FL and MI Delegates: The New Deal

After a 3-hour break members of the Democratic National Committee’s Rule and Bylaws Committee (RBC) brokered an agreement that will seat the delegates of Florida and Michigan at the DNC convention August 25-28, 2008.  Resolutions for both Florida and Michigan passed as proposed by each state’s Democratic Party.

This tells me is that The Clintons are no longer the leaders of the Democratic Party.  This shows that The Clintons have lost the power and political collateral they once had with Democratic ‘insiders’ – the rule makers.

The RBC is made up of 13 Clinton superdelegates, 8 Obama superdelegates and 9 uncommitted superdelegates.  Many of the Clinton superdelegates united with and voted with the Obama superdelegates. (The Chair and Co-Chair don’t vote).

The RBC’s decision breaks down as follows:

Florida

·           A 15 yes, 12 no vote rejected seating ALL Florida delegates with full votes (Clinton favored)

·           A unanimous vote accepted seating all Florida delegates but with half a vote each.  A 105 Clinton/67 Obama split (Obama favored)

·           Meaning Clinton will have 52.5 delegates/Obama will have 33.5 delegates

·           Hillary Clinton gained a net of 19 votes

Michigan

·           A 19 yes, 8 no note accepted allocation of Michigan delegates split 69 Clinton/59 Obama (Obama favored)

·           Each delegate would have half a vote each

·           Meaning Clinton will have 34.5 delegates/Obama will have 29.5 delegates

·           Hillary Clinton gained a net of 5 votes

Clinton gained 24 delegates. 

Senator Clinton had hoped that the DNC’s RBC would buttress the elections in Florida and Michigan which would authenticate the popular vote for her.  If the popular votes were authenticated and added to Clinton’s national tally, based on the Clinton campaign’s math, she would then lead Senator Obama in the popular vote.  Senator Clinton hoped to convince the superdelegates to give her their votes based on her calculation of the popular vote.

Senator Clinton calculates the popular vote by including the votes of Florida and Michigan, giving herself the votes in Michigan but not giving Obama any of the Michigan votes and excluding the caucus votes in Iowa, Maine, Washington and Nevada that Obama won.  According to Camp Clinton the caucuses weren’t fair so SHE doesn’t count their votes.

Obama started the day with a 200 delegate lead.  Obama ended the day with a 175 delegate lead.  After Puerto Rico, South Dakota and Michigan Obama will need approximately 20 superdelegates to reach the 2118 delegate count needed to clinch the Democratic nomination (2118 is the new number of delegates needed after today’s decisions).

Read “Continuous Update” post for details of discussions before the 3pm break.

 

Paulette