A "Delegate" Situation

I think the Wall Street Journal coined it best with the headline, "Count Every half vote."

In any realm outside of politics this would be preposterous. The Democratic Party set the rules for its primaries, barring delegates from Florida and Michigan for advancing their primary dates. The candidates agreed to abide by those rules. Clinton's chief political enforcer, Harold Ickes, helped write the original primary rules.

Yet when the contest began to look closer than Clinton ever thought possible, her campaign decided that those rules were no longer valid. Clinton kept her name on the Michigan ballot, while Obama and the other candidates took theirs off. Then after both candidates barely campaigned in Florida, she demanded that its results be counted. Changing the rules in the middle of the game.

I take strong exception to the Obama camp conceding to this settlement of the delegates, but I realize he did so as the presumptive nominee seeing it having little impact on the nomination. Although I disagree as the mere fact that they made any concession leads to support the case that the rules being non-binding would make them moot if it was to be interpreted as law.

The overall opinion of the Rules Committee and the Obama campaign is to reconcile with disenfranchised voters in these states and begin to unify the party again.

Let's examine each of these arguments disenfranchisement and unification of the party.

Disenfranchised?

1) To start only those that voted for Clinton feel disenfranchised. Every one else is satisfied with the outcome. By counting the delegates having you just disenfranchised all of the electorate that did not vote because they were told their vote would not matter?

2) The point they were disenfranchised is when the party agreed to to strip the states of their delegates rendering their primaries meaningless. Seating the delegates does not change this feeling, most voters don't even understand any of this delegate talk anyway...

3) Clinton agreed to these rules in arrogance when she thought she would win by a landslide. It also calls into question. Is her allegiance to the party platform or more to her own interests? Yes, this is a rhetorical question.

4) In Florida at least all of the candidates names were on the ballot, but in January with all of the candidates essentially faceless except for Clinton she knew this could work to her advantage and that she would obviously win. Clinton thought she would use it as a trump card if she needed it to clinch the nomination, but she just happens to be too far behind. If Obama had campaigned in Florida it would have been closer, but I will concede that she would win the "primary" in Florida if the election were today. Plus the 1.7M voter turnout is respectable based on the trend of voter turnout. All of the other states with closed primaries were at about 59% of the voter turnout for John Kerry in the general election in 2004. In the Florida 2008 Primary it was 48%.

5) In Michigan, we have a whole different ball game. To start she was the only one on the ballot so I am not sure how you even begin to develop an allocation of delegates. The fact that 45% voted uncommitted rather than voting for Clinton says a lot to me. In addition, the voter turnout was 600K. This is Michigan not South Dakota. This represents only 24% of voter turnout compared to the 2004 general election votes for John Kerry. When all of the other states with open primaries were at about 79% of the voter turnout for the general election. Which means two-thirds of the voters in Michigan essentially felt that the primary didn't matter and wasn't worth their time.

Party Unification?

1) The 2 parties have major differences on key issues, so it is somewhat a misnomer to presume there is going to be an overwhelming backlash from Clinton voters who in most cases are life long Democrats.

2) There is no true reconciliation for those that feel scorn, as you witnessed at the DNC Rules committee meeting. Democrats vehemently heckling their own party. These people cannot be consoled by so called "softening the blow." They are either going to take the lick and bounce back or they are gone. Better to do it now than to prolong it as they will only become more scorn the more energy they put into it.

3) You have to ask what exactly are they scorn about?

a)Clinton is being asked to play by the rules she agreed to. The person that Clinton has arguing on her behalf during the committee is the one that created the rule to strip states of delegates if they moved up their primary elections.

b) She is losing. If you would have had a meaningful election in Florida and Michigan and allocated all of the delegates in full and based it on the most Clinton-biased trend you can find she would have a net gain of 10-14 more delegates than she did in the compromise that was reached on Saturday. So she would still be losing by more than 100 delegates. So what it really equates to is a sore loser outcry.

4) Both Clinton and Obama have deeply divided this party. Obama divided the base that although not overwhelmingly excited about Clinton would have generally given their support. Problem is this is the same base that lost in 2 previous general elections. Clinton has deeply divided the party almost to disrepair with her "White people vote for me" argument.

5) I think there is a misnomer that putting Clinton on the Obama ticket brings back these voters or the base they are trying to reach out to.

a) The only satisfactory outcome for them is for Clinton to steal (I mean win) the nomination.

b) You have to wonder by the time you add up the folks you gained, if it's negligible. You must consider those that will not come back, those "independent" voters that will defect because they won't vote for a ticket with Clinton on the ballot, and the awakening of the Republican "Right." With Clinton on the ballot that may show up in record numbers to make sure she does not get anywhere close to the White House.

c) I think the demographic we are discussing will have a fundamental issue with him being over a White Woman (or a White Man if they hope having him as VP rallies support among Whites). If they do not suffer from this fundamental issue then they should have no problem voting for Obama when you consider the major differences on key issues between the parties, and the almost neglible policy positions between Obama and Clinton. Right?

So I will close with a few closing thoughts on all of this:

1)Of all the states to disenfranchise 2 swing states like Florida and Michigan. These 2 states represent 44 electoral votes. We have to win at least one of these states to win the general election. Why would you take any chance at putting the outcome in theses states at risk?? In Florida especially as the State officials are primarily Republican and have little concern to the impact this would have to the Democratic primary. Howard Dean played right into their hands.

2) The Super Delegates need to announce who they will be supporting and put this discussion to rest. By stating their allegiance they can end all of the speculation and we can reach the more than obvious conclusion. If some choose to vote for Clinton they should do so and we'll just see who wins (or who has already won) in the end...

3) As soon as Clinton concedes which I hope will be sooner rather than later to allow time for Howard Dean to be removed as the DNC Chairman. Under his leadership, by failing to control this situation he has squandered what was set to be a landslide victory by either candidate in November. In addition, while not settling this foolishness he has failed to put together any substantial campaign material against McCain. The McCain is Bush ads took 2 weeks to come up with, what the heck have they been doing since then? He has allowed this to become a laughing stock. He is responsible for this predicament, and now with this penchant for making rules they don't intend to keep. How they decide to escape this mess in the coming weeks will tell voters a lot about how they'll govern.