Possible Florida/Michigan Delegate Split Plan
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, Florida, Hillary, Michigan
- Florida’s existing delegates would be seated at the Denver convention—but with half a vote each. That would give Clinton a net gain of about 19 elected delegates.
- The two states’ superdelegates would then be able to vote in Denver, likely netting Clinton a few more delegates.
The betting: Florida and Michigan delegates, the DNC, and the Clinton campaign would all — some reluctantly– accept this deal.
So it still wouldn’t be enough for her to make up the delegate gap. For that reason alone, I doubt if she’ll accept this.
One thing’s for sure…this sounds INCREDIBLY complicated, and how do you tell the Obama voters that a state that broke the rules is now “sort of” being counted? Doesn’t sound like something the campaign or the voters would stand for.
Ahh Democrats…
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, Florida, Hillary, Michigan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Isn’t half-counting the delegates what the Repubs are doing to Florida? Certainly doing this would defuse notions that the Dems are being unnecessarily harsh or that the Repubs more generous to Florida, which could help the party later on.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Cutting the convention representation of the Democratic voters in Michigan and Florida in half would be a gross injustice. Hillary had it right when she said there are only two alternatives that are acceptable: 1. To forgo the party sanctions and accept the results from each state as is and seat the delegates accordingly or 2. To have a new primary contest in each state because the caucus process is undemocratic and would unjustly favor the Obama candidate. We don’t need to match the witless strategy of the Republican Party in half votes. Every candidate had an equal chance to have their names on the ballot in these two states and Hillery won each of them fair and square. These are Hillary’s delegates and so it is Hillary’s decision. We don’t need to buckle under just because her opponent is black or male. This shouldn’t be made a race or gender issue.
March 13th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Becky,
The democratic party is like a club – so there is no justice or injustice regarding what they do – unless they violate their own laws. Everybody agreed that they wouldn’t campaign in MI or FL if those states changed their primary dates – they all agreed.
This isn’t a general election – it’s a primary/caucus – a new election in MI is fair because only Clintons (and maybe Kucinich) name was on the ballott – now that is unfair to Obama and the millions of people who voted “other” on their ballotts in that state so it should be re-done. Clinton was unfair to leave her name on the ballott when the others took their names off – another trick.
Hillary “quibbled” with the rules that she agreed to because that is exactly what she is, a “quibbler”. In the Army and Air Force Academies a cadet will be removed from the program for “quibbling” because they believe it represents an absence of character – so do I.
If Hillary and Barack wanted to be fair – they would respect the rules they agreed to at the beginning. Clinton doesn’t want to do that now because his thing is all but over and she lost (she just refuses to sing right now). She will take everything down with her rather then admit that HER arrogance and poor planning cost her the Dem presidential nomination. It’s not unfairness, it’s not cheating, it’s not Obamania, it’s Clinton’s arrogance and poor planning.
Clinton was annointed the Dem Pres nominee throughout 2007, she was living large, getting lots of donations, doling out favors for possible cabinet posts. Her team should have had this wrapped up by mid Feb of 2008 – but they failed! And there is no way out of it now, they need to be painfully “lanced” out of the process because they won’t go without poisoning it otherwise.