FL and MI

[Mr. Morden]

This doesn't really capture the full spectrum of possibilities.  There's an excellent chance that the nomination will be resolved before the convention w/o FL & MI, and the loser releases his/her delegates, and the winner accepts the FL/MI delegates, but they don't change the outcome.  Also, by all indications, the DNC is already urging them to hold new contests, but the FL/MI Democratic parties aren't interested.

[Mr. Morden]

Btw, Carl Levin and Bill Nelson are decidedly against a revote:

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/archive/2008/02/13/levin-and-nelson-no-revotes.aspx

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I just have a hard time believing that the state party in either state is going to hold a revote of any kind.  They'll just keep demanding that the existing slate of delegates is the legitimate slate, even if they end up losing, and don't get any representation at the convention.

[Mr. Morden]

Amen...does that mean Levin and HRC cannot read or are too damn arrogant to care?

Obviously HRC can read, since, back in October, she defended her decision to leave her name on the ballot in MI in the face of criticism from NH Dems, saying that the election wasn't going to count anyway:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/11/AR2007101100859.html

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[Mr. Morden]

It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal!  You moved your primaries beyond February 5!  You bumped into our earlier states, so you get nothing!  You lose!  Good day, sir!

It's not that simple. If the DNC enforces the rules exactly as they are written, then IA, NH and SC would also lose their delegates since they also moved their voting dates.

DNC rules carves out exemptions for those states, and Iowa also has the "caucus loophole" in its defense (they didn't really select their national delegates then.) This is what got Iowa and Nevada off the hook on the GOP side.

No, Trilobyte is partially correct.  IA and NH *did* break the rules for the scheduling of their caucus/primary, but then the DNC changed the rules to let them have their way.  Basically, the DNC said that the order had to be IA-NV-NH-SC with specific dates for each of the four, and NH said "screw you guys, we're going to hold our primary whenever we feel like it, and we're not going after Nevada".  So IA and NH moved up their primaries to earlier than the DNC allowed.

In fact, the repeated statements by NH that they would just hold their primary whenever they wanted to regardless of the rules is part of what prompted Michigan to move their primary up to Jan. 15.  They said "If NH isn't going to follow the rules, why should we?"

But then the DNC changed the rules in December to make IA & NH's actions legal.  Here's a thread that discusses that, and here's what I wrote at the time:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=65728.msg1352079#msg1352079

With the DNC's work Saturday, the primary calendar appears to be set. The panel approved some final shifting of early contests, approving the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 8, and the South Carolina primary on Jan. 26. The Nevada caucuses had already been approved for Jan. 19.

Wow, talk about caving to IA and NH.  The calendar approved by the DNC last year said that IA could vote no earlier than Jan. 14th and NH could vote no earlier than Jan. 22nd.  The NV caucus was to be held in between those two in order to make a more racially diverse state more important to the process.  Now NH cuts ahead in line, and IA moves ahead as well.  So the original special treatment granted to IA and NH (letting them go in mid-Jan., when most states can't vote until February) wasn't good enough?  Now the DNC will just let them vote whenever they feel like it, while MI and FL are punished for trying to do the same thing?

So really, the DNC's enforcement of the rules was kind of arbitrary, and FL & MI got punished, while IA and NH got away with one.  But the DNC's rule change still happened *before* the voting started, so I agree that it makes no sense to now change the rules *again* to retroactively turn a non-election into an election.

[Mr. Morden]

My personal preference would have been to advocate the seating of the MI and FL delegations from the beginning, and for the DNC to amend the rules to do so, so that there would be no violation of the rules, if possible, and then by 2012, come up with a more complete primary system that better represents 'fairness'.

But understandably, making such an argument before Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina would have opened up attacks from other candidates on the grounds that "Hillary doesn't care what you think, she's pandering to other states, not your state." That kind of state-by-state provincial thinking is stupid, in my view (I would not expect Maryland to receive any kind of preferential treatment), but it would have had an effect in the early primaries.

She is extremely consistent in her reasoning: she sees Michigan and Florida as key states in the general election, and doesn't want the split to hurt the Democrats in these states.

I understand all that.  My point was that she didn't say anything about seating the FL/MI delegates until after IA & NH had voted because she thought saying that might hurt her in those states.  In fact, she even conceded in NH that the MI primary "wasn't going to count for anything".  But then, once she no longer had to pander to voters in IA, NH, NV, & SC, she suddenly starts talking about seating FL & MI delegates.  Nothing you said refutes that.

[Mr. Morden]

Not sure if this was covered before in what J.J. said about the selection of the credentials committee, but:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/16/disallowed_delegates_fate_crucial_to_democrats/?page=2

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[Mr. Morden]

It wouldn't change anything re: FL & MI, but it would change the kind of decision the superdelegates face if Clinton ends up winning the national popular vote while losing the pledged delegate count (not counting FL/MI).