The Four Michigan Delegates Obama Now Has Didn't Belong To Clinton To Start

The Four Michigan Delegates Obama Now Has Didn't Belong To Clinton To Start

At the historic DNC Rules Committee of Saturday May 31, 2008, both Florida and Michigan delegates were seated but with 50 percent of the common voting power each and with Senator Clinton receiving 69 delegates and Senator Obama gaining 59 delegates. The total number is 128 delegates, so the 50 percent split mark would be 64 delegates.

The Clinton camp, lead by Senior Campaign Advisor Harold Ickes, claims that they were forced to give 4 delegates to Senator Obama. Before we take on their claim, let's give it a closer look.

The charge of Ickes and others, like Clinton campaign supporter Lanny Davis, is that Clinton should have gotten 73 delegates and "uncommitted" 55. When they didn't get their way, Ickes, claiming to speak for Senator Clinton, but really, I think got carried away, said they were going to take their fight to the DNC Convention.



They will lose the fight again if they do.

The reason is that Senator Clinton kept her name on the Michigan ballot, whereas Senator Obama, Senator Edwards, Governor Bill Richardson, and the other Democratic Presidential candidates took their name off the ballot, because they, and Senator Clinton, knew and admitted that the "Michigan primary would not count."

The remainder was the "uncommitted" vote, which, when the actual Michigan primary was held against DNC rules -- which told the state not to hold its primary ahead of the schedule orginally set for it by and with the DNC -- became an unusually large percentage of the vote, something like 30 percent of the total.

The Clinton people base their delegate estimate on that actual voting outcome, and say that the legitimacy of the Michigan process rests in the 600,000 people who voted in that state. That's the basis for the anger of some Clinton people like Ickes. And here's the major problem.

The delegates never actually belonged to the Clinton campaign, but to the DNC, because Michigan was stripped of its delegates by the DNC, which the DNC Rules Committee has the power to do, and did.

Because of that fact, the DNC Rules Committee could come up with any scenario they could and had the votes to pass, and that's what happened. The Rules Committee could have elected to do absolutely nothing and have a "zero-delegate" outcome, which means Senator Clinton would have no delegates seated from Michigan. Those delegates would be allocated by the DNC because, again, the DNC stripped Michigan of its delegates to start with.

And regarding the 600,000 voters, there's a great argument and study that suggests as many as 1 million people did not vote in Michigan because they were under the impression the primary would not count by the view of the DNC. And they were right. The DNC stripped Michigan of delegates.

Because of this, delegates were malleable by the DNC. In other words, because Michigan was stripped of delegates, the DNC could give life to and then shape and mold the delegate count and split as it chose to do so, and it did just that.

The DNC was well within its right to do what it did, and Senator Clinton in reality had no right to any number of delegates. She, like the other candidates including Senator Obama, was at the mercy of the DNC Rules Committee.

Harold Ickes knows this, and admitted on today's Meet The Press show with Tim Russert, that the reason the Clinton people and Senator Clinton said that they knew Michigan wasn't going to count. Here's what Ickes said on MTP today:

MR. ICKES: Michigan was, in fact, a real primary. Six hundred thousand people voted, Tim, compared, compared, compared to 160,000 in '04, which had a high--which had a real, live primary as well.

MR. RUSSERT: Then why did Senator Clinton say it wasn't going to count for anything?

MR. ICKES: I think at that time people were focused on Super Tuesday, and a lot of us did not feel that it was going to go beyond that.

Wow.

Think about that. I also can't believe Tim Russert didn't hammer Ickes on that statement because Harold just admitted on national television that the reason Clinton didn't concern herself with "defending Michigan" at the time was really because they didn't think they were going to need the delegates to win.

Wow.

So now that they're counting every delegate from here to Mars, suddenly challenging DNC rules and working some weird form of Jedi-mind trick on hapless political pundits , Michigan suddenly counts and the count must favor them.

That's not the way it works. Here's the bottom line: Florida and Michigan were stripped of their delegates, the DNC thus had the right to create delegates and shape and mold the delegste split, and as it turned out Senator Obama had the votes in the DNC Rules Committee -- including from Clinton supporters -- to achieve the outcome we see before us now.

End game.

Clinton Supporter Harriet Christian Racist Rant Shows Worst Of America

After the DNC Rules Committee, Harriet Christian, a Clinton supporter from Manhattan who's voice you could hear at various parts of the committee meeting and louder as it became apparent that Senator Clinton was not going to get a significant gain from any decision the group made, let loose with a totally racist rant that shows the worst of America and reveals every stereotype anyone had about people who support Hillary Clinton.

UPDATE: Who is Harriet Christian and what of racist Clinton supporters?

Harriet says she's proud to be an American Woman. "The Democrats are throwing the election away; for what? An inadequate Black male?, she said. Here's the full text of her comments:

"I'm proud to be an older American woman....

"The Democrats are throwing the election away. For what? An inadequate black male, who would not have been running had it not been a white woman that was running for president? And I'm not gonna shut my mouth anymore. I can be called white, but you can't be called black. That's not my America. It's equality for all of us. It's about time we all stood up for it. I'm no second class citizen, and God damn the Democrats....

"I came here for the vote of every American, and our Democratic Party threw us down the tubes. I was a second class citizen before, now I'm nothing. Why? Because they want to do what they want to do. And they think we won't turn and vote for McCain. Well, I got news for all of you: McCain will be the next president of the United States."

I wonder if Hillary Clinton thinks the same way. Given the way she and Bill Clinton ran their campaign, there's a lot of evidence that points to the affirmative response.

Here's the video...



And this response from YouTuber BrandonKeatingSr:

DNC Rules Committee May 31st Meeting Video Clip Series

This is a great May 31st 2008 DNC Rules Committee video series created by sallj2007 on YouTube. The ultimate result of these deliberations was that the delegates from both Florida and Michigan were seated with one-half of the vote for each delegate. The new delegate total is 2,118, with Senator Obama now at 2,052, needing 66 to win, and Senator Clinton at 1,877.5 delegates, 240.5 short of the number needed to win.

Here's the series:

Part 1:



Part 2:



Part 3:



Part 4:



Part 5



Part 6



Part 7



Part 8



Part 9



Part 10 - Reporter Summary of Events



Part 11 - Chuck Todd Summary

Donna Brazile Tells Jim Blanchard You Gotta Play By The Rules At DNC Rules Committee Meeting

CNN Contributor and undeclared Democratic Superdelegate Donna Brazile tells Clinton supporter and former Governor Jim Blanchard that her "mama told her you gotta play by the rules" in response to his speech on seating delegates in a way that favors Senator Clinton.

It was long believed that Brazile favored Hillary Clinton but any movement by Brazile in Clinton's favor was destroyed long ago by the antics of Clinton supporters sending nasty emails to the Dem power-broker regarding an assumed pro-Obama stance. Moreover, Brazile has not been pleased with some of the racially charged campaigning by Clinton and her staff.

Given the mic, Brazile reminded us all that the reason this meeting of the DNC Rules Committee was called is that both Florida and Michigan did not play by the rules set for by the DNC Rules Committee last year.