Chased from office by the recall?

Not according to Williamson. He is quitting for health reasons. His doctor said he needs six to eight months of rest to recuperate from kidney stones and sinus infections.

Williamson’s opponents sought to recall him because they claim he mismanaged city funds and misrepresented the city’s financial health by millions of dollars. Flint went from a $6.4 million surplus in 2006-2007 to an $8.3 million deficit in 2007-2008.

So that’s the end of Williamson, right?

Again, not according to Williamson. He announced he was a candidate for governor last year. Despite resigning as mayor of Flint, he still plans on running for governor, after his six to eight months recuperation.

As a city councilwoman said, “He’s delirious. He never ceases to amaze me.”

(from Foolocracy.com)

Christopher Beam of Slate talks about the recent seismic shift in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Out: Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, the tough, cantankerous eminence grise of the House Democratic caucus (he’s 82), who was so deferential to Detroit as chairman of the House energy and commerce committee that Lee Iacocca once said he “stood up for the auto industry beyond the call of duty.”

In: Rep. Henry Waxman of California, the tough, mustachioed eminence slightly less grise of House Democrats (he’s 69) known for his relentless investigations and aggressive proposals for combating climate change.

Barack Obama’s own transition team could not have hoped for a better outcome. In fact, there are signs it did more than just hope.

Dingell’s ouster came after the Democrats’ Policy and Steering Committee voted 25-22 in favor of Waxman’s candidacy. In charge of the steering committee is Waxman’s fellow California Democrat, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And ousting the leader of the House’s most powerful panel—environmental issues, health care, and consumer protection all fall under commerce’s purview—is generally not done without permission from the top.

Of course, there is another explanation…

Maybe Dingell knew that his time to protect the auto industry was over, that climate change legislation was on the way in and Waxman needs to be chairman of the committee in order to get that through.

And since Dingell is from Michigan, there’s no way he could lead that charge and represent his ailing constituents.

What do you think? Could Dingell have fought this fight but decided not to?

To be specific…137 pages of tax foreclosure listings.

Basically, these are people who are delinquent on paying their taxes and could have their homes foreclosed on in 2009 if they don’t pay them.

Now imagine the Big 3 go into bankruptcy.

You can’t tell me that ALL of these people bought homes they couldn’t afford.

Moving on…

79 electoral votes here for the Illinois senator.

Moving on…

And he’ll pour more into his efforts in Ohio, Florida and…Wisconsin?

From Politico:

McCain will go off TV in Michigan, stop dropping mail there and send most of his staff to more competitive states, including Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida. Wisconsin went for Kerry in 2004, Ohio and Florida for Bush. [...]

Republicans had been bullish on Michigan, hopeful that McCain’s past success in the state in the 2000 primary combined with voter dissatisfaction with Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm and skepticism among blue-collar voters about Barack Obama could make it competitive. [...]

But recent polls there have shown Obama extending what had been a small lead, with the economic crisis damaging an already sagging GOP brand in a state whose economy is in tatters.

McCain’s money is much better spent in Virginia than Wisconsin. There’s no way that state will go red this election cycle. Obama won by 17 points over Hillary there.

What a weird move…

The actions, taken during a meeting at the host city’s Colorado Convention Center, put a final touch to a long-running and bruising dispute over the decisions by officials in both states to hold their presidential primaries in January, in violation of Democratic National Committee (DNC) scheduling rules. The DNC initially barred all of Michigan’s and Florida’s delegates from the convention, then in late May allowed all of the state’s delegates to attend, but with a half-vote apiece.

California Rep. Barbara Lee , a member of the Credentials Committee noted that she and many others agreed with Obama’s support for the resolution to help unify the party.

“I think this is a very fair and just resolve, and I’m very pleased and excited that Florida and Michigan will be seated with full voting rights,” Lee said.

Delegates such as Mark Miller from Kalamazoo, Mich., agreed the decision was necessary so as not to “demoralize” delegates and other representatives from his home state.

“Symbolically, the restoration of the full vote does mean a lot to people,” Mark Bubriski, Obama’s Florida Communications Director said prior to the expected vote outcome. “It enables Democrats to put that behind us and move on to what’s most important, which is electing a Democratic president.”

Now then, let’s get some primary reforms in place so next time there aren’t messes like this, agreed?

Last month it was Obama 48 to 42, so this race has tightened a bit, but is still outside of the margin of error.

Some demo info…

• Women back Obama 50 – 38 percent.
• Men back McCain 47 – 42 percent.
• Whites back McCain 48 – 40 percent.
• Blacks support Obama 90 – 4 percent.
• Obama leads 51 – 41 percent among voters 18 to 34.
• Obama leads by 46 – 43 percent among voters 35 to 54.
• The candidates are tied among voters over 55 at 43 – 43.

Similar polls show Obama up by 8, so it’s safe to assume he’s leading at this point.

Pollster shows a similar trend…

More next month…

The details…

Michigan women voters back Obama 52 – 38 percent, while men split with 46 percent for McCain and 45 percent for Obama.

White voters back McCain 48 – 42 percent, as black voters support Obama 89 – 6 percent.

The Democrat leads 57 – 36 percent among voters 18 to 34 and gets 48 percent of voters 35 to 54, to McCain’s 45 percent. Obama has a 45 – 42 percent edge among voters over 55.

Voters give Obama a 54 – 27 percent favorability, with 49 – 29 percent for McCain.

As I mentioned in the post about Quinnipiac’s Colorado poll, the following two findings are interesting…

First, Bush’s favorable/unfavorable ratings…
Favorable – 26%
Unfavorable – 67%

Then, support for staying in Iraq…
Keep Troops There – 52%
Withdraw – 41%

It seems the more a state dislikes Bush, the bigger the lead gets for Obama, even though they may not be in favor of his Iraq policy.

More as it develops…

Here’s more…

In a huge blow to Hillary’s hopes, such as they are, the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee has now voted in favor of a compromise measure for Michigan, giving 69 pledged delegates to Hillary Clinton and 59 to Barack Obama at a half-vote each.

This effectively ends Hillary’s bid to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations in full — which she was hoping for in a last-ditch effort to close the delegate count and, more importantly for her campaign’s moral arguments, to try to narrow Obama’s unofficial popular vote lead.

This was pretty much expected, but now it’s done. She netted about 24 delegates out of today.

Expect things to start wrapping up next week.

They determined this based on the actual vote, exit polls of who cast votes for “uncommitted” and voters who wrote in Obama’s name (those votes didn’t count).

But this is going to be a much tougher nut to crack than Florida. People are already talking about how exit polls aren’t an accurate reflection of voter preference, etc.

Sure, but what else are you going to base it on? A coin toss? Everybody knows that the “uncommitted” vote went for Obama. To say anything different is intellectually dishonest.

More as it develops…

More from TPM:

“Senator Obama should be commended for his willingness to offer this extraordinary concession,” Wexler said, adding that he’s offering this concession “in order to promote reconciliation with Florida voters.”

Though Hillary’s team will still insist on a full seating, it’s tough to imagine that this compromise won’t end up being the final outcome. But again, the real morass is Michigan.

I think this will basically settle Florida.

Michigan is up next and doesn’t promise to be as easy given the whole “uncommitted” issue.

Remember, you can watch it all live on MSNBC.

NOTE: No decisions have been made yet. This is just the plan being promoted by Florida and being accepted by Obama. The committee has yet to rule on it.

I think this will be the likely outcome today. And frankly, I don’t see any other way it can happen without tearing the party apart.

On MSNBC!

(by the way, I wish C-SPAN allowed embedding and then replaced whatever live feed they had with the recording of that feed. That would be great for us political bloggers…hint hint…)

I’m watching Robert Wexler make the case for Obama right now. He’s doing a very good job…because he’s talking about the actual, you know, rules.

There’s lots of talk about unity right now. Basically, “Don’t let this fight continue to tear the Democratic party apart. Remember, we’re all in this together.”

Wexler just offered a concession on behalf of Obama to seat half the delegates for Florida. This is how it’s going to go down.

The details…

Since just after the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, Obama has led Clinton nearly every day, including a stretch of double-digit leads in the May 18-22 Gallup Poll Daily tracking releases. Since then, his advantage had been slightly less, at five to eight percentage points, but is back to a 10-point lead in the latest data.

Just three primary contests remain, and news reports suggest that the dispute over the Michigan and Florida convention delegations will not be resolved in the best possible way for the Clinton campaign. The Democratic National Committee will meet this weekend and likely allow either half those states’ delegates to attend, or the full delegations to attend, but with each member given half a vote. Thus, it is a near certainty that Obama will have clinched enough delegates to win the nomination under the current rules, and Clinton’s only hope of winning the nomination may reside in lawsuits or a convention floor fight.

More tomorrow…

NY Times:
Obama – Pledged (1,656), Super (319.5), Total (1,975.5)
Clinton – Pledged (1,502), Super (274), Total (1,776)
50.5 for Obama to win, 250 for Clinton to win

CNN:
Obama – Pledged (1661), Super (317), Total (1,978)
Clinton – Pledged (1499), Super (281), Total (1,780)
48 for Obama to win, 246 for Clinton to win

Real Clear Politics:
Obama – Pledged (1659), Super (320), Total (1979)
Clinton – Pledged (1499), Super (282), Total (1781)
47 for Obama to win, 245 for Clinton to win

The Associated Press:
Obama – Pledged (1,659), Super (322), Total (1,981)
Clinton – Pledged (1,499), Super (281), Total (1,780)
45 for Obama to win, 248 for Clinton to win

Dem Convention Watch
Obama – Pledged (1660.5), Supers (320.5), Total (1981)
Clinton – Pledged (1499.5), Supers (280.5), Total (1780)
44 for Obama to win, 245 for Clinton to win

We’ll find out more this weekend after the DNC rules on Michigan and Florida, but my guess is that they’ll seat half the delegates per the existing rules. Obama can let that happen now and not have Hillary catch up, although it might help her “I deserve the VP position” argument.

More this weekend…

From TPM:

In what could potentially be a blow to Hillary’s electoral hopes, such as they are right now, the Democratic National Committee’s lawyers have declared that the Rules and Bylaws committee lacks the legal authority to seat the full Florida and Michigan delegations.

The DNC’s lawyers sent a memo late yesterday to members of the committee telling them that the two states must lose half of their convention delegates for skirting party rules and holding earlier elections.

That’s trouble for Hillary, who is pushing for a full seating of the delegations to narrow Obama’s pledged del lead and to proclaim herself the popular vote winner in order to argue that Dem primary voters didn’t render a clear verdict on their preference as nominee.

My guess is that they’ll seat half of the delegates.

We’ll see on Saturday!

It doesn’t get much plainer than that.

(h/t: TPM)

Umm…what was that about the will of the people again?

From Politico:

In a conference call with reporters, Clinton Senior Adviser Harold Ickes clarified their position on Michigan — they don’t want the 55 “uncommitted” delegates to go to Obama (his name did not appear on the ballot in Michigan).

There have been reports that some of the uncommitted delegates in Michigan already selected are union supporters of Clinton. This solution, unsurprisingly, would make it much harder for Obama to clinch a pledged delegate majority.

Last week, the Clinton campaign was agnostic on the issue — but they seem to ratcheting up the noise, or at least their negotiating position.

Folks, the people who voted for uncommitted either voted for Edwards or Obama. And considering that Edwards backed Obama, all of the uncommitted votes should go to Obama if Michigan gets seated. It’s obvious that was the will of the voters at the time since they voted for “nobody.”

And as Josh Marshall reminds us yet again…

One of her most senior advisors, Harold Ickes, was on the DNC committee that voted to sanction Florida and Michigan by not including their delegates. Her campaign completely signed off on sanctions after that. And Clinton was actually quoted saying the Michigan contest didn’t count. Michigan and Florida were sanctioned because they ignored the rules the DNC had set down for running this year’s nomination process.

The evidence is simply overwhelming that Sen. Clinton didn’t think this was a problem at all — until it became a vehicle to provide a rationale for her continued campaign.

Jeezus…WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE!!!?!!?!?!

From Politico:

“In Florida, you learned the hard way what happens when your votes aren’t counted and the candidate with fewer votes is declared the winner,” she said. “The lesson of 2000 here in Florida is crystal clear: if any votes aren’t count, the will of the people isn’t realized and our democracy is diminished.”

Clinton, at times sounding like a modern history professor, praised the abolitionists, suffragettes and civil rights pioneers and talked about her own efforts to fight legislative redistricting and voter identification initiatives that she said dilute minority voting power.

“This work to extend the franchise to all of our citizens is a core mission of the modern Democratic party,” she said. “From signing the Voting Rights Act and fighting racial discrimination at the ballot box to lowering the voting age so those old enough to fight and die in war would have the right to choose their commander in chief, to fighting for multi-lingual ballots so you can make your voice heard no matter what language you speak.”

Yeah, boy, it’s JUST like all of those scenarios. Great comparisons Hill…*sigh*

I think it’s obvious that Clinton’s campaign is now pretty much constructed on Democrats’ naivete. That’s all this is. And for those who don’t pay attention and haven’t heard her previously agree that Florida and Michigan’s delegates shouldn’t count, all of this sounds stirring I’m sure.

So to all of you who fall into the group I’ll reiterate that she only started talking about Florida and Michigan when it was clear she was running into trouble. And then she really ramped up the rhetoric when Obama started racking up wins in those post-Super Tuesday states she had ignored because her campaign thought the contest would be over by then. And that’s the only reason folks. It’s on the record and her actions are clearly transparent.

In short, she’s playing very intellectually dishonest politics and that means she’s essentially lying to her supporters, the media, etc. Very discouraging, but there it is.