Hm (0.00 / 0)

seat the delegates selected on Saturday with full voting strength... treat the PLEOs as is... split the At-Large delegates 50-50 (that is, 14 each)...  do not seat the super-delegates, at least not as super-delegates

So I am not trying to be negative or anything, but I do want to ask: This plan seems a little bit complicated. It seems like there's no reason to seat Michigan delegates at all unless it's to make Michigan voters happy and satisfied; would Michigan voters be satisfied by a multi-segmented "compromise" scheme like this?

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by: mcc @ Fri Apr 25, 2008 at 18:36:59 PM UTC

MI (4.00 / 2)

We've always been led to believe in MI that we would have SOME delegation in Denver--just that our votes wouldn't count. I guess they figured the primary would be resolved by February 5, and after whatever candidate had gotten a huge lead, they could just seat us and it wouldn't matter. So MI expects to be seated, but every solution is even more unfair in some way. And MI voters are VERY ANGRY about the Clusterfuck in the first place.

So this puts the punishment where it belongs, and is more fair than the other solutions floated.

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by: emptywheel @ Fri Apr 25, 2008 at 18:47:03 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I understand that (0.00 / 0)

MI and FL are gonna be seated, somehow, but I've gotta say that in the past year of blog reading, I've developed a visceral disgust of all retroactive immunization of rule-breaking.

I feel bad for the voters of Michigan who had nothing to do with the rulebreaking, just I'd feel bad for the stockholders of the telcoms who had nothing to do with the lawbreaking. But I think the 'well, if you punish people for breaking rules, then you're just hurting the little guy' argument is one that the right, knowing the left's weakness for little guys, trots out to push dishonest arguments.

That said: yeah, I understand this gonna happen, and your plan seems better than most, by far.

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by: Joel @ Fri Apr 25, 2008 at 18:55:52 PM UTC

I concur with stripping the supers (0.00 / 0)

I said a while back, that part of the raison d'être of the supers is to bring some 'conscience' to the process.  Well, a lot of good that did us in MI and FL!  They're the ones who had the power, and in some case, probably some authority to prevent that screwup.  They should be the ones penalized.

Beyond that, find a middle ground and get that thing settled.

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by: lutton @ Fri Apr 25, 2008 at 19:01:55 PM UTC

no disincentive to move up (0.00 / 0)

What does this solution do to discourage states from moving up next time? Would the risk of losing a few delegates at the convention outweigh the extra attention a state would get from moving up into January? I don't think so. Since after this year nobody will be foolish enough to remove his name from the ballot in future disputed primaries, states could be ensured of a full campaign if they moved up in 2012.  

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by: redwards95 @ Fri Apr 25, 2008 at 19:02:08 PM UTC

Incentives (0.00 / 0)

First, understand that MI will be seated in some way in Denver--that was always understood. It's just that everyone expected to be able to find a way to do it to make sure we didn't affect the outcome in any way. So there will be a delegate sent, one way or another.

So that leaves you with the challenge of finding a solution that maintains the disincentive. That's why punishing the supers is so important--they're the ones who insisted on moving the vote forward. THe rest of us couldn't give a damn.

More importantly, if you take away the supers ability to be kingmakers, then it will be the strongest disincentive you could estbalish.

Also note, Hillary wants to seat MI, in some fashion, as much because she knows she has a 20 delegate margin among supers. Which puts us in the really disgusting position where our leaders--from Granholm on down--are only willing to give a solution that ensures their own ability to deliver a chunk of votes to Hillary. THis takes away their ability to do that (and in the process become even bigger kingmakers).

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by: emptywheel @ Fri Apr 25, 2008 at 19:08:21 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

This seems like a good and fair idea (0.00 / 0)

But why would Clinton go for it? Her strategy is to maximize the margin of error, to turn the delegate counts into the fuzziest possible fuzzy sets, so that she can portray the election as "essentially a tie." To this end, the best thing she can do is continue the (arguably manufactured) controversy over the Michigan delegation for as long as possible. Furthermore, if she accepted this sort of delegate allocation, she couldn't credibly pursue the other prong of her strategy: to count the Michigan vote as part of the popular vote total.

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by: Chachy @ Fri Apr 25, 2008 at 19:05:29 PM UTC

Why (0.00 / 0)

The key to Hillary going for it is that she has spent 2 months screaming about how terrible people were who disenfranchise Michigan voters. This plays right into the rhetorical strategy she has adopted. If she rejects this, she's basically saying MI should be disenfranchised.

Plus, this gives he something out of MI--about a 20 vote margin. Not enough to keep her campaign alive (but the WHOLE POINT of punishing MI was to ensure that it didn't decide anything). But something.

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by: emptywheel @ Fri Apr 25, 2008 at 19:13:52 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

superdelegates (0.00 / 0)

This solution accomplishes everything everyone has said they want to do. It would give MI's voters--the people who will do the grunt work to get our Democratic nominee elected in the fall--a say at the Convention. It rewards Hillary, slightly, for having won the Clusterfuck. It penalizes Obama, slightly, for taking his name off the ballot in January. And it penalizes MI, 28 total delegates, for having broken DNC rules and moved its primary up.

But it focuses that punishment on those who played Chicken with the votes of MI, and lost last year, rather than punishing those who had no choice in the matter and got their ability to cast a vote in a truly fair election. It penalizes the super-delegates, many of whom were instrumental in the decision to defy the DNC.

Couldn't agree more -- the MI superdelegates caused this mess and put the entire nomination process in jeopardy, they shouldn't get a vote.

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by: Nirmal Mankani @ Fri Apr 25, 2008 at 19:46:19 PM UTC

Bingo! (0.00 / 0)

But it focuses that punishment on those who played Chicken with the votes of MI, and lost last year, rather than punishing those who had no choice in the matter and got their ability to cast a vote in a truly fair election. It penalizes the super-delegates, many of whom were instrumental in the decision to defy the DNC.

Though different than the Solomonic approach that I've been pushing, namely that the elected delegates count for half and the supers don't get a vote at all, but it accomplishes pretty much the same thing.  

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by: Jeff S. @ Fri Apr 25, 2008 at 19:47:40 PM UTC

Opposite of Joel Ferguson (4.00 / 1)

Joel Ferguson, for those of you who don't know, is one Michigan's superdelegates who recently proposed (see MichiganLiberal.com for the details) to have Michigan's delegation seated with a full vote for supers and half-votes for elected delegates.

I agree with Nirmal and Marcy that Michigan's superdelegates should be the ones disenfranchised, not Michigan's voters.

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by: Ted Kilvington @ Fri Apr 25, 2008 at 20:23:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I believe that it would be a violation of DNC rules (0.00 / 0)

to refuse to seat MI's or FL's superdelegates -- they are not chosen by primary.

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by: JohnS @ Fri Apr 25, 2008 at 21:40:46 PM UTC

It appears that (4.00 / 1)

a Florida member of the Democratic National Committee has filed a challenge.  Jon Ausman claims  that the DNC's rules committee only had the authority to strip the states of half their delegates, and no authority at all to ban superdelegates.

Michigan Democratic Party activist Joel Ferguson has also filed a challenge with the Democratic National Committee to have Michigan's superdelegates and half of its regular delegates seated.

Ferguson cites the party's own rules, says the penalty for holding an early primary is half of the state's committed delegates.  

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by: JohnS @ Fri Apr 25, 2008 at 21:53:02 PM UTC