The Obama campaign has announced that since a re-vote in MI is not going to happen, that they would support a 50/50 split of the MI delegation (see TPM).
In the last week, we had Markos' diary "Those Poor Florida Delegates" and bobswern's rebuttal diary "Can Kossacks Handle Truths Re: MI & FL?", which included a reference to this piece by Wayne Barret (via HuffPost).
All this has got me going over my opinions (and I got LOTS of 'em) and a potential plan. And then you get to vote!! But it won't count (I mean, since when does a DailyKos poll make the rules?!)
First, I see seating delegates and letting them vote as two different issues. The DNC can certainly seat them but with no, limited or full voting rights. I think that is an area where Dr. Dean (my hero) is coming from when he says that we will find a way to seat them. But that's the easy part, I think.
Next, I completely feel the frustration of many MI and FL voters who want their representatives (and thus, their input) to count at the convention. I'm sure that they have shared that frustration with their state representatives and governors since that is where the real problem lies.
Next, I have little sympathy for MI compared to FL. I've read Markos' diary (the YouTube video is now removed BTW) but I don't know the context. I do take some of the arguments of the Barrett piece to heart - though I still think that that piece is dripping with bias. MI on the other hand made no effort not to jump and it was clear at the time it was done that there would be a price to pay.
Next, in FL, everyone was on the ballot (and has to be or they can't be on the GE ballot) and there are percentages available, even though the turnout was less than expected. Yes, there was a property tax measure on the ballot, but it was still less than expected. In MI, you had only Senator Clinton on the ballot, it was an open primary with some cross-over, and at this point you have no idea how to apportion those votes in any fair way.
From the Barrett piece, I learned that jumping the queue was an automatic 50% deduction (which the Republicans did for about 8 states) but that the harsher penalty was voted on by the DNC (including Clinton adviser Harold Ickes) to send a signal to other states. It is similar to what Terry McAullife threatened MI with when they tried to do this in 2004.
So here was my original plan:
MI - clearly did not make a good faith effort and even tried this same crap in 2004. The automatic 50% reduction + 25% extra (each delegate gets a 1/4 vote). No way to deal with Clinton leaving her name on the ballot, cross-over campaign, etc. so split it 50/50.
128 @ 25% = 32 for the state.
Clinton - 16 delegates
Obama - 16 delegates
FL - clearly some Repub shenanigans going on so just make it the automatic 50%. Split based on the results.
185 @ 50% = 92.5
Clinton (50%) = 46.5 delegates
Obama (33%) = 31 delegates
Edwards (14%) = 13 delegates
That leaves 2 delegates from other candidates.
Split them between Clinton and Obama.
That gives Clinton a FL/MI +15.5 delegate change.
There it was - totally missing the fact that that only addresses the pledged delegates. At first, I thought that "hey, these superdelegates are the jokers that got them into this mess - they lose their vote". But that's not the case (except for MI Governor). I checked out who they are and how many on Wikipedia here and even found a page that listed if they were committed or not here. I summed up the number of superdelegates based on state and whether they were uncommited, for Obama or for Clinton. First thing is that the numbers didn't add up - I'm missing 2 from MI and 3 from FL. So here is the breakdown:
State | Uncommited | Obama | Clinton | Missing |
MI | 19 | 1 | 7 | 2 |
FL | 11 | 4 | 8 | 3 |
So, that is +10 Clinton (at full strength). But at the reduced voting percentages that is only +3.5. Thus pledged and superdelegates at reduced percentages gives Clinton a difference of +19 delegates (for both states).
Delegates are seated. Delegates get to represent the votes of their citizens. Bad behavior is punished. Totals represent the citizens votes as close as possible.
Yeah? No. Time to have your say...