There oughta be a law…

…but at least we've got Weiner's Rule...

One, don't make dumb proposals.

Simple enough, and sufficient to put the Republicans out of business.

Never mind.

Predictably, the Obama campaign has moved to avoid a meaningless credentials fight over delegates from Florida and Michigan, proposing to seat them with full voting rights. Since Hillary has announced that she won't be nominated on the floor in Denver, restoring the delegations without contest has absolutely no consequence in terms of the nomination.

There's some rumbling about the implications of this move on the future of the nominating calendar and process. I wouldn't place too much stake in those prospects. While I support seating the delegations at full strength now, it's not because I think they were right then. It's because it just doesn't matter anymore and we're a big tent party. It's time to get over it - until next time, anyway.

As far as next time goes, there will continue to be internal tussles about rules and calendars, caucuses and primaries. I wouldn't count on wholesale changes coming out of this convention, though. After all, the process in question is the one that Obama won. The convention will be, in a sense, a celebration of that process. Obama loyalists will control the convention and its committees, and they're likely to be pretty satisfied with the way things turned out this time around.

Of course, at some point the delegates will, in some pro-forma bit of business, pass the ball to the National Committee for continuing refinement and supervision of the rules for 2012. Whatever's done in Denver, it won't be over. There will be plenty of opportunity for the intramural squabbling that our Party is renowned for, but the convention won't show much evidence of that. We're convening to celebrate Barack. We can fight later.

I figured…

…all along that the Michida? Florigan? matter would be resolved at a time and in a way that would, ultimately, make no difference in the nomination contest. The decisions reached today by the DNC Rules Committee accomplished just that. Hunter sums up the bottom line...

Yesterday, Obama needed 41 delegate votes to clinch the nomination; Clinton needed 244.

Today, Obama needs 64 votes; Clinton needs 240.5.

There are 291 delegates remaining.

…and Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

I don't have much to quibble with, but I'm still a bit disturbed about the decision to assign uncommitted delegates to anyone. I hope that when the Obama campaign compiles its list, they include all their supporters who took the time and trouble to run on the uncommitted line. Any who didn't are likely now sympathetic Edwards supporters, and Senator Obama should take care of them, as well. That's inside Michigan baseball stuff, though, and I don't claim any special understanding of the game.

One thing assigning delegates to Obama does, though, is disprove this point from Gilbert Martinez at The Democratic Daily...

By seating the delegates in any fashion, the RBC legitimized the popular vote tallies from FL and MI. This means Hillary can legitimately claim a net of over 600,000 votes today.

It doesn't do anything of the kind, of course. Though Obama received no votes in Michigan, granting him delegates is, in effect, determining the will of some percentage of voters, and they would have to be included in any vaguely equitable count, if such a thing were possible. Of course, it's not. There is no popular vote, not in any measurable national sense, at least. There are a series of statewide processes, some elections, some caucuses, some combinations, that offer different choices in different manners at different times. It's not apples and oranges. It's apples, oranges, bananas, pears, mangos, kumquats, plums and then some. That's why Gilbert's exactly correct when he says...

No news source should report total popular vote numbers that don’t include the tallies from FL and MI.

No news source should, in fact, report total popular vote numbers at all.

There's no such thing.

Hi ho, hi ho....

...off to work. The DNC Rules committee should have a ruling by the time I'm back. Hope so, anyway. See ya' later...

Amazing?

Matthew Dowd, via ABC News...

“What is amazing to me is that she has got a camp filled with DNC operatives. These are the people who essentially created the rules. She has been in the game a long time. It’s not as if she’s new to this and didn’t know better. Her campaign is run by the insiders who have been running the party for the past 16 years.”

Well, not to all of us, I suppose. True, though. And revealing.

Hat tip to Len at First Door On The Left.

Yep.

Charlie Cook…

...you can’t change how the game is played once it has begun. The Democrats have decided that the nominee will be determined by the number of delegates won, not by the popular vote, and that primaries held in direct violation of party rules (in this case, Florida’s and Michigan’s) don’t count. End of discussion.

Rules are rules, and we can't be the Party of the rule of law, caretakers of a government of laws rather than of men, if we don't follow them.

Well, no…

…he doesn't actually have super powers, Bill Clinton's claims notwithstanding…

PARIS, KY. -- Bill Clinton raised the issue of seating FL and MI's delegates again today, telling a Kentucky audience that Barack Obama's camp is "desperate to disenfranchise" those states. He said Obama's team wants to prevent votes from being counted in upcoming states because they "know she can" win.

In fact, it's not within Barack Obama's power to disenfranchise anyone in the Democratic delegate selection process. That's a matter between the Democratic National Committee and the respective State Committees. The leadership of the Michigan and Florida Democratic Parties chose to use the results of procedures which they understood at the time of their decision were in violation of the Party rules. Whatever the reasons for their decisions, whether Republican mischief, pandering to local broadcasters hungry for early primary ad revenues or, well, whatever, they decided to break the rules, telling themselves that the national Party wouldn't dare enforce its rules. Michigan and Florida, after all, are too big, too important, too likely to provide make or break electoral votes in November. Obviously, states of such political import are above the rules, right.

Well, no again. It turns out that the people who make the rules and the people charged with enforcing the rules take the rules rather seriously. They've informed the Florida and Michigan Democrats that until they follow an approved delegate selection plan that respects the rules that the other 48 states and the various territorial and expatriate delegations have managed to adhere to, they needn't bother showing up.

Of course, it's not exactly 'disenfranchisement,' because absent an approved delegate selection process in the first place, there's no enfranchisement. Similarly, 're-vote' is a misnomer in this context, since there's never been a vote in an actual Democratic delegate selection process. All we've had in those states is what we were forced to endure here in the upper left - a state sanctioned straw poll conducted without the proper sanction of the Democratic Party. Of course, here in Washington, respectful of the rules, we don't use the state straw poll to select our delegates.

Nope, folks, it's not Obama. He didn't have the power to cause the problem, he doesn't have the power to solve the problem and he doesn't have the power to forestall a solution. He's something, alright, but he's not all that.

As far as votes in upcoming states, I haven't heard anyone suggest that the calendar be scrubbed. Every upcoming primary and caucus will be held, and there's nothing Barack Obama can do to stop those votes from being counted. We will not see an army of chino-clad Obamanites descending on Guam to stop the count by threats and intimidation. In every case, Democrats will vote, ballots will be tallied and the results will be announced. All within the rules of the Democratic Party.

I get that there's an element of anti-establishment sentiment out there, a small 'l' libertarianism that chafes at the concept of rules. I don't expect to find it among our presidential candidates or their top-tier surrogates. Overriding every other
issue in this election is the need to restore the principles of Constitutional government in the conduct of our national affairs. Enduring peace depends on it. Civil liberties are meaningless without it. Tax codes are trifles beside it. No, for Democratic victory to be meaningful, it must be a victory for the Constitution as well.

So, again, how can we be the Party of the rule of law if we aren't a Party that follows the rules?

And Bill? No she can't. But we could all lose.

Quote of the day.

Via Political Wire…

"If there is simply a caving on this, we'll end up with primaries on Halloween."

DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee Chairman James Roosevelt Jr., in an interview with the Boston Globe, saying Florida and Michigan delegates will not be seated at the Democratic convention.

Sic 'em, Mr. Chairman! We can't claim t0 be the Party of the rule of law if we can't follow our own rules.

The Solomon Solution.

Todd at The Blue State likes it...

Make both Florida and Michigan split their delegates 50-50 between Obama and Clinton, then call it done.

Me? Not so much.

The solution is for the Democratic central committees of Florida and Michigan to submit new delegate selection plans to the DNC and follow them to assemble a slate of delegates to the National Convention. It doesn't matter what mechanism they use as long as the DNC approves, and I've got a hunch the DNC would cast a pretty approving eye on almost anything rational. Those are the rules, that's all that matters.

Seating the MI and FL delegations only on the condition that they be, in effect, irrelevant? I really don't get the appeal.

This isn't about the nomination. This is about the rules, the only real infrastructure the Party has. If we don't enforce those rules, do we really have a Party at all?

Truth…

From Joe Sudbay...

It's always the loser who wants to change the rules.