterns of governing in the last 7.5 years, and look at the patterns of Hillary's campaign, there are many many similarities. So too, in personality traits.

Scary stuff.

I agree with you.

[abirato]

Mark Brewer, Debbie Dingle and Jennifer Granholm--Clinton supporters all--along with other prominent Michigan Democrats are the main architects of the plan to move Michigan's primary date up in violation of DNC rules. What is amazing is how they have managed to shift the blame from themselves to the DNC.

[CatLadyforObama]

Don't forget, they're blaming Obama for this, too.

[NotMcCain]

Is it possibly this was a backup plan all along? To stir trouble, or to build her "insurmountable" lead?

I find it very weird that she said she was leaving her name on the MI ballot because, "it won't matter anyway." Yet now its trotted out to be her ace in the hole.

Calculating in advance? Very possibly. Nothing she does (in her own self-interest) would surprise me.

[SethBLiNK]

If there is anybody who should be penalized in the M and F primaries, it's the superdelegates. They are party leaders and the leaders were the ones who failed to protect their state this time in around. They should be given half votes too.

[JackND]

No, the superdelegates need to be given nothing.

[condew]

They should be pilloried. We should be naming them as the source of the problem over and over. From abirato's post it was Mark Brewer, Debbie Dingle and Jennifer Granholm who crated the trouble in Michigan. Any confirmation? Anybody got a list for Florida?

[PAposter]

Ageed, "Seth"

[Sparty1]

Darn, can we just give her the 4 extra votes? I can't believe this Rep just sent a letter to the DNC about a difference of 4 votes. Unbelievable. I mean she'll still be behind.