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A reform effort to take away party bigwigs’ presidential-nominating power suffers a setback. Before 2008, your average American might not have known what a Democratic Party superdelegate was. But that year these mysterious party insiders became a feature of the daily news cycle as the fierce presidential-primary battle swept across the country. In a neck-and-neck race, the party confronted the very real possibility that these unelected delegates to its national convention might support Hillary Clinton in sufficient numbers to give her the nomination, despite Barack Obama’s slim but indisputable lead among pledged delegates, who are assigned by the results of...

Eighteen months removed from a protracted presidential primary fight, a group of Democrats gathered by President Obama has recommended that the party effectively eliminate the influence of so-called superdelegates by redefining their voting power. The Democratic Change Commission, which was convened last August to examine the nominating process, is recommending that superdelegates -- also known as unpledged delegates -- be required to vote along with the electoral majority of their state. "We need to show deference to what the party members in our state have done," said Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, one of the co-chairmen of the commission.

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Barack Obama's campaign will call next week for the creation of a new commission to revise the rules for selecting a presidential nominee in 2012 with a goal of reducing the power of superdelegates, whose role became a major point of contention during the long battle between Obama and Hillary Clinton. The commission also will be urged to redraw the calendar for 2012 to avoid starting the primaries and caucuses so early, and also to look specifically at assuring more uniform rules and standards for those caucuses.

Shortly before noon Wednesday, a possible shooting was reported at the State Democratic Party Headquarters in Little Rock. Dozens of police cars are on the scene at 1300 West Capitol, and at least one ambulance was seen leaving as KARK 4 crews arrived. MEMS ambulance officials confirm one person was transported to the hospital from the scene. Shortly after noon, police were reported to be in pursuit of a suspect in the incident on a Little Rock interstate. ~ snip ~

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The seriousness Bill Gwatney brought to his political maneuvering was absent as he advertised his three car dealerships. He sometimes hoisted a giant inflatable dragon atop a showroom and dubbed it "Gwatzilla." The name followed him to the state Senate, where he built a reputation for being tough and outspoken, but also detailed and fiscally astute. "I'm abrupt," Gwatney once told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "I have a zero threshold for insignificant facts. I will cut people off if they don't answer my question." Gwatney, who served stints as an Arkansas state senator and chairman of the...

Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones was admitted to Huron Hospital in East Cleveland Tuesday tonight. The family requested that the hospital not release any information about her condition. The Cleveland Heights police department is to put out a news release in the morning about the incident. WOIO Channel 19 is reporting that Tubbs Jones was behind the wheel of a car moving fast in Cleveland Heights. Police tried to pull her over but she was unconscious. Nicole Williams, spokeswoman for the 11th District congresswoman, had no information about the incident.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- A man barged into the Arkansas Democratic headquarters and opened fire Wednesday, fatally shooting the state party chairman before speeding off in his pickup. Police later shot and killed the suspect after a 30-mile chase. Police said they don't know the motive for the 51-year-old suspect, whose name has not been released. However, they said moments after the shooting, he pointed a handgun at the building manager at the nearby the Arkansas Baptist headquarters. He told the manager "I lost my job," said Dan Jordan, a Baptist convention official. Chairman Bill Gwatney died four hour...

Will Hillary outsmart Obama and take the nomination at the last minute? Many of us familiar with Hillary Clinton's approach to achieving her goals refused to believe that she ever gave up all hope of winning the nomination and the presidency. Her words and actions on the subject of the convention itself always left the door open for a return, should Obama falter or suffer some calamity.  Her artful evasions were enough to lull journalists and (more importantly) Obama and his supporters into the presumption of inevitability. No further rumblings of a mass protest in Denver should the first black candidate be denied his...

"Hillary Clinton told a group of supporters recently that she has not yet decided whether she will put her name in for a roll-call vote at the Democratic convention in Denver later this month.......Never count Hitlery out!

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Now that Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic nomination for president, he wants convention delegates from Florida and Michigan to have full voting rights at the party's national convention. Obama sent a letter Sunday to the party's credentials committee, asking members to reinstate the delegates' voting rights when the committee meets at the start of the convention in Denver. The delegates were originally stripped because the two states violated party rules by holding primaries before Feb. 5. The delegates from each state were given half-votes at a contentious party meeting in May, as part of a compromise...

Not much love between the Obamites and the Hillary PUMAs..to say the least! See thread content below: (7-28-08) Negative Super Responses to PumaPac (PumaPac) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PumaPAC is collecting all responses from Supers and the DNC that are ..hum...less then respectful to the voter expressing their opinion and/or asking that they continue to, or switch, support to HRC, as well as work to allow her name to be placed in nomination. Plans are being made to use them as the GE draws closer. If you are a PumaPAC member you have the addy they asked these types of responses be mailed...

MADISON, WI -- Wisconsin Democrats on Friday ousted a delegate to their national convention for saying she would vote for Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain in November.Embarrassed by a defection in their ranks, the Wisconsin Democratic Party's administrative committee voted 23-0 to strip Debra Bartoshevich of her status as a delegate to the Denver convention next month. Bartoshevich was elected by party activists as a pledged delegate for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton from the 1st Congressional District in southeastern Wisconsin. But after Clinton dropped out of the race, Bartoshevich told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel she would support McCain over...

Debra Bartoshevich received e-mail notification Monday evening about a conference call to decide her fate as a delegate. Rachel Strauch-Nelson, communications director for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said the group also tried to reach Bartoshevich by phone Monday afternoon. The conference call will take place Friday and Bartoshevich will have an opportunity to explain why she should remain a delegate despite her reported endorsement for Republican presidential candidate John McCain. ORIGINAL STORY: Members of Wisconsin’s Democratic Party will vote Friday on the delegate status of Debra Bartoshevich, a Democratic National Convention delegate from Waterford who has publicly supported Republican...

Caught this via a Luciannne to Alegre’s Corner to Powerline link… all hitting the blogosphere yesterday. Politico documents the DNC happy face is all but that under the surface. It appears that the DNC leadership is feeling left out in the cold with BHO not checking in to coordinate his campaign talking points with them. And as the party leadership smiles, their underling staffers are whining: Privately, however, there is a different message coming from some Democratic quarters on the Hill and on K Street. Some Democratic leadership staffers complain that, having defeated the vaunted Clinton political machine in the...

Big news folks - it looks like our efforts in contacting those Superdelegates are starting to pay off, so keep on writing to them (ok, maybe Donna B's a waste of time). There are unconfirmed reports, based on phone banking efforts to reach out to Super Ds, that eight previously Obama SDs expressed that, given the opportunity, they would vote for Hillary at the convention. I heard about an interview Will Bower of PUMA did recently, where he said delegates are starting to say they'll vote for Hillary in Denver if the DNC did the right thing and ran an...

Well-meaning, often first-time voters gush that it has been exciting that at last they could choose either a black or a woman... race and gender have emerged as credentials of their own... The undemocratic processes of the Democratic party, normally confined to urban political machines like Chicago's, have been enhanced this year by the party's manipulations in Florida and Michigan, and in the cynical system of superdelegates... The Democratic nominee has stated that the Iraq war already has been lost. Despite this falsehood, Mr. Obama declares that it is the president who has misled our country. Although he has the...

How Many Rights Are Democrats Willing to Forfeit? by Frank Salvato With the announcement that Hillary Clinton is abandoning her quest for the Oval Office the Democrat National Committee (DNC) - and specifically the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee - has effectively selected the candidate for their party. I say selected because, by construct, the decision making process was taken away from the party faithful and placed in the hands of an elitist class of party insiders. These party insiders - superdelegates and the DNC Executive Committee - have literally usurped the will of the people by marginalizing the popular...

Some of Clinton's closest supporters - the nearly two dozen House Democrats from her home state of New York - switched their endorsements to Obama Thursday.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm isn't switching her support quite yet to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. Granholm and Lieutenant Governor John Cherry both endorsed New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton last October. They're among seven Michigan Democratic superdelegates who backed Clinton. Fifteen support Obama, with one more expected to endorse Friday. Granholm spokeswoman Liz Boyd said Thursday that, while the governor has made it clear she'll support the Democratic nominee, she won't make a formal statement supporting Obama until after Clinton announces a decision on her campaign. Clinton plans to hold an event in Washington...