Posted on 04/19/2008 8:05:01 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
You may be unfamiliar with the website, Politico. It is popular on the Internet, but only with political junkies. People who want to read stories about the inside baseball of politics, the little steps behind the scenes which wind up controlling the visible, public results. If you find that subject as dull as ditch water, skip this column. Otherwise, read on.
Today (19 April) Politico ran an article by Avi Zenilman, entitled The Dean 25 could decide Clinton's fate. The article points out that the Credentials Committee of the Democrat National Convention will first get the issues of seating the Florida and Michigan delegations. (In case you forgot, Florida and Michigan both violated Democrat National Committee rules by setting their primaries too early. Only Hillary Clinton was on the Michigan ballot. None of the Democrat candidates campaigned in either state.)
The DNC penalty for these states violations was to declare, in advance, that their delegates would not be seated at the Convention. Are you with me so far?
The Credentials Committee has 186 members, of whom 161 are chosen based on the primary and caucus results in the various states, and 25 are appointed by Howard Dean, former candidate for President himself (remember the Dean Scream after Iowa in 2004?). Zenilmans article then states that it is virtually impossible for Clinton to win enough of the 161 members to have a majority in her favor. He also writes that it is highly unlikely that Barack Obama will get majority control of the Credentials Committee, either.
Lastly he points out that the 25 Dean appointees to the Committee will dominate the majority on the Committee. Therefore, they will control the Committees conclusion about seating some kind of Florida and Michigan delegates.
Without going into chapter and verse, I agree with all those statements and conclusions. It is only his final conclusion, that the Dean 25 therefore have the election fate of Hillary Clinton in their hands, which is flat-out wrong. There have been numerous articles in the Mainstream Media with the same conclusion. Because Politico is a student of inside baseball in politics, I expected they would get this story right. They did not.
As a former parliamentarian for a national political convention, and participant in quite a few other political conventions, I can describe how the delegate seating process actually works:
All delegates whose elections or appointments are not contested, are seated. Disputes over any delegation or individual are submitted to the Credentials Committee. Meanwhile, the main Convention, through its non-contested delegates, chooses its officers and sets its rules of operation.
In due course, the Credentials Committee reports its conclusions about disputed delegates or delegations to the floor of the Convention. The essential point is, however, that the Committee decision is not final. The Convention must act on those proposals. It can accept or reject them, do what the Committee recommends, or do the exact opposite.
So, it does not matter who controls the Credentials Committee. It only matters who controls the floor of the Convention.
Whoever has the majority of the votes on the floor BEFORE the Michigan and Florida issues come to the floor, will still have the majority AFTER those issues are decided. If the Credentials Committee recommends any alternative which would reverse the existing majority on the floor, its recommendation will be rejected. Anyone who doubts this need only read the history of the 1968 Democrat Convention in Chicago. It refused to seat the entire, elected Mississippi delegation, and seated in their place a group of citizens from Mississippi who were more politically correct, in the eyes of the Convention.
In 2008, this is hardball politics at its highest. Unless Hillary Clinton both wins Pennsylvania strongly, and then pulls a highly unlikely upset in North Carolina, Barack Obama will go to the Democrat Convention with a majority of the uncontested delegates (not counting Florida or Michigan). Therefore, the compromise his delegates on the floor will allow for those two states will be to divide those delegates between him and Clinton so his majority remains intact.
There is only one number you should watch to know the outcome, committed delegates going into the Convention (not counting Florida and Michigan). That number by itself will tell you who will be the Democrat nominee for President. All the rest is smoke and mirrors as the press, and the likely loser Hillary Clinton, try to pretend otherwise.
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About the Author: John Armor practiced in the US Supreme Court for 33 years. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu He is running for the 11th Congressional District of North Carolina. - 30 -
John / Billybob
Again, I have issues with McCain, but he's much more preferable than either of the two of them.
So don’t leave us in suspense. Who will control the floor of the convention?
I’m already stocking up on popcorn.
Dean is lucky dueling went out of style. Alexander Hamilton died in duel for those kinds of manipulations of a presidential election.
Thank you so much for your insight. Your vast wisdom on this topic is a blessing to all.
Well, I couldn’t have written what you just wrote, not being an aficionado of “inside baseball” or a respecter of its “infallibility”, or the opinions of “experts” who so often happen to be wrong, in long-forgotten retrospect, but I can only tell you what I’ve been saying in numerous other threads for the last two months , even at the peak of the Obama surge, before Wright, his wife, Reszko, the Ayers connection, lapel pins, bitterness, etc. or anything else, began tarnishing his image, that HILLARY will be the Dem nominee. However that works out via delegates, superdelegates, projected popular vote, or visions seen in the smoke of smoke-filled rooms, Hillary will get it.
Whatever visions of tumult might be expected at a brokered Convention, Hillary will get it. AND THEN maybe we will have Obama as the chosen Veep runningmate. To my mind, that’s 50/50 right now.
Even the media who are in the tank for Hillary will recognize, after North Carolina votes on 6 May, that it's all over. If Hillary tries to hang on after that, it will be like the last days of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Each day his doctors removed a few more organs, but issued a bulletin that he was "still alive."
John / Billybob
The candidate who has the most seated non super-delegate votes
Someone correct me if I am wrong
I thoroughly agree with you about what she would do, if she could. I'm counting on her army to be visibly too weak. With too few troops, she will be forced to surrender, a la Napoleon.
I'm sure you would prefer that result. You just think she will rise from the dead one more time.
John / Billybob
Yeah, it’s apparent that ONLY this scenario could have elected McCain this year. Sort of like drawing the Italian Army in the first round of the WW II playoffs.
For a media so invested in placing a Dem in the White House... the DBM devotes little or no time in fully explaining this part of the process. One thing is certain. If Obama is denied the nomination... no amount of belated explanation will stave off the riots.
Thanks a lot for the explanation, it’s really helpful.
"The Credentials Committee...is the 186-member body that will help determine whether to seat the two rogue delegations."
"...the Dean 25 are in a position to hold the balance of power on a procedural matter that could play a pivotal role in deciding the Democratic presidential nomination."
I believe what the author is saying is that with Dean controlling the "balance of power" that he will make sure the issue of seating these delegates never gets out of this committee or if it does the recommendation will be one that doesn't change the status quo.
Either way, Hillary loses and in a way it does control her fate.
One by one, the Hillary possibilities have been closed off. My point in writing this was to point out that the Credentials Committee ploy won't work, because the Committee does not have the final say.
John / Billybob
Dean knows that a grudge match to the death on the floor of the Convention is the worst possible outcome for the Democrat Party. Therefore, I agree with you that he'll try to engineer a solution in the Committee that “does not change the status quo.”
That means if Florida and Michigan are whacked in half, and half plus five are given to Hillary with the rest to Obama, it would not change the status quo. But it would be enough of a sop to Hillary that she couldn't claim (in public, at least) that she was robbed.
In private, however, there will be a storm of obscenities and flying ashtrays. But that's another matter.
John / Billybob
Nice article. BTTT.
Freepmail or ping me on the thread to be added to the John Armor for Congress ping list.
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