Michigan Dems Want to do What? They Can Do Better, and So Can the DNC
By Deb Cupples on May 9, 2008 at 1:33 AM in Barack Obama, Democrats, Michigan
Michigan’s Democratic Party is proposing that Michigan’s delegates be split 69 to 59 between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. According to the actual election results, Hillary would get 73 delegates. Jeralyn at TalkLeft sums up the results of the new proposal as follows:
"It not only gives Obama all of the uncommitted delegates, a number that includes those who voted for Edwards, Dodd, Kucinich and Gravel, it gives him some that voted for Hillary."
The actual results of Michigan’s primary are below:
# Votes
% Votes
Clinton 328,309
55%
Dodd 3,845
1%
Gravel 2,361
1%
kucinich 21,715
3.6%
Uncommitted 238,168
40%
594,398
Throwing a wrench into any proposal is the fact that Obama chose to take his name off Michigan’s ballot — though he was not required to do so.
Frankly, I wonder why Obama insisted on making that choice, given that four other
Democrats (including his main opponent, Hillary) chose to remain on Michigan’s ballot.
Back to Michigan’s proposed solution: giving Obama 59 delegates would be unfair not only to Hillary; it would be unfair also to those Michigan voters who had voted specifically for candidates other than Obama.
Here’s another possible solution: given that Michigan’s Democratic officials don’t mind being unfair to some voters, why not reduce that unfairness a bit by simply giving Obama the uncommitted votes?
That would still be generous to Obama, given that some of the people who voted "uncommitted" likely supported Edwards.
That and, once again, no one forced Obama to take his name off the ballot, which is what has really thrown a wrench into the counting of Michigan’s delegates at this point.
Making matters worse, the Obama campaign opposed a re-vote in Michigan, which could have cleared up this whole mess.
I can’t help wondering if an Obama campaign strategist had actually hoped to ultimately knock Michigan out of the Democrats’ nominee-selection process. Knocking out competition isn’t a foreign concept to Obama: in 1996, he knocked several fellow democratic candidates out of his race for a seat in the Illinois
legislature.
I know, defensive DNC officials and pundits who support Obama chant specious sound bites about how Michigan’s and Florida’s Democrats "broke the rules."
In March, Wayne Barrett posted a detailed explanation of what really happened in Michigan and Florida, the DNC’s odd handling of it, and why the DNC should have been more understanding. As a Floridian, I can attest to his accuracy re: Florida. About Michigan, I know very little.
The upshot of Barrett’s post: it was largely Republican legislators in Michigan and Florida who are at fault for changing the primary dates.
DNC rules did not require a 100% stripping of these states’ delegates: the automatic
punishment for states that moved primaries to before February 5 was that half of their delegates be stripped.
In addition, the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee didn’t have to strip even half of the delegates if it found that MI’s and FL’s Democrats had made good faith efforts to stop the changing of the primary date.
That DNC Committee was supposed to conduct investigations to determine if Michigan’s and Florida’s Democratic leaders had made good faith efforts to stop the moving of their state’s primary election.
Reportedly, the Committee did not conduct such investigations.
Instead, led by operatives like Donna Brazile, the Committee simply decided to impose the harshest sanctions possible on Michigan and Florida — despite rules and circumstances that should have compelled the Committee to show leniency.
As Wayne Barrett also points out, the same DNC Committee refused to impose sanctions on Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina after those states moved their primary/caucus to a date that violated the DNC rules.
Adding insult to injury, DNC operatives have continued to falsely tell the public that their hands were tied when they chose to disenfranchise Michigan and Florida.
Fortunately, the DNC still has a chance to fix the Michigan and Florida messes — and to show that party leaders value us ordinary Dems. The Rules and Bylaws Committee plans to meet on May 31 to hear challenges regarding the Committee’s handling of those states.
I anticipate two likely consequences if the DNC fails to fix said messes: 1) the legitimacy of the party’s ultimate nominee will be questioned, and 2) there will be a whole new wave of Independents.
Why be a member of a party whose current leaders jumped at the chance to discount millions of members’ votes?
Even if the DNC fixes the mess, there’s one other thing it must do: house cleaning, including the removal of Donna Brazile and any other party official 1) who helped disenfranchise Michigan and Florida, or 2) who attempted to mislead the public regarding what really happened with those states.
The Democratic Party is supposed to do better than its leaders have done of late. And the fact is that we can vote for Democratic candidates without donating money to the DNC and without being a registered as Democrats (in all general elections and in some states’ primaries).
It couldn’t hurt to email DNC officials and let them know — in no uncertain terms — just how you feel about their unreasonable, knee-jerk disenfranchising of Michigan and Florida voters up to this point. Here’s the link to the email form: http://www.democrats.org/page/s/contactissues
Memeorandum has commentary.
Other BN-Politics Posts:
* Florida Donors Demand Refunds from DNC
* Respected Magazine Misleads Readers About Florida’s Primary
* Dems Do Want Change — in DNC Leadership
by Ronald Scott
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