Michigan Delegate Plan Awards Clinton Victory

As reported by the Detroit Free Press yesterday, the Michigan Democratic Party has submitted a plan to the Democratic National Committee that would seat Michigan delegates to the national convention, awarding 69 delegates to Clinton and 59 to Obama and seating all of the state's 29 superdelegates, who could vote for either candidate.

The Michigan plan was crafted by Sen. Carl Levin, Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and National Committeewoman Debbie Dingell in advance of the DNC's Rules and Bylaw panel, which is meeting at the end of May to hammer out a decision on whether and how to seat delegations from Michigan and Florida at the convention.

A near split, the decision, if approved, would do practically nothing to affect the outcome of the race for the Democratic nomination, merely pushing Obama closer to the winning delegate tally. Yet with his big win in North Carolina and Clinton's almost-nightmare loss in Indiana Tuesday night, the Obama campaign announced today that it will begin focusing on states critical to a November victory.

The announced Michigan party plan, while not surprising as a proposed compromise solution to the primary debacle, makes little concession to state voters angered by the way the party hijacked the democratic process by botching the election in the first place, nor to those voters, mostly Obama supporters, who believe that Clinton should suffer the consequences of breaking the party rules and leaving her name on the Michigan ballot.

The Michigan Democratic Party may now be compounding its bungling by proposing to apportion Clinton a winning number of delegates, dragging the National Democratic Party into its controversial logic and risking further alienating voters.

Comments

[ndnndpendent]

Split all the delegates evenly for both states and let the supers of each state decide, or start over and hold primaries in both states. There is no way Clinton can fairly claim legitimate victory in these two states.............thats asinine and note to all the white people who support that asinine idea: white primaries are against the law..........

[Brinkman]

Also, as to HC's electability argument a 10 point win over nobody is not exactly a victory worth trumpeting.

[TishiJo]

Michigan and Florida voters for Obama stayed home because they were told their votes would not count, and delegates would not be won. None of the Dem candidates campaigned in those two states. Hillary Clinton cannot NOW claim any votes! Michigan and Florida leaders broke the rules, the voters need to let their leaders pay the consequences. And if Hillary wants a re-vote, she should pay for it with her own millions.

[ReportThis]

Here's an alternative proposal: Seat the Michigan delegates and apportion their votes between Biden, Edwards, Kucinich, and Dodd.

[Softnsweet]

ReportThis, Excellent idea!

[evekendall]

Clinton got 50% of the votes in Florida and 55% of the votes in Michigan. I say be done with it, and split the delegates with those percentages. 50-50 for Florida and 55-45 for Michigan. He still wins.

Only, she's not happy with that - even though those primaries weren't legitimate in the first place and even though he withdrew his name in Michigan like most of the other candidates did because of the rules. AND even though she signed a pledge last year that they wouldn't count! So what does she want exactly? ALL of them?

[SharonWantsToTalk]

Yeah, signed a pledge and now wants to re-nig. Hows that gonna work for her against the McCain/ unofficial adviser Rove machine.

[LeoMarvin]

She wants us to declare our undying fealty, admit she was right about everything, pay off her debts, and pretend we like her. And convince her we mean it. And admit she never said that stuff about dodging sniper fire. And wash her car. And apologize.

[tasukibeth1]

If she would accept the deal, not only would I wash her car, I'd fill it up. Have a tank of gas on me.

[genia]

LOL................lol

[olivia]

Let them seat the 29 superdelegates and leave it at that.

The announcement that the election would not be counted BEFORE the voting certainly affected the outcome. Throw that out, and that will punish MI enough.

[dbroad]

I think we should do away with the two party rules we have today. Democrats and Repubs are both broken. Give us a chance to vote on the person and the issues and not have to deal with all of the corruption and favors that have been promised. I AM SICK OF IT!

[CaptainHowdy]

Here, here!!!

BOTH parties STINK!

[grbrit]

Here's a novel idea. How about voting on a party and its policies, then leaving the popularity contest of the point person to the party delegates. Party policies aren't (or at least shouldn't be) decided by a single person.

[ndnndpendent]

Lets have whole bunch of parties and we will have slugfests in the chambers like they do in India...............can you imagine Reid and McCain throwing chairs at each other.....that would be hilarious.............

[rzan]

Is it really too late for a re-vote in Michigan? I don't see any other solution. Hillary wanting all the votes in an uncontested election is certainly not right. There are a lot of Obama supporters in Michigan who have a right to be heard.

[going2ireland]

If MI gets a re-vote, then California should as well. Much changed after Super Tuesday and there are so many Californians who regret their vote for Hillary. Obama would take California in a revote.

But, hey, if MI can revote, then so should CA. Any other states want a revote?

[justobserve]

If MI&FL get revotes then they have a second chance while other states already voted and MI&FL would be the deciders at this late stage! That is unfair to other states who followed the rules. Next election, states just move their primary date ahead then the loser just needs to demand a revote and changes the result to their advantage if they believe they can win.

[olivia]

The states need to pay for a revote. Nothing else is fair.

[irishgawdess]

Right. And neither state wants to do that. They are disenfranchising their own voters, not Howard Dean, or Obama, by first breaking DNC rules, then refusing to finance the revote.

[olivia]

There is a video on YouTube of the meeting in which Florida passed the decision to hold the primary early in defiance of the DNC. They are smirking, mocking, making fun of the DNC. Clearly they thought there would be no consequences. Let them pay now.

The Florida voters should toss out their representatives who made this stupid decision to break party rules. Put the blame where it belongs, Florida!

[lbrillante]

She needs to KEEP HER WORD!!!
THE DNC NEEDS TO FOLLOW THROUGH WITH THE CONSEQUENCES IT SET IN MOTION. IT HAS BEEN OF SIGNIFICANT CONSEQUENCE EFFECTING THOSE WHO VOTED OR DID NOT VOTE AS THEY KNEW IT WOULD NOT COUNT AND THE CANDIDATES THEY HAD TO CHOOSE FROM AND THEIR ABILITY TO MAKE AN INFORMED DECISION. THEY NEED TO LET THEIR PREVIOUS DECISION STAND... THE PRIMARIES WILL NOT COUNT.

THEN THEY CAN ALSO DECIDE THAT FOR THE SAKE OF PARTY UNITY THEY WILL ALLOW MICHIGAN AND FLORIDA DELEGATES TO BE SEATED AT THE CONVENTION SPLIT 50/50 FOR THE TWO REMAINING CANDIDATES WITH NO OPTION TO CHANGE THEIR VOTE/REPRESENTATION.

THAT IS THE ONLY 'FAIR AND EQUITABLE' SOLUTION WHERE EVERYONE KEEPS THEIR WORD!!!

OTHERWISE THE DNC WILL LOSE ALL CREDIBILITY FOR THE FORSEEABLE FUTURE

FRANKLY I AM ASHAMED OF SENATOR CLINTON FOR TRYING TO COUNT THESE TAINTED ELECTIONS JUST TO SERVE HER OWN AMBITION TO WIN!!!!!

SHE IS A TERRIBLE EXAMPLE OF A LEADER IN MY OPINION.

[GingerB]

I understand your passion, but could you express it without SHOUTING at us? Thanks.

[Objectivesayer]

W VA if you want this race to continue Send A Message!

[JiminNC]

Doesn't matter what WV says although I hope they swing Obama. Either way, its over, she's toast.

[Brinkman]

I am a WV voter and I'd like to see this finished and our nominee turn toward the general election and begin hammering John McCain into the ground.

[jupitor]

To many racial divides in W. Virginia, and to many old white folk! No way a black man, even half black will win in W. Virginia . One of my sister in laws lived there all her life till she died of cancer in January 08. She hoped she'd make it till Nov. to vote for Hillay. At 80 she didn't have a computor, and only media out let was fox and Cnn. I'm afraid she's like most in W. Virginia! Still kind of back wards, uneducated and just to darn stubborn to learn any thing of the internet for the trueth of it all. She would have gone mccain, if Hillary wasn't the nomanee. Just because she wasn't informed like all us. So if Obama wants to do any thing down there, he'd have to go real grass roots to little town halls, and cafe's , bars and schools and etc. Otherwise it'll do no good! Coal mines, and a lot of accidents and mines shutting down there now. So he has to go lightly talking to those folks about different fuel, and clean caps that cost them more money and etc. There diffentlly different down there!

[kdubbg]

I love that image. Pounding him into the ground is exactly why this needs to end NOW!!

[HarryTheHat]

What's the point in having rules and sanctions if you're going to enforce neither?

It hardly bodes well for the 2011/2012 round of primaries if states know that they can break the rules, will be told off severely and ultimately have their delegates seated anyway.

The Rules and Bylaws Committee would effectively be saying "Do what you feel like doing, because we haven't got the cojones to follow through on our disciplinary procedures."

[Buddhabman]

Enough already. Give her 69 and Obama will take 59. It's is so disingenuous for her to change the rules. It's ridiculous.

[DSully]

I don't see why she should get more than 50/50 and I will be disappointed if Obama doesn't fight this.

[Thurber]

That's crazy. I don't mind the 55%/45% split but MI broke the rules. The RNC is seating 1/2 the delegations from MI and FL. Letting them off the hook completely for flaunting the party rules is unfair to the other states.

Maybe we should do better than 1/2 and seat 3/4 of the delegation, but 1/2 sounds most fair since Republican and Democratic voters in those states would have equal say in their respective parties regardless of their stupid state government's decisions. In any case there has to be a price to be paid by MI and FL for breaking the rules, period. Otherwise, we'll all be having this same discussion about 20+ states in 4 years.

[XME]

It's really pathetic that now they're "demanding" that Michigan be seated as they voted. In other words, they want her to get the delegates for her votes, and for Obama to get NONE since he wasn't on the ballot. They claim it was his choice to take his name off, and that Michigan should not be "penalized" because he took his name of the ballot. I try to give her the benefit of the doubt, but tactics like this do convince me that Clintons truly would "burn down the village to save themselves". I believe she has every right to stay in the race through June 3rd, but if she can't do so without creating way more divisiveness, they need to be pushed out. When you're going around campaigning and saying that Obama can't win because he can't get the enough white votes, that's divisive, and I take offense to that. I am 38, make under $50K, do not have a college degree, and he got my vote! Right now all she's accomplishing is encouraging her voters to refuse to support the candidate if it's not her.

[kellygrrrl]

give her 51%
let her throw her balloons and confetti (aka smoke and mirrors)
and move the F on already

[olivia]

There is no resolution for MI that is fair other than throwing out the election.

Obama was not on the ticket.

Voters likely didn't bother to vote, believing their vote was worthless.

Nothing less than 50/50 is fair, and even that does not punish Michigan enough therefore is unfair to the other states that played by the rules.

[Softnsweet]

Nobody should get anything. They knew the rules and broke them. Rules are Rules!

[athenasword]

I think George Will of the Washington Post summed it up today regarding these "pesky rules".

"After Tuesday's split decisions in Indiana and North Carolina, Clinton, the Yankee Clipperette, can, and hence eventually will, creatively argue that she is really ahead of Barack Obama, or at any rate she is sort of tied, mathematically or morally or something, in popular votes, or delegates, or some combination of the two, as determined by Fermat's Last Theorem, or something, in states whose names begin with vowels, or maybe consonants, or perhaps some mixture of the two as determined by listening to a recording of the Beach Boys' "Help Me, Rhonda" played backward, or whatever other formula is most helpful to her, and counting the votes she received in Michigan, where hers was the only contending name on the ballot (her chief rivals, quaintly obeying their party's rules, boycotted the state, which had violated the party's rules for scheduling primaries) "

I am disturbed and aggravated that the DNC would not stand behind their own rules. The candidates agreed to the rules, and campaigned based on those rules, but now that Mrs. Clinton doesn't benefit from those rules, we should toss them, change them, bend them or otherwise twist them. To what end? To suit who? It has no integrity.

Michigan and Florida were both clear about the rules and chose to break them, fully aware that their votes would not be counted. The simple solution would be to enforce the rules.

[SCurry713]

athenasword, you seem suprised that the Clintonistas are moving the goalposts (again) to suit their needs, rather desires. And she is right!!! how dare we the voters collectively decide that their time is past and embrace the fact that the boomers are finally and thankfully finishing up so the nation can get on with it. One thing they both should keep in mind is the Democrats treatment fo both loosers and those members blamed for national losses- with out regard to who they used to be.

[kdubbg]

There is something awfully stinky in the air when I found myself agreeing with the likes of George F Will and David Brooks. Brooks on the News Hour tonight sounded better than the woman who would be the Nominee of my own party!! I even started to agree with Buchanan on MSNBC when he said she was done.

W T F ! ! ? ?

[julescator]

I fhey do this then do it 50% all the way. that's the only fair way. Many people who would have voted for obama didn't come out since they knew it wouldn't count. Just today - Tiki Barber said his brother, Rhonde would have voted for Obama if he thought the race would count. This is ridiculous of clinton to take this low road but it has become her calling card. She is indeeed polarizing.