The rumors of the demise of Clinton's Florida-Michigan demands for 100% seating have been greatly exaggerated.
On Friday's media conference call, the Clinton campaign said that Florida and Michigan did indeed break the rules while the other early states did not. Their admission spread across the Internet (including the Great Orange Satan) like wildfire. Many Obama supporters began a premature celebration believing that Clinton had conceded the sanctions because she had conceded that Florida and Michigan broke the rules.
Well, not so fast. Just because Clinton understands that the rules were broken does not mean she thinks that the rule breakers should be punished. In fact, the Clinton campaign also sent a letter to the Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) Friday that reiterates their argument that 100% of the Florida and Michigan delegates should be seated.
First, let's debunk the myth that Friday was the first time the Clintons have said that Florida and Michigan broke the rules. They're not stupid -- you can call them crazy, insane, illogical, irrational (those are all subjective adjectives), but they're not stupid. They know the rules were broken, and they have said so. But they have also made arguments that Florida and Michigan should be forgiven, that they should be allowed to re-vote, that the voters should not be punished (sanctions) because of decisions made by state party leaders (breaking the rules). The Clinton's primary argument has been and still is that the Democratic Party should not disenfranchise the ordinary voters in Michigan and Florida who made the effort to get out and vote because the Party will need them in November. Now, I disagree with the Clinton's argument, but it is their argument. Their argument was never that Florida and Michigan did not break the rules.
Most of us can probably also agree that the reason she is making any argument is because she's losing (after all, the day before Michigan she was videotaped saying the election "would not count for anything"), but that's beside the point.
After Friday's conference call, many Obama supporters celebrated prematurely, saying that the Clinton campaign cannot protest sanctions (seating only half the delegates) because they now admit that rules were broken. Not only can they argue (wrongheadedly) that the full delegation can be seated even though the rules were broken, they are arguing that the full delegation should be seated in their official letter to the RBC even though the rules were broken:
I. The RBC has the authority to seat all of the delegates from Florida and Michigan with full votes.
The RBC can and should seat all of the delegates from Florida and Michigan with Full Votes. In a recent analysis, the DNC staff observed correctly that the penalty imposed on Florida and Michigan exceeded the guidelines established in Rule 20(C)(1), which would reduce the voting power of pledged delegates by no more than 50% and unpledged delegates by 100% if a state holds its primary too early. But the Staff then concluded that the Committee "does not have the authority to reverse...these automatic sanctions" for failing to comply with the schedule set out in Rule 11. This conclusion is incorrect.
The RBC has broad powers to fully reinstate the Florida and Michigan delegations. Rule 20(C)(7) allows the RBC to forgive violations when a state party and other relevant good faith to bring the state into compliance with the DNC's Delegate Selection Rules. With the support of Senator Clinton, both states made good faith attempts and took provable, positive steps to bring their systems into compliance with the DNC Rules by trying to organize re-votes. In fact, the RBC Co-Chairs specifically acknowledged that the proposed Michigan legislation for a re-vote "would fit within the framework of the Rules." (Letter from the Co-Chairs of the RBC, March 19, 2008). Although the states' efforts to establish new processes that would comply with the Rules failed, under Rule 20(C)(7) the states' attempts do provide a sufficient basis for the RBC to exercise discretion and to restore the entire states' delegations with full votes.
Under the Rules, the RBC clearly has continuing jurisdiction over this matter and has broad authority to fashion any appropriate remedy Rule 19(D)(1), Rule 19(E), Rule 20(C)(5). Any of these provisions would suffice to reinstate Florida and Michigan's full slate of delegates as elected.
It is a bedrock principle of our Party that every vote must be counted, and thereby every elected delegate should be seated. The States have already been punished because no campaign activity was conducted in Florida and Michigan. There is no requirement or need to punish their duly elected delegates who represent the 2.3 million voters in Michigan and Florida who participated in the nominating process.
Not only is Clinton still making the argument that the delegates be seated in full, she is trying to justify not seating the delegations in full as an inappropriately punishment meted out by leaders who controlled the primary process against ordinary voters who did not control the process.
Clinton further argues that the rules do not allow transferring "Uncommitted" delegates to Obama in Michigan where his name was not on the ballot at all. Clinton is demanding that she receive her delegates based on the proportion of people who voted for her but that Obama receive zero delegates based on the proportion of people who voted for "Uncommitted":
Neither the DNC Rules nor the Michigan Delegate Selection Plan allow arbitrary reallocation of Uncommitted delegates to a candidate or arbitrary reallocation of delegates from one candidate to another.
...
...the intent of the more than 238,000 individiuals who voted for Uncommitted cannot now be determined. The voters may have been truly uncommitted or they may have supported Joe Biden, John Edwards, or Bill Richardson.
This, of course, is easy to counter. We can also discern that the 238,000 who voted uncommitted were voting against Clinton. There is no question about their intent. If the Clinton campaign wants to have the votes for Clinton awarded to her and none of the Uncommitted awarded to Obama, then at the very least, the 55 delegates awarded to Uncommitted should be subtracted from the Clinton total to give her a net gain of only what she earned against Uncommitted.
The final argument that Clinton makes foreshadows the convention floor fight that many people believe the Clintons want:
IV. The Florida and Michigan Challenges Should Be Resolved Promptly by the RBC Rather than Waiting for the Credentials Committee to Act.
The RBC has jurisdiction over challenges pertaining to the submission, nonimplementation, and violation of state Delegate Selection and Affirmative Action Plans. Thus, the RBC has jurisdiction to resolve these challenges, and it should do so. Millions of voters in Florida and Michigan have waited patiently for more than four months to know whether their votes will count and whether they will play a meaningful role in determining who will be the Democratic nominee. It is time to resolve this pivotal matter.
Let me just repeat the most important statement in that passage because I don't want this point to be lost on anyone:
Challenges Should Be Resolved Promptly by the RBC Rather than Waiting for the Credentials Committee
Ladies and gentlemen, Clinton is putting the RBC on notice. She is clearly and proudly saying that if the RBC does not seat the Florida and Michigan delegates according to her satisfaction, she is willing to take the fight to the Credentials Committee next month and to the Convention in August.
Not only is she demanding that the full delegations be seated, she is saying to the RBC that if they do not seat the delegates in full that this thing is going to the Credentials Committee -- that is, Hillary Clinton is taking her fight to the convention. She has an excuse, she is fighting for the little people who voted, whose votes should count. Nevermind the fact that the night before their vote, Hillary Clinton said, "It's clear this election they're having [in Michigan] is not going to count for anything."
Hillary Clinton has been setting up her argument for a convention fight over the last couple of months:
Hillary Clinton has been telling America for a couple of months:
There are elected delegates, caucus delegates and superdelegates, all for different reasons, and they're all equal in their ability to cast their vote for whomever they choose. Even elected and caucus delegates are not required to stay with whomever they are pledged to.
She has been telling America that it is the duty of both superdelegates and pledged delegates to ignore the will of the voters and vote their own conscience regarding who is the better candidate.
She has told America that she will fight for 100% seating of Florida and Michigan delegations and that she will continue that fight right up to the convention. Well, folks, the RBC meets tomorrow, and if they seat anything less than 100% of the Florida and Michigan delegations, Clinton will use it as an excuse to take her fight to the convention in Denver.
If they seat 100% of the delegates from Florida and Michigan according to Clinton's demands, it will not be enough to overcome Obama's lead in delegates, but it will bring her closer. She is hoping to eek out enough votes in Puerto Rico to claim the popular vote (an argument that only holds when not counting four caucus states and counting Clinton's votes in Michigan while giving Obama zero Uncommitted votes from Michigan). She will use those arguments to argue that the nomination is essentially a tie. She will be wrong, but that is what she will argue.
Sure, she's claiming this fight is about the poor, disenfranchised voters in Michigan and Florida, but she did not think they were disenfranchised when she was the inevitable nominee. She decided they were disenfranchised and worthy of her support after she was losing and needed them to make her convoluted popular vote argument to the superdelegates.
Even more damaging to Obama, Clinton has been attempting to delegitimize Obama's nomination. She has been comparing the Florida and Michigan elections to the violent Zimbawe elections that were ignored by a brutal dictator:
People go through the motions of an election only to have it discarded and disregarded. We're seeing that right now in Zimbabwe -- tragically an election was held, the president lost, they refused to abide by the will of the people. So we can never take for granted our precious right to vote.
Bill Clinton has been running around the country telling Clinton supporters that he's never seen a candidate treated so badly, and he's been making paranoid statements about a conspiracy and media cover-up to keep Clinton from winning:
I cant believe it. It is just frantic the way they are trying to push and pressure and bully all these superdelegates to come out," Bill Clinton said. "'Oh, this is so terrible: The people they want her. Oh, this is so terrible: She is winning the general election, and he is not. Oh my goodness, we have to cover this up.
Obama will need Hillary Clinton supporters in November (of course she would also need Obama supporters if she were the nominee). Make no mistake about it, the Clinton's attempts to delegitimize Obama and incite anger towards Obama has already damaged Obama as a general election candidate. Many Democrats have the impression that the campaign has gotten less ugly recently, but this is an illusion -- just because the arguments are now over technicalities and process does not make it less ugly. Delegitimizing Obama's win is a serious accusation against him because of the historical nature of Clinton's candidacy.
Hillary Clinton should concede for the good of the party. She cannot win on the merits -- it is a mathematical impossibility. However, Hillary Clinton will not withdraw until the superdelegates stand up to the Clintons and let them know that enough is enough.
Let me be clear, I do not believe superdelegates should be part of the system. I believe that the pledged delegate winner should be the winner. However, the rules are the rules, and we currently have a superdelegate system. This means that the superdelegates who have not yet committed must commit by Wednesday, June 4th, and Democrats must hold uncommitted superdelegates accountable after June 4th. We cannot afford four years of McCain.