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The superdelegate unity option
The supers have heard Hillary's arguments about electability. Such as the one last week in which she claimed to be winning the popular vote, by which she meant that she had a lead of less than one tenth of one percent if you ignore the "uncommitted" votes in Michigan and ignore four caucuses entirely. Not surprisingly, the superdelegates haven't found her arguments compelling.
Now she's whipping up resentment over MI and FL, and the meeting on 5/31 is going to give her another chance to hurt the party without giving her a realistic shot at winning the nomination (short of some catastrophic event or Obama mega-scandal).
But consider what the superdelegates could do if a sufficiently large number of them were to endorse Obama before the 5/31 meeting. Not enough to give him the nomination, so that Hillary can't say she's been forced out "early". But enough that Obama's team could go to the 5/31 meeting and agree to seat the FL and MI delegates as-is, exactly the way Hillary wants.
The delegates were always going to be included in some fashion, but Hillary gets to claim she won the fight against disenfranchisement (when what she actually did was to hurt Democrats in November by stirring up resentment over something that was never going to happen, as she and everyone else knew).
The race goes into the last few primaries, so Hillary doesn't get to say she was forced out early. She gets to stay in just in case there's some sort of catastrophic event or mega-scandal for Obama, which is really her only chance at this point.
Puerto Rico probably gives her a better claim to winning the popular vote than what she has now. Yes, it's a claim that ignores the caucus/primary differences. And yes, it's a claim that's based on a big block of votes from voters who don't get to vote in the general election. But Hillary gets to make this claim as a face-saving thing, and the supers know that it really has nothing to do with electability. Not that they've been fooled by that argument yet.
MI and FL get seated as-is. But at the same time the risk of chaos (that McAuliffe was so concerned about in 2004) is minimized. Other states that might want to schedule their primaries early will see that MI and FL actually ended up with less clout in the nomination process than if they'd been part of super-duper Tuesday or something soon after that, as originally endorsed by the DNC. So the incentive for other states to challenge the January primary rule in 2012 is diminished.
It would be a nice way to wrap this thing up, tying up a lot of the loose ends in about as good a way as could possibly happen.
How many delegates would it take? By my back-of-the-envelope calculation, about 100 would absolutely make this work. Even if the remaining primaries were to go badly for Obama, they would push him over the top (with the new goalposts).
But 48 supers between now and Friday would be enough, because that puts Obama over the top for the current goalposts, and Obama can then say he had to "win it twice" after letting Hillary move the goalposts with MI and FL.
That's a lot for one week, but the superdelegates have got to be looking for way to get as much unity out of this mess as they possibly can, and the DNC can't allow McAuliffe's chaos scenario to happen, and this is as close to a win/win scenario as we could hope for at this point.
Comments (4)
What often gets lost in the Clinton vs. Obama aspect of this is the party's perspective. I don't think the committee is going to allow full seating/votes regardless of what Obama is willing to agree to. The party can't fail to impose some kind of penalty. Clinton knows this and is exploiting it, I think, because she knows a lack of resolution of this issue is the only thing that can sustain her "cause."
May 27, 2008 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
The party can't fail to impose some kind of penalty, that's true (even McAuliffe recognized that in 2004, although he's ethically flexible enough to take the opposite stance now). But the only thing that's really required is that it must be clear to everyone that FL and MI didn't gain an advantage by breaking the rules.
One way to do that is to seat half the delegates, or something along those lines. But seating them fully, but after the race is essentially over accomplishes the same thing, and in a way that helps take one of Hillary's attacks away from her: she's been pushing the idea that if the delegates aren't "fully counted" (i.e., a one-half penalty or something) then voters in those states will be so upset they'll go to McCain.
And in the scenario I outlined, Hillary gets what she says she wants, but doesn't get what she really wants. She says it's about disenfranchisement. It's really about trying to shuffle the deck and move the goalposts and throw sand in the eyes of the umpire (you may think that's a mixed metaphor, but with Hillary there are always multiple sets of rules being juggled). So if she gets what she says she wants, it largely takes away her ability to stir up dissent over the issue. Not entirely of course, but largely.
May 27, 2008 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
While seating FL and MI the way Hillary wants might seem to be the most expedient option, it is wrong on two levels. As bdh says, not punishing the states for rule-breaking is just wrong.
I would add that caving in to Clinton's outrageous and wholly unreasonable demands also sends the wrong signal. Instead of shutting Hillary up, it will just embolden her.
The only way this horror will end is if Hillary runs out of money (and here I mean really runs out of cash, not just runs up a huge debt). If she doesn't, her undead campaign will shamble on. The Hillzombie is simly Not. Giving. Up.
I really want to be wrong about that.
May 27, 2008 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd like to think that the proposal would end this, but I'm afraid I agree with codegen86 that the Clintons would just spin this as a great vote of confidence that now makes it their God given responsibility to fight on to the convention. There have been too many times to count when opponents and pundits have gone easy on Hillary because they thought she'd finished herself off---only to find that she was irrationally on the attack again. The most recent was when Chuck Todd and others at MSNBC tried, with sad faces, to go easy on her last Friday night after her "A" comments. Before the week-end was over, Hillary was spinning it as all Obama's fault. These are not rational or reasonable---or presidential---people. Soft landings will not be appreciated and taken. Somehow, they're going to have to lose in a very, very, no way in any way left kind of way. We thought we'd been there lots of times, but those times just go to show how marked the defeat will have to be. And it's too darn bad. Nobody wanted that before and nobody wants it now. The Clintons make it very hard to be gracious. As evidenced by Obama's early giving her a pass on the latest gaffe only to be treated to her attack claiming her gaffe trouble is all his fault. She lacks basic grace.
May 27, 2008 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
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