A primer on tomorrow's DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting

Tomorrow is probably one of the most – if not the most – important days for Democrats this primary season, as the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee will be deciding what to do about the disputed Florida and Michigan delegates.

MSNBC’s First Read and the LAT have good primers up discussing what’s at stake, what the candidates’ arguments will be, and what’s at stake.

Hillary, of course, will be pushing for a full, unpenalized seating of Florida and Michigan delegates, and making her “popular votes” and “electability” arguments, while the Obama campaign – which has pledged to go “more than halfway” to resolve this dispute – will say it’s in favor of seating the Florida and Michigan delegations but obviously not in a way that would give Hillary Clinton any advantage over him. The BO campaign will also press their (correct) case that that the primary process is not about the popular vote but who has the most delegates, an argument they started laying the ground work for earlier this month.

Obama has asked his supporters not to protest tomorrow’s meeting of the minds (they’ll be there anyway), while Hillary’s contingent will be pounding the streets and making their own case for the DNC to “count every vote.”

Marc Ambinder tackles the argument some are making that the DNC accepting any of these Clinton challenges to the process (in terms of seating FL and MI) will dilute their power enforce existing DNC rules on the books as it relates to primary scheduling:

One argument made by those who don’t want the RBC to accept any of the challenges is that the DNC would lose all of its legitimacy and would not be able to enforce anything resembling a coherent calendar in 2012 or 2016; if states knew that their delegations would be fully or partially restored even if they broke the rules, they’d have no incentive to follow them in the first place.

But this isn’t exactly true: the reason why candidates Clinton and Obama didn’t campaign in Florida and Michigan had as much to do with the pledge they signed to stay out; one could envision a scenario where Iowa and New Hampshire and Nevada and South Carolina create a similar pledge for the next crop of candidates, and even though a plethora of states decide to go early, the campaigns will reluctantly sign the pledge for fear of alienating the earliest of early states. Of course, a potential candidate could view the carnage of 2008 and just as easily conclude that an angry Iowa isn’t as important as a major victory in Florida or Michigan. Then again, Republican Rudy Giuliani completed that calculus, and a lotta good it did him….

The meeting starts at 9:30 AM ET. Michelle Malkin notes that CSPAN will be carrying coverage of tomorrow’s events.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall when the DNC party elites converge …

Eli_Blake says:

May 30, 2008 at 12:12 pm

As a Democrat (yeah, there are a few of us who are masochistic enough to come by here and read your rants) I’d like to suggest that in large part the states already punished themselves.

The reason they moved their primaries up was to get the attention, the voice in the process and the campaign and media spending dollars that they felt they deserved. Instead, in the most compelling Democratic race in decades, they got to watch it unfold and got no attention from the candidates, had no voice and got no media or campaign spending. Of course Florida did have a big say in selecting the GOP nominee, but Michigan didn’t even get that, as only two Republicans really campaigned there and it ended up producing Mitt Romney’s biggest primary win (which wasn’t all that big, really.)

One can only wonder what was going through the minds of some leaders in Michigan and Florida as they watched six weeks of exclusive coverage and tens of millions of dollars being lavished on Pennsylvania and its ‘one-for-the-whole-month-of-April’ primary.

That said, the rules were clear, and Obama has a case that since the voters were told their votes wouldn’t count a lot of independents and possibly potential crossover Republicans (both groups that favor Obama) voted a Republican ballot because it was the only game in town.

I’d be in favor of any solution for seating the delegations that doesn’t overturn the results as determined by following the rules (i.e. any solution that doesn’t change the overall result from what it would be as of June 3 if the two states are not counted.)

Otherwise it would be like a football team that is down by ten points but has time for one last Hail Mary calling a timeout to ask the referees to change the rules so that a last second touchdown will now be worth eleven points.

Jeff Harvey says:

May 30, 2008 at 8:20 pm

Funny, I never thought ST was a ranter. I mean with DU, Kos, Olbermann, Rosie, Huffington, Joy Behar and co., ST is a Little Leaguer at best. I guess rant has a new meaning now.
Getting on-topic, I can’t see Hillary going out with grace. She may leave, but it will be the most begrudging departure in history.