House and Bylaws Committee

5/31/08 - Saturday

As I type this, the house and bylaws committee has yet to make their decision. Senator Arthenia Joyner and Senator Robert Wexler have contributed their thoughts to the deliberations, presenting for the Clinton and Obama campaigns respectively. These were very impassioned presentations and I was especially motivated by Senator Joyner. There was a little tussle between Harold Ickes of the Committee (who is also serving as Senior Campaign Advisor of the Clinton campaign) and Wexler. Nothing that’s of consequence I’m certain. What’s interesting is how everyone is asking almost exclusively for one-hundred percent representation of the delegates being counted. With Florida, I’m more sympathetic about this approach; it was a Republican legislature that intervened into the timing of that primary – which was wrong on my party’s part. I need to investigate it further, but if that is true, then I would say that it’s enough to give the people of Florida at least fifty percent of the delegation. After hearing Bill Nelson, if his story plays out, I’m only stronger in my conviction that this was the case but who knows.

Michigan’s primary has the distinguished honor of accumulating a great deal of my ire. Carl Levin is now speaking on behalf of the Michigan Democratic Party and let it be known that their sense of entitlement to seating all the delegates is not persuasive to me; it is the tone and manner in which he is trying to veil the fact that the Democratic Party in Michigan broke the rules in this case by their own accord that is an issue of discord with me. It was self-righteous for Mr. Levin to state that sense New Hampshire got a waiver of the new party rules to remain as the second in the nation to contribute to the nomination process that Michigan should receive the same preference or indulgence. It was disingenuous for Mr. Levin to place his argument in the context of representation of minorities in the primary process; that was a larger issue, and in my important, a much more important and lasting issue than the issue being deliberated – yes, Iowa and New Hampshire are predominantly states with a white majority and minorities do not have a large say in terms of the first two primaries. Was it a great idea to have two states that were more representative of the nation’s minorities involved? Yes. Was it commendable to give Nevada and South Carolina the right to have their primaries between Iowa and New Hampshire to diversify the votes? Yes. As a means to veil the fact that Michigan’s violation of the rules, it fails miserably.

Then there’s Mark Brewer’s alleged allocation idea which was deemed as An Alice in Wonderland by a few Committee members. Besides being a great Republican talking point it’s quite a credible label; both Brewer, Michigan Democratic Party Chairman, and David Bonior, Presenter for Barack Obama if I recall correctly, support the view that because everyone but Clinton, Kucinich, and Gravel, dropped out of the Michigan primary race the only fair way for the delegates to be seated is for the those uncommitted delegates to go to Obama. What Harold Ickes mentioned was that if their plan is followed, Clinton would be stripped four delegates for no reason. There was also the thorny issue (as if everything about the Michigan primary isn’t) about precedent. I’m glad that the Democrats considered the precedent they would be setting if they adopt this plan. The allocation of the delegates would be determined by assertions rather than concrete facts.

What are these assertions that Brewer and Bonior subscribe to in order to determine the delegate allocation? They were based off of exit polls and an assumption about how the 300,000 write-in votes which were not counted would have gone; primarily for Obama according to Brewster, but the Democrats weren’t drinking from that well and rightly so. If the Convention can come in and decide how the uncommitted delegates should vote based off of exit polls that’s a dangerous precedent. What’s even more egregious is the obvious problem with exit polling, which Ickes, I believe, was quick to recall. If exit polls were correct than New Hampshire would have been cited as the death knell for the Clinton campaign and Kerry may have won. It was simply too much of a manipulation and violation of the rules.

Donna Brazil was right and provided one of the best quotes of the day. After congratulating the presenter for Clinton in the case of Michigan on behalf of his mother’s birthday, Brazil mentioned that she was sure that his mother had taught him to play by the rules, and that when you change the rules mid-game or end-game, that’s called cheating.

The really sad thing about this is if the Democrats had simply taken a move out of the Republican playbook to begin with this would have been settled months ago. We handled Wyoming, Florida and Michigan by only giving them half their delegations. All three primaries were pivotal points of the primary season as well despite their delegations being halved. Wyoming was the first state Romney won. Michigan was Romney’s last chance to lend credibility to his campaign and if he had lost the state his father had been governor after a string of losses, his campaign would have ended much sooner. Florida was the death knell for Guiliani and gave McCain’s campaign the closed primary victory it needed to send a signal to conservatives that McCain was capable of coalescing the base and winning states even when independents could not lend him support.

Finally, there was one person on C-SPAN who called in to say that this shows how disorganized the Democrats are that they can’t follow their own rules and that this whole process demonstrates that. I’m a bit more hopeful; I think this is democracy at work. I just think it was a bit unnecessary.

Note: I need to find out what that whole “fair reflection” business is.

P.S. I loved how the presenters used the veil of “unity” when someone threatened their view. Carl Levin used this technique; the Michigan Democrat party is already unified, don’t de-unify us! Yeah, well, maybe if you had followed the rules to begin with…