Declaring Voter Intent From Above
June 2nd, 2008 by Brad FIn what I can only describe as a procedural catastrophe, the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee awarded the Michigan delegates 69 for Hillary and 59 for Obama, each with half a vote. Once the decision was made to seat delegates from Michigan, which I will mention at the end, the scheme in which these were awarded is truly mind boggling.
Hillary “won” the Michigan primary with 55% to Obama’s 0%, since he was not on the ballot. The rest broke down 40% uncommitted, 4% Kucinich, 1% Dodd. Those numbers, after removing candidates who have since dropped out, gives 73 delegates to Clinton and 55 uncommitted.
The Clinton camp argued, and rightly so in my opinion, that the stripping of 4 delegates Clinton earned by her percentage of the vote and then reallocating them to Obama is an unprecedented move. Think about it, the Obama majority on the Rules panel did not like how Michigan voted so they simply ignored the will of the people and apportioned delegates how they saw fit. Harold Ickes put it nicely that this is probably not how Democrats should go about building party unity.
Second, since Obama’s name did not appear on the ballot, the DNC elite hearkened their best Florida 2000 impression and declared voter intent by fiat. What percent of those uncommitted would have voted for Edwards and not Obama? I doubt anyone knows, but the DNC rules committee declared that number was approximately zero, and awarded all uncommitted delegates to Obama.
I am wondering what the Obama camp was afraid of that they resorted to these tactics? The delegate math would not have shifted all that much if the Michigan numbers were respected like Florida and 55 delegates, each with half a vote, went to convention uncommitted, Obama will still win the primary. This is the same party that gives us the superdelegate system and awards Puerto Rico more votes than 27 states, so maybe this decision is just business as usual.
As I mentioned at the top, if the DNC wanted to set a strong precedent to adhere to the rules set at the start of the primary, Michigan and Florida delegates should not have been seated at all. In my mind, that would have been the proper and orderly way to go.
