As I understand it, Hillary won 55% of the vote in Michigan. Michigan had 128 pledged delegates. 55% of 128 is 70. Which is only one more than she got in the compromise before they were halved. I realize she may have won more delegates by the way the congressional districts split the votes, or maybe by the reshuffle after Kucinich and Gravel didn't make the threshold, but since the whole vote was totally bogus anyway, I'm not convinced it matters, except as optics.

Since it was the Michigan Democratic Party which came up with the 69-59 split, I'm not sure what recourse the RBC had to arbitrarily pick different numbers, since the MDP was the challenging party in the proceeding.

Is this really decided or is it going to drag out in legal arguments?

I missed the festivities. How did the committee "take delegates away from Clinton"? I thought the controversy involved the awarding of uncommitted delegates to Obama. What does that have to do with Clinton's delegates?

Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.

Florida, Michigan delegates will get half-votes

Clinton's camp insisted Obama shouldn't get any pledged delegates in Michigan since he chose not to put his name on the ballot, and she should get 73 pledged delegates with 55 uncommitted. Obama's team insisted the only fair solution was to split the pledged delegates in half between the two campaigns, with 64 each.

The committee agreed on a compromise offered by the Michigan Democratic Party that would split the difference, allowing Clinton to take 69 delegates and Obama 59. Each delegate would get half a vote at the convention, according to the deal.

The truth is no one had a clue how the voters in either state would have voted if the local parties hadn't held them illegally (according to party rules), so the Rules Committee just went on assumptions that representatives from both the states could accept. Certainly Hillary's idea of counting all the votes was a totally ridiculous one. That had no chance of succeeding because it would have been totally unfair. Hillary herself had said publicly the votes wouldn't count. I think she did a dis-service to her supporters by making them believe anyone would count the results of those screwed up elections. If anything was clear yesterday it was the fact that those contests did not represent the actual feelings of all the potential voters in those states. The Rules Committee just tried to work with the numbers they had. Hillary came out of it with more than she could have. Her continuing to rally her troops at this point seems like a political kamakazi act, but she does have a right to keep on keeping on. In the end those votes won't be the deciding factor anyway.

The other thing that struck me was the Michigan Democratic Party's open defiance of the DNC.

They argued that they are an important state so they wanted to go early in the primary process and that's why they moved it up in violation of DNC rules, so there. There was no contrition at all, as in the case of Florida which was mostly the Republican legislature's fault.

Based on that, the DNC would have been well within their discretion to keep the Michigan sanctions in place and tell Michigan voters to take it up with their state party.

At one point in the proceedings the proposal to award the delegates 50/50 was passed, enabled by defections within the Clinton contingent..the same group of Hillary supporters who had voted in December to strip Michigan and Florida of ALL delegates.

Nobody stole Hillary delegates and gave them to Obama...There weren't any delegates to steal. If anything, by asking that the 50/50 proposal be held and then supporting the Michigan Democratic Committee's proposal of 69-59, The Obama campaign essentially GAVE Clinton delegates, not the other way around. It has to be noted that the Michigan proposal that passed did so with the approval of 5 of the 13 committed Clinton delegates on the RBC.

It's all meaningless blathering anyway since it changes nothing except that at least five Clinton supporters left Harold Ickes' platoon.

The chanting and yells of the Clinton supporters throughout the proceedings did not compare well with the quiet discipline of the Obama campaign. Having squandered a quarter of a billion dollars in a losing campaign (How much of it lobbyist money?), Hillary Clinton needs to take her opportuniy to graciously withdraw for the good of her country and her party.

Anybody want to take bets?

The Obama campaign essentially GAVE Clinton delegates, not the other way around.

Huh? Obama was handed 29.5 delegates that he did not earn. Four of them were Clinton's.

The "fair" way would have been to seat the MI delegates, give them 1/2 vote just like FL, and let the "uncommitted" vote for whoever they want (which would most likely be Obama) because that's what "uncommitted" means.

It was Obama's choice to not be on the ballot. If he was thinking this far ahead I'll have to give him credit. My guess is, though, that he didn't want his name next to a big "L" in MI.

There was no Michigan Primary, in any legal sense.

Saying that Obama didn't earn any MI delegates would imply that Hillary DID earn delegates in a state her representatives voted to strip of delegates in the first place. The complicency of the Clinton campaign in creating this mess is exceeded only by their hypocrisy in claiming the mess they created was unfair to THEM.

Nobody stole anybody's delegates. The voting results were taken as "advisory" in awarding the delegates and no matter what the plan chosen would have made no difference whatsoever in the outcome of the Primary race.

Let me ask you this...Had the Obama faction simply decided to not say another word after the 50-50 split passed, what would you be saying? It was in the interest of unity that they asked for reconsideration.

And in the interest of unity, I hope that it's time to let the scales fall from our eyes and focus on our new mission of electing Barack Obama to the Presidency.

Funny...I am starting to hear a little voice say, "You're either with us..."

I believe if you re-read what I have written I make my position pretty clear and answer all your questions.

P.S. I don't think Obama and his supporters should be taking a "with us or against us" position. Obama has not won the nomination, and still won't have it after today's primary in Puerto Rico and Tuesday's final primaries. Neither has Clinton. Nearly half of primary voters prefer Clinton, though. As I have said (in this post and earlier in the week), Obama will clearly win. It is virtually mathematically impossible for Clinton at this point. But that doesn't mean that I am not allowed to have an opinion on the MI decision, which arbitrarily handed out delegates based on "exit polls and other data." You can spin that any way you want, but I don't think it's helping Obama's case.

ALL the candidates agreed to not campaign or participate in the both the Florida and the Michigan primaries. Hillary then broke with her promise to abstain and kept her name on the ballot after all the other candidates had removed their names and it was too late to get them back on the ballot (so they all stayed on the ballot in the Florida race..."fool me once..."). That in my mind was cheating, just like Lucy pulling the ball away from Charlie Brown at the last second.

She is LUCKY she got any delegates, she is LUCKY that the RBC decided to allow the delegates from both Florida and Michigan to be seated, much less cast even one vote for her. She could have been gracious and withdrawn her name from the Michigan ballot...she didn't. She could be gracious to accept the compromise offered by the MICHIGAN Democratic Party...she isn't.

The only thing for certain now is that she will NEVER be elected President...not this year, not in 2012...not ever. She may not even be a Senator for much longer. I used to be a big Hillary Clinton fan, that too is no longer true. She is acting like a spoiled, bratty, rich kid who finally met a nanny who would and could say "NO", and she is throwing an ugly little temper tantrum.

_________________________________________________
"You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White"
"I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali

1.Sen Levin has been for changing the nomination process
for years.The senator does not believe Ia & NH should have special
status & argued both had gotten waivers this year.

However,Sen Levin after some table pounding
offered the MI compromise.

Therefore,I think the by laws & rules committee thought
it was important to support the MI Democratic Party compromise because they were not as worried by a Clinton floor challenge as they were a MI democratic party floor challenge lead by Levin.

2.I agree with those that disagree with the MI compromise.I dont see how the Party can rule uncommitted delegates are Obama delegates.But as has been pointed out many times on Knoxviews delegates can vote as they please .

3.Betty's right the DEAL with the candidates about MI/FLA was ALL about winning Ia/NH.Which I think is Levin's point also.

4.From now till Obama hits the magic number is like watching Tiger
roar down the back nine on Sunday up by 5 strokes.

Something COULD happen BUT not bloody likely.

It really boggles the mind to see the disingenuous arguments proffered by Ickes and the Clinton campaign on the issue of both the Florida and Michigan primaries (note-- they were primaries held under the auspices and authority of the Democratic Party). Clinton signed the pledge and publicly acknowledged the decision to decertify the two primaries in the fall of 2007. She was for the decertification before she was against it.

The primary process is bounded by rules-- rules that were followed yesterday. And, in point of fact, the apportioning of delegates in the Michigan situation was itself proposed by the Michigan Democratic Party, not by the DNC or the Party's RBC. The RBC accepted and approved a motion proffered by the MDP. If anyone was "stealing" delegates from the Clinton camp, it was the MDP. But more than that technicality, the recognition of any of the delegates from these states, which held what can only be described as deeply flawed primaries, is a compromise in favor of the Clinton campaign. To interpret it any other way is to suggest that the RBC's willingness to overturn what was a publicly acknowledged and accepted (by all campaigns) ruling is somehow vindictive towards the Clintons.

This is not a voting-rights issue, because there is no constitutional issue of participation in the nomination process.

The petty, vindictive display by Ickes and Lanny Davis yesterday demonstrates a real lack of state(wo)manship in their camp that must become a remnant of the past if Democrats have any hope in capitalizing on the shifting electoral landscape that is at hand. Personally, I hold Bill (and Hillary too) responsible for much of the implosion of Democratic Party politics in the course of the past 20 years. The politics of triangulation gutted the party as a true, coherent alternative to the neo-con assault.

As the neo-cons have shown their true colors, the moment is at had for a real realignment. Clinton wouldn't, can't, and won't make that shift happen. Will Obama? I don't know. But at least he provides the only opportunity we have right now to make that happen. And his message of hope and engagement MAY motivate people to build a new politics. I'd rather take that risk than return to the the dearth of progressivism that 8 years of Clinton brought us before.

OK, how about this...

There may still be some cards in the deck but Hillary is drawing dead into Obama's Ace high straight flush. It's time to let it all roll off and work together to elect Barack Obama President.

It's time for Hillary supporters to see Obama through some lense other than Clinton Campaign spin and to retarget their guns against John McCain...And for Obama supporters, me included, it's time to be nice.

After all...Obama has become the presumptive nominee without taking lobbyist money, making nice to Rupert Murdoch or Richard Mellon Scaife, and is sitting on a positive bank account and a massive donor list for the general election.

And the Reading assignment, just in case you think Obama can't handle the job...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/1/82050/07995/193/526607

I understand that it will take a few days to get over it and realize that we share the common bond of wanting a Democratic President...And this election cycle, that means Barack Obama.