This little gem of an article has really put a smile on my face. The AP interviewed members of the Rules and Bylaws committee and found that they were pretty much not going to give in to Hillary's demands, and even if they did she would still be way behind. Of course, I already knew that but having that simple truth cut through the "fog of noise" around the Clinton campaign's reasoning is yet another major step in winding this nomination down to a close.
"We certainly want to be fair to both candidates, and we want to be sure that we are fair to the 48 states who abided by the rules," said Democratic National Committee Secretary Alice Germond, a panel member unaligned with either candidate. "We don't want absolute chaos for 2012.
"It has to be a fair process for both candidates," said member Yvonne Gates, an Obama supporter from Nevada who said she wasn't sure what position she would support at the meeting. "My definition is a 50-50 split is something that is fair. It cannot be a situation where you give one candidate more votes than the other. In my opinion that wasn't an election when they didn't have a chance to get out and talk to the people of that community."
The AP also debunks her bunk popular vote routine:
Clinton has been arguing that she leads in the popular vote, but that's only when both states are included and it is very slim — fewer than 5,000 votes out of 34 million cast.
Her accounting also doesn't include some caucus states that favored Obama and where the popular vote wasn't tallied. The measure of winning the nomination is not the popular vote but the delegate count, and Obama leads 1,898 to 1,718, with 2,026 needed for the nomination.
(By the way, their accounting is wrong. If you allocate Obama part of the Uncommitted vote, and estimate a number for the missing caucus states, he still leads by more than 200,000 votes.)
Anyway, these are some of the proposals they are considering.
The plans before the committee will be more generous to Obama. The Michigan Democratic Party has proposed giving 69 of its 128 delegates to Clinton and 59 to Obama, an advantage of 10 delegates for Clinton.
A proposal from Florida would halve its 185 delegates. From that, Clinton would get 52.5 and Obama 33.5, a 19-delegate advantage for Clinton.
I am tempted to say "No Deal" since I think it should be just 50/50. But, in the interest of settling the dispute once and for all, these are reasonable ideas.
Also, Obama's blog just updated and says that he is now just 17 delegates from having the pledged delegate majority and 121.5 from 2025.