She Wouldn’t, Would She?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, Florida, Hillary, Michigan, Pledged Delegates, Super Delegates!!!I have serious doubts she would use the following “nuclear option” because it would ensure that Obama’s supporters would stay home. There are just too many landmines.
Still…there do seem to be whispers of a plan…
Hillary Clinton’s campaign has a secret weapon to build its delegate count, but her top strategists say privately that any attempt to deploy it would require a sharp (and by no means inevitable) shift in the political climate within Democratic circles by the end of this month.With at least 50 percent of the Democratic Party’s 30-member Rules and Bylaws Committee committed to Clinton, her backers could — when the committee meets at the end of this month — try to ram through a decision to seat the disputed 210-member Florida and 156-member Michigan delegations. Such a decision would give Clinton an estimated 55 or more delegates than Obama, according to Clinton campaign operatives. The Obama campaign has declined to give an estimate.
Using the Rules and Bylaws Committee to force the seating of two pro-Hillary delegations would provoke a massive outcry from Obama forces. Such a strategy would, additionally, face at least two other major hurdles, and could only be attempted, according to sources in the Clinton camp, under specific circumstances [.]
The article goes onto to say it has to do with Clinton keeping things close, but even if she won both Indiana and North Carolina, I really don’t think this scenario is anywhere close to being feasible. Especially not since Obama wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan.
Also, there’s no way party insiders would be okay with this type of coup, and any move towards it would almost certainly swing superdelegates over to Obama to avert a intra-party disaster.
Long story short, this will not happen.
This entry was posted on Sunday, May 4th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, Florida, Hillary, Michigan, Pledged Delegates, Super Delegates!!!. 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.
May 5th, 2008 at 8:44 am
I could see a rationale for seating the Florida delegates, since both candidates were on the ballot. It would be better for the DNC to do this proactively, so at least there is some control and an approximation of “fairness.” Otherwise I wouldn’t be shocked if Clinton pushed the button. And she’ll do it under the pretense of being fair to the voters of FL and MI. What’s Obama going to say, “I don’t want those people’s votes to count?” What would that do to the republicrats who would be on the fence in those states when it came to a choice between Obama and McOld? “Obama actively campaigned against my voice being heard in the primaries, so I’ll vote for McCain, since he’s not *really* a Republican anyway.”