Back in March Lanny Davis compared Rev. Wright to a member of the KKK. In April he said Howard Dean should resign if he had anything to do with nixing the North Carolina debate. Last week Johh Marshall inducted Davis into the Fox News Liberal Media Bias Cult. But today Davis may have reached a new low with his thinly veiled threat to seek to delegitimize Obama's nomination unless not only are Michigan and Florida seated fully, but Clinton gets at least half of the 55 delegates assigned to uncommitted by the Michigan primary.
Background on MI/FL (you may want to skip ahead)As most of you know, Florida and Michigan moved their contests into January in violation of the Party rules which only allowed four small states (two primaries and two caucuses representing the Northeast, South, Midwest, and West) to go that early. As a result the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee stripped those states of all of their delegates. The top six candidates, under pressure from the four early states, signed a pledge stating:
THEREFORE, I _____________, Democratic Candidate for President, pledge I shall not campaign or participate in any state which schedules a presidential election primary or caucus before Feb. 5, 2008, except for the states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina, as "campaigning" is defined by rules and regulations of the DNC.
A number of the candidates, including John Edwards and Barack Obama removed their name from the Michigan ballot because of this (Florida did not allow them to do so). Hillary Clinton (and Chris Dodd) kept their name on it. Clinton, however, when asked about this, said:
NHPR's Laura Knoy: "So, if you value the DNC calendar, why not just pull out of Michigan? Why not just say, Hey Michigan, I'm off the ballot?"
Hillary Clinton: "Well, you know, It's clear, this election they're having is not going to count for anything"
Michigan went ahead with the election with Clinton the only candidate remaining in the race who was on the ballot. Michigan does not allow write-ins, so Obama supporters Rep. John Conyers and his wife, Detroit City Council member Monica Conyers, encouraged other Obama (and Edwards) supporters to vote uncommitted in the following ad:
MALE: THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IS CONFUSING. I WANT TO VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA BUT OBAMA'S NAME IS NOT ON THE BALLOT.
FEMALE: THERE IS NO ONE ON THAT BALLOT I WANT TO BE PRESIDENT.
MALE: WELL, THESE FOLKS CAN HELP US. EXCUSE ME, CONGRESSMAN CONYERS AND COUNCILWOMAN CONYERS, WE NEED YOUR HELP.
FEMALE: HOW CAN WE VOTE FOR OBAMA ON TUESDAY?
Rep. Conyers: YOU CAN'T. YOU CANNOT EVEN WRITE IN OBAMA'S NAME. IF YOU DO YOUR VOTE WILL NOT COUNT BECAUSE OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN CHOSE NOT TO PLACE HIS NAME ON THE MICHIGAN BALLOT SO AS NOT TO VIOLATE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY RULES. BUT YOU CAN VOTE UNCOMMITTED
Councilwoman Conyers: IF AT LEAST 15% OF THE PEOPLE VOTE UNCOMMITTED, THE STATE DEMOCRATIC PARTY MUST SEND THAT PERCENTAGE OF DELEGATES TO THE NATIONAL CONVENTION UNCOMMITTED.
Rep. Conyers: MY WIFE AND I ARE VOTING UNCOMMITTED. WE WILL WORK WITH THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY TO MAKE SURE THAT UNCOMMITTED DELEGATES GO TO THAT CONVENTION TRULY UNCOMMITTED SO THAT OBAMA CAN COMPETE FOR THEIR VOTE.
MALE: THANK YOU CONGRESSMAN CONYERS AND COUNCILWOMAN CONYERS. I WILL JOIN YOU AND VOTE UNCOMMITTED ON TUESDAY.
FEMALE: ME TOO - AT LEAST MY VOTE WON'T BE WASTED
Councilwoman Conyers: THIS TRUTH IN POLITICS MESSAGE WAS PAID FOR BY FRIENDS OF MONICA CONYERS
So as a result of the primary in Michigan Clinton (with 55% of the vote) was awarded 73 of Michigan's pledged delegates and uncommitted (with 40% of the vote) was awarded 55 of them. Of those 55 uncommitted, the 36 district level were selected on April 14 and most (but not all) support Obama to various degrees. A few seem to be uncommitted union members. The remaining 19 statewide uncommitted delegates are scheduled to be selected June 14.
In Florida, based on the results of the primary Clinton earned 105 delegates, to 67 for Obama, and 13 for Edwards. Each state toyed with the idea of having some new sanctioned election in June to get their delegates seated. This idea was generally embraced enthusiastically by the Clinton campaign, but with some skepticism by the Obama campaign. For a variety of reasons, the states decided not to go through with that plan, but instead request the Rules and Bylaw Committee to meet again to reconsider their sanctions. The meeting to decide that issue is open to the public and scheduled for this Saturday.
The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) will consider a variety of proposals including a proposal by the Florida Party to seat their delegation but with each delegate getting half a vote (which is how the RNC sanctioned a number of states under similar circumstances) and a proposal by the Michigan Party to seat their pledged delegates 69-59. Here's the idea behind that split:
Unfortunately, for differing reasons, none of the "redo" options that we considered proved to be feasible. Recently, our District conventions began the process of selecting our 128 pledged delegates based on the results of the January 15 primary, with Senator Clinton receiving 73 pledged delegates and "Uncommitted" receiving 55 pledged delegates. We understand that almost all of the Uncommitted delegates selected to date are in fact pledged to Senator Obama. The Clinton campaign has taken the position that the results of the January 15 primary should be honored and that Senator Clinton should receive 73 pledged delegates in accordance with the vote she received. The Obama campaign has taken the position that the January 15 primary results should be ignored and that the 128 pledged delegates should be seated but evenly divided between the two candidates. Both candidates have a basis for their argument...
...As a result, we recommend that the Michigan Democratic Party request the DNC to seat Michigan’s delegates, and that the pledged delegates be apportioned 69 to Senator Clinton and 59 to Senator Obama. That approach splits the difference between the 73/55 position of the Clinton campaign and the 64/64 position of the Obama campaign, based on our belief that both sides have fair arguments about the Michigan primary.
The Davis Proposal (here's the new stuff): Here's where Davis comes in with his proposal based on "neutral principles". First he argues that the results in January should stand in full because even though they violated the rules, Obama forfeit all right to complain because he didn't embrace the revote option. As Davis says:
Those states violated the party rules when they scheduled their primaries before Feb. 5. But then in March, elected officials and party leaders in both states were willing to "cure" — i.e., to hold new primaries and raise the money privately to pay for them. In Michigan, Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Sen. Carl Levin proposed a "fire house" primary in June, in which voters could revote at local fire houses or libraries. In Florida, Sen. Bill Nelson and others supported a revote by mailed ballots and perhaps also offering the fire house alternative for those voters who preferred to vote in person.
DNC Chairman Howard Dean said at the time that such revotes were permissible and would bring Michigan and Florida back into compliance. And there was precedent: In 1996, Delaware Democrats held a party caucus earlier than the permissible date, resulting in a rule violation. But state Democrats were allowed to hold another caucus later on and were then found to be back in compliance.
In March and April 2008, Clinton publicly supported the revote proposals of Michigan's Granholm and Levin and Florida's Nelson. She repeatedly invited Obama to join her and do the same. He never did — and the revotes never occurred.
Now the Obama campaign would say that they neither objected nor approved; they just raised "concerns." That is a fact. But here is an unavoidable inference from other undeniable political facts: Had Obama instructed those supporters in Michigan and Florida who were opposed to the revotes to support them, and joined with Clinton in endorsing the revotes, the new rounds of voting would have occurred.
So Obama is to blame not for opposing the votes, but because he didn't tell others who opposed it (based on some very legitimate concerns) to support it as a favor to him.
So the delegations should be seated in full, but here's where Davis gets truly crazy. What to do about those 55 uncommitted? As noted above those votes were the result of a campaign by Obama supporters in Michigan and most of those already selected are pledged to Obama. But Davis argues:
The Rules Committee has several options. The fairest would be to allocate those 57 pledged delegates, to Clinton and Obama by the same ratio of their standing to one another in the average of the most recent Michigan statewide polls prior to the Jan. 15 primary. Or perhaps one Solomonic compromise, more generous to Obama than to Clinton, would be to divide the remaining delegates approximately 50-50 between the two of them, 28-27 (giving Clinton the extra delegate since she led in all the latest statewide polls prior to Jan. 15).
Yes the solution that is generous to Obama would take the delegates that were clearly a vote against Clinton (the only major candidate on the ballot) and give a majority of them to Clinton who would then get 101 pledged delegates to 27 for Obama. In his mind Michigan was about an 80%-20% victory for Clinton! Well actually that's not the most fair way. That's the way that is generous to Obama! I think Lanny Davis needs some professional help.
The Delegate Math: Democratic Convention Watch has run a couple of scenarios. I think the most likely scenario is their scenario 2 (1/2 vote Florida pledged, 69-59 for Michigan pledged, super full vote) which would leave Obama with a guaranteed pledged delegate victory and as of this moment about 83 delegates shy. (According to MSNBC 9 of Edwards' Florida delegates have committed to Obama, DCW is only counting 2 so this would reduce it to 79.5). A similar option would do the same thing, but not seat the superdelegates. This would remove 55 delegates and hence reduce the clinching number by 27.5, but take away 10 superdelegates committed to Obama with a net result of bringing him another 17.5 delegates closer to the nomination or 62. If MI/FL weren't seated he would only need 49, so it's not a major difference. If the delegations were seated as is, DCW calculates Obama as needing 154 delegates, but that doesn't count any of the 55 uncommitted in Michigan and as noted by both the Michigan Party and DCW most of those delegates that have been selected so far support Obama. This would bring it down to 109 (assuming a 45-10 split) and counting those extra 7 Edwards delegates counted by MSNBC it would cut it to 102. Even this number should be no problem for Obama, but it's not up to him. The RBC penalized the states and many of them feel that some penalty should still apply.