Officials say Fla., Mich. delegates will get half-votes

[canihavu]

Officials say Fla., Mich. delegates will get half-votes



May 31, 7:11 PM (ET)

By NEDRA PICKLER and BETH FOUHY

(AP) Democratic National Committee Rules and Bylaws committee co-chairs Jim Roosevelt, second from left,...
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WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic party officials said a committee agreed Saturday on a compromise to seat Michigan and Florida delegates with half-votes after Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton failed to get enough support to force their positions through.


Clinton's chief delegate hunter Harold Ickes angrily informed the committee that Clinton had instructed him to reserve her right to appeal the matter to the Democrats' credentials committee, which could potentially drag the matter to the party's convention in August.


"There's been a lot of talk about party unity - let's all come together, and put our arms around each other," said Ickes, who is also a member of the Rules Committee that approved the deal. "I submit to you ladies and gentlemen, hijacking four delegates ... is not a good way to start down the path of party unity."


The deal was reached after committee members met privately for more than three hours, trying to hammer out a deal, and announced in a raucous hearing that reflected deep divisions within the party. The sticking point was Michigan, where Obama's name was not on the ballot.


Clinton's camp insisted Obama shouldn't get any pledged delegates in Michigan since he chose not to put his name on the ballot, and she should get 73 pledged delegates with 55 uncommitted. Obama's team insisted the only fair solution was to split the pledged delegates in half between the two campaigns, with 64 each.


The committee agreed on a compromise offered by the Michigan Democratic Party that would split the difference, allowing Clinton to take 69 delegates and Obama 59. Each delegate would get half a vote at the convention in Denver this summer, according to the deal.


They also agreed to seat the Florida delegation based on the outcome of the January primary, with 105 pledged delegates for Clinton and 67 for Obama, but with each delegate getting half a vote as a penalty.

The resolution increased the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination to 2,118, leaving Obama 66 delegates short but still within striking distance after the three final primaries are held in the next three days.


Proponents of full seating continuously interrupted the committee members as they explained their support of the compromise, then supporters of the deal shouted back.


(AP) Jon Ausman, Democratic National Committee member speaks before the DNC Rules and Bylaws committee...
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"Shut up!" one woman shouted at another.

"You shut up!" the second woman shouted back.


Jim Roosevelt, co-chair of the committee, tried repeatedly to gavel it to order. "You are dishonoring your candidate when you disrupt the speakers," he chided.


Obama picked up a total of 32 delegates in Michigan, including superdelegates who have already committed, and 36 in Florida. Clinton picked up 38 in Michigan, including superdelegates, and 56.5 in Florida.


Obama's total increased to 2,052, and Clinton had 1,877.5.

(AP) Clinton supporter Mangi Saboori of Newton, Mass., demonstrates outside the DNC Rules and Bylaws...
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A proposal favored by Clinton that would have fully seated the Florida delegation fully in accordance with the January primary went down with 12 votes in support and 15 against.


Tina Fluornoy, who led Clinton's efforts to seat both states' delegations with full voting power, said she was disappointed by the outcome but knew the Clinton position had "no chance" of passing the committee.

"I understand the rules. ... I can tell you one thing that has driven these rules was being a party of inclusion," Fluornoy said. "I wish my colleagues will vote differently."

The committee unanimously approved a measure supported by the Obama campaign that sat the delegates according to Clinton's winning vote in the Florida contest, but penalized the delegation by allowing each only half a vote.


"We just blew the election!" a woman in the audience shouted. The crowd was divided between cheering Obama supporters and booing Clinton supporters.


"This isn't unity! Count all the votes!" another audience member yelled.

Alice Huffman, a Clinton supporter on the committee, explained that the compromise was the next best thing to full seating.


"We will leave here more united than we came," she said.


Some audience members heckled her in response. "Lipstick on a pig!" one shouted.

[canihavu]

Once again the Dummycrats wimped out. They should stuck with the original plan and not counted either state for breaking the rules.

[dafame]

Once again the Dummycrats wimped out. They should stuck with the original plan and not counted either state for breaking the rules.

They do that and they risk the voters of those states not coming out to support Obama in the general election. It was at the urging of the Obama campaign that all delegates from both MI, and FL be seated at the convention carrying a half vote each. This way they can start to unite the party and not completely dis the voters. Hillary gains a net of I believe 20 delegates (or something close to that) and the race is now effectively over (for real this time). On Tuesday, after the last primary contest Obama will be 20-24 delegates short of the nomination. There are something like 217 uncommitted Super Delegates still remaining (these numbers could be off but I'm somewhere in the ballpark). The Democratic House Speaker (Nancy Pelosi) is rallying the Super Delegates to go over to Obama on or prior to Tuesday so at the time of his win in Montana or South Dakota he will be announcing victory by either of those states putting him across the finish line. The problem is with the Clinton supporters. Their anger at the fact that she will not be the nominee is so great that Obama is almost forced to take her as the Vice Presidential Nominee. So now not only will they have to worry about racists nut cases that could be looking for a way to assassinate Obama to prevent a black man from becoming the President, they will also have to worry about radical Clinton supporters that might get the same idea in order for her to step into the Presidential role. What a mess.

[Oli]

Only the Democrats, and the over ambitious Hillary Clinton, could fuck up a sure thing. Taking this fight to the convention almost guarantees that John McCain will be the next President.

They had to seat some delegates because Florida may actually swing Democratic this cycle.

Battles over Party Nominees Are Old Hat, Bad News

by David Welna

All Things Considered, May 30, 2008 · With the Democratic presidential primaries coming to an end Tuesday, the top two Democrats in Congress are prodding undeclared superdelegates to declare their support for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama by the middle of next week.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have good reason to want to wrap up the nomination battle as soon as possible: Historically, nomination battles fought right up to the convention have all ended with defeat in November.

Here is NPR's look at such contests:

In 1972, with inflation rising and the war in Vietnam dragging on, Republican President Richard Nixon sought re-election. His challenger was Sen. George McGovern, the antiwar Democrats' choice as a challenger. But the Democratic establishment was supporting former Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who refused to bow out of the race until the convention.

McGovern now blames that infighting as part of his landslide loss to Nixon, saying, "We were so badly scarred up by that battle the last 30 days for the nomination, and then it was carried right onto the convention floor, so that what the nation saw was a party in disarray."

Four years later, in 1976, Republicans were in disarray. The Watergate scandal had forced Nixon to resign from the presidency and Gerald Ford had taken over. But Ronald Reagan challenged Ford's bid for four more years in the White House — all the way to the party's convention in Kansas City.

Even as he conceded, Reagan spoke there of future generations as if he were the GOP nominee, saying, "Whether they have the freedoms that we have known up until now will depend on what we do here, Mr. President."

According to Stuart Spencer, who over his career advised both Ford and Reagan, Republicans were simply not convinced that Ford was their man.

"Ford had the machinery. He had the incumbency," Spencer says. "He had the power of the incumbency, and that is worth a lot of votes in a primary operation. And Reagan had sort of the hearts and souls of the Republican Party."

Ford lost to Democrat Jimmy Carter.

But in 1980, when Carter sought his party's nomination for a second term, Massachusetts Sen. Edward "Ted" Kennedy fought him all the way to the 1980 convention in New York, where Carter made this appeal: "I reach out to you tonight, and I reach out to all those who supported you and your valiant and passionate campaign, Ted. Your party needs, and I need you."

Only when Kennedy failed to change the convention rules in his favor did he finally concede — sort of.

"For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end," Kennedy told the convention crowd. "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on. The cause endures. The hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Then, before the convention and the world, Kennedy snubbed Carter. CBS' Walter Cronkite described the bitter scene, saying, "Sen. Kennedy leaves the stand, sober, unsmiling. There will be no pictures in tomorrow morning's paper, and none for posterity, of Ted Kennedy holding Jimmy Carter's hand aloft."

Carter lost his re-election bid to Ronald Reagan.

In 1984, Democrat Walter Mondale, who had served as Carter's vice president, tried to keep Reagan from serving a second term. "I know the American people," Mondale said in a campaign advertisement at the time. "I am ready. I am ready to be president of the United States."

Meanwhile, Democrats had created superdelegates: party insiders and elected officials who could vote for the candidate they thought most electable. Another candidate, Democratic Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado, argued he was the most electable. Hart says that's why he kept running right up to the 1984 convention.

"Because I had won 11 of the last 12 primaries, including a sweep of California, and Vice President Mondale did not have a majority," Hart said recently. "The process continued on, and it was a struggle for whether I could convince any superdelegates to change."

He could not, though. Mondale went on to win the nomination — and lose the general election to Reagan.

Colby College elections expert Sandy Maisel says Hart pinned too many hopes on superdelegates.

"With all due respect to Sen. Hart, I think in 1984 most of the superdelegates said they would be much more comfortable with Walter Mondale in the White House than they would have been with Gary Hart in the White House," Maisel says.

Since 1984, there have been no more battles fought all the way to party conventions — at least not until now.

When asked Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation whether Hillary Clinton was willing to take her fight to the Democrats' Denver convention in late August, Clinton adviser Howard Wolfson did not rule it out.

"The goal and the hope and the expectation is that we will have a nominee well before then," Wolfson said. "We still believe that that nominee can and should be Sen. Clinton."

And just as underdog Hart attempted 24 years ago, the Clinton campaign still hopes to persuade superdelegates that she would be the stronger Democratic nominee.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91000807

[canihavu]

Once again the Dummycrats wimped out. They should stuck with the original plan and not counted either state for breaking the rules.

They do that and they risk the voters of those states not coming out to support Obama in the general election. It was at the urging of the Obama campaign that all delegates from both MI, and FL be seated at the convention carrying a half vote each. This way they can start to unite the party and not completely dis the voters. Hillary gains a net of I believe 20 delegates (or something close to that) and the race is now effectively over (for real this time). On Tuesday, after the last primary contest Obama will be 20-24 delegates short of the nomination. There are something like 217 uncommitted Super Delegates still remaining (these numbers could be off but I'm somewhere in the ballpark). The Democratic House Speaker (Nancy Pelosi) is rallying the Super Delegates to go over to Obama on or prior to Tuesday so at the time of his win in Montana or South Dakota he will be announcing victory by either of those states putting him across the finish line. The problem is with the Clinton supporters. Their anger at the fact that she will not be the nominee is so great that Obama is almost forced to take her as the Vice Presidential Nominee. So now not only will they have to worry about racists nut cases that could be looking for a way to assassinate Obama to prevent a black man from becoming the President, they will also have to worry about radical Clinton supporters that might get the same idea in order for her to step into the Presidential role. What a mess.


The Republicans would not have allowed something so asinine to occur in the first place.

[qeuqheeg222]

the above is correct..the repugs know you have to fashion a clean product for election time-hence their winner take all approach to the primary and a easy to digest format of candidates....the dems tryin to be more dem use the current methodology and look where it gets them..turnin somthin into nothin......americans are stupid ass consumers package your product!!!!!!!!!

[canihavu]

the above is correct..the repugs know you have to fashion a clean product for election time-hence their winner take all approach to the primary and a easy to digest format of candidates....the dems tryin to be more dem use the current methodology and look where it gets them..turnin somthin into nothin......americans are stupid ass consumers package your product!!!!!!!!!


You are absolutely correct...

[hippifried]

the above is correct..the repugs know you have to fashion a clean product for election time-hence their winner take all approach to the primary and a easy to digest format of candidates....the dems tryin to be more dem use the current methodology and look where it gets them..turnin somthin into nothin......americans are stupid ass consumers package your product!!!!!!!!!


You are absolutely correct...
I disagree.
That's the biggest problem with modern politics. It's all just marketing & no substance. I don't have the same smug disdain for the American public as y'all, so I'm thinking maybe they're not as naive as you might think. Consider that maybe, just maybe, you aren't the intellectual elite that you want to believe you are. If you can see through the BS, so can everybody else.

I'm of the opinion that folks are a tad fed up with politics as usual. For nearly 8 years they've been patted on the head & told not to worry because they're in good hands. Now it's obvious that the current policies are a lemming like headlong march to the poorhouse & inevitable violent reaction on our own soil from within & without. The experiment with fascist economics has been a disaster, as are all crackpot plans to put control of the market in the hands of the few. Jingoism & perpetual war can't cover it up anymore. Even the republicans rejected all who openly promoted a continuation. Their hope is that McCain is actually the maverick he's claimed to be all this time. Being from Arizona, I know better, but the point is that the entire nation is looking for a change of direction. They're tired of being patronized & treated like children.