The Clinton campaign is, in effect, proposing that Michigan should have a two-stage voting system.
Stage one: Voters of all races are allowed to vote. But only Clinton’s Michigan supporters (who are overwhelmingly white) get to vote for their candidate. The candidate who the overwhelming majority of blacks support is not be on the ballot, but somehow Clinton supporters don’t think this makes election results illegitimate.
Fortunately, everyone — even Hilary Clinton — agrees that these votes will never count for anything. It’s a purely symbolic election. So no one bothers getting in a big fight over it.
Stage two: Remember when everyone agreed that the votes in stage one were symbolic, and wouldn’t count for anything? Those votes should now be used to determine how the majority of Michigan delegates vote, according to Clinton.
The remaining minority of delegates will be “uncommitted.” This means that both candidates get to compete for these delegates — even though 100% of the voters who voted for “uncommitted” chose to vote for no one at all rather than voting for Clinton.
How is it fair for Clinton to have two bites at the apple, while Obama gets only one? How is it fair for Clinton to get even a single “uncommitted” vote, when the one thing most clearly intended by an “uncommitted” vote was “not Hilary Clinton”?
More importantly, the effects of this are racist. About 25% of Michigan’s Democratic voters are Black — and about 70% of those voters chose to vote for “uncommitted.” In effect, the candidate preferred by white voters is given two bites; the candidate preferred by Black voters is given only one bite. In effect, Black votes in Michigan are worth less than white votes in Michigan.
And yet, that is the solution preferred by Jeralyn, and Zuzu, and the Clinton campaign. I’m not saying these folks have racist intentions; but lack of racist intentions doesn’t make a racist outcome acceptable.
The majority of “uncommitted” delegates should be assigned to Obama. This isn’t as good a system as a fair election — but a fair election is no longer an option. (It’s worth noting that Clinton was opposed to holding a new, fair election.) And it’s not as unfair as assigning 100% of committed delegates to Clinton is.
Your solution isn’t as fair as this one: don’t count Michigan at all, as (AFAIK) Michigan was told that if they put their primary up they wouldn’t be counted, and did it anyway. The fairest thing is to hold the DNC to their word and to honor the formal rules that were established in advance.
At the time of the election, many thought it probable that the Michigan delegation would eventually be seated. It is just that no one thought it would be important, because no one thought the election would be so close.
Obama chose to remove his name from the ballot, it was a strategic mistake. Not unlike the strategic mistake Clinton made when she failed to seriously contest several small caucus states. One could equally argue that her strategic mistake has led to a sexist, ageist or classist outcome because the interests of women, older people and working class folks were ultimately underrepresented in these states. But I don’t see how that analysis is helpful.
There is no fair solution to the Michigan delegation. I don’t even think there is a fairest solution. I am just glad I am not the on the committee that has to decide what to do about it.
I never said there was doubt over if they’d be seated. Of course, they’ll eventually be seated. But people expected that the seating would be a formality, rather than counting for anything. As Clinton said at the time, “It’s clear. This election they’re having is not going to count for anything.”
I agree that caucus voting systems are unrepresentative, and often unfair. That doesn’t make a racist voting system in Michigan acceptable.
Robert, the formal rules established in advance allow for appeals, and allow for the RBC (Rules and Bylaws Committee) to change the penalty for early voting.
Oh, Amp, you might want to fix the spelling of Hillary’s last name in the first sentence of Stage One there. Ordinarily I’d let it pass, but I’ve got a dirty mind ….
Actually, I’d agree that “uncommited” certainly meant “not Sen. Clinton”. But at the time there were other Democratic contestants. I couldn’t justify assigning quite all of them to Obama.
Who decided to move the primary? If it was the Michigan State Legislature, is it dominated by one party or another? Was this move pushed by one party or another? Was there any negotiation with the DNC prior to the vote to move it? What’s the history here?
The Michigan Democratic Party moved the primary. The negotiation with the DNC was the DNC telling Michigan, “if you move up your date we will not seat your delegation” and the MDP deciding, apparently correctly, that they were bluffing.
It is true that Clinton initially opposed a revote — but when it came down the wire, it was Obama who held up the revote past the deadline.
I hate to say it, but I agree with Robert. If the DNC wants anything it says to be taken seriously, they need to keep their word and not seat the delegates. Otherwise the 2012 primaries are going to start in 2010 as everyone bumps their primary up to try to get more attention.
I also agree with Ron about the spelling error in paragraph 2. I’m sure it was an innocent “typing too fast while in order to get the post out before running out of time” sort of mistake, but in the context it comes out kind of…unfortunately.
Wouldn’t it be weird to reward Obama with the ‘uncommited’ votes from Edwards or Dodd supporters? On top of the additional votes he received in Iowa and NH because of his pandering by taking his name off?
And Clinton doesn’t want all the commited delegates, does she? She only wants those pledged to her.
Um, no, since Dodd and Edwards both endorsed Obama, and therefore their delegates go to Obama.
Um, no, since Dodd and Edwards both endorsed Obama, and therefore their delegates go to Obama.
Not quite. Dodd and Edwards both endorsed Obama, and therefore they’ve asked their delegates to support Obama (although I don’t think Dodd won any delegates anywhere, did he?). It isn’t mandatory that the delegates honor that request; they have free conscience.
The majority of uncommitted delegates (31 out of 39) have already been assigned to Obama. Michigan held district conventions, and31 of the uncommitted delegate slots were assigned to Obama. The other 8 remained uncommitted.
Minor editorial note: You misspelled “Clinton” as “Cliton” in the paragraph starting with “Stage One:….”
Charles, when did that happen? I missed it entirely. Do you have a link?
If you’re correct, then man, this was a stupid post.
Oh, and I fixed the infamous typo. Yeesh, that was not a good typo!
Never mind, I’m stupid.
Here’s a Talk Left piece reporting that Obama won almost all of the 36 uncommitted slots (47 Clinton slots and 36 uncommitted slots were decided at the district conventions, I have no idea how the other slots are supposed to be decided).
This doesn’t actually make this a stupid post, it just shows that the Clinton campaign is a stupid campaign.
The Clinton campaign is advocating for the uncommitted delegate slots to be filled with uncommitted delegates, requiring the procedures of the Michigan Democratic Party to be annulled in order to produce an unfair result. This is because any legitimate full seating of the MI delegates is certain to give Obama enough delegates to win the nomination.
Not so much a stupid campaign, as a campaign grasping for straws. Eight uncommitted delegates is better than zero uncommitted delegates, and seating Michigan still increases her numbers a bit.
At least she hasn’t done something to crass as to muse publicly about the potential for an assassination. Oh wait.
Painful and disastrous gaffe though her comment was, I don’t think that is at all a fair description of it.
Charles – Really? How else could you define it?
Her husband thought he was J.F.K. Why can’t Hillary Clinton think she’s his brother? I saw it more as that rather than any consideration of potential assassination. I thought it was silly, but am not sure why it’s so controversial except it’s a slow media day not to mention insensitive considering that the only remaining brother’s been diagnosed with what’s likely, terminal brain cancer. But then she’s out for her nomination first so who cares about that?
Is anyone surprised? I’m at the point where it’s like, well what else is new.
If people were so concerned with Michigan and Florida being disenfranchised, why didn’t they care as much before the actual primaries took place? The people who benefit will always care more than the ones who don’t.
The only people I really feel bad for is the voters there but it’s their own local party that screwed them over. But then the Democrats are known to do that in all different kinds of ways.
On the other hand, thinking about all the conversations I’ve had at work, with friends about fears of Obama being able to campaign without worrying about being assassinated, it does really bother me if that’s where she was going with it.
People think racism is gone, or something to worry about what it happens. We all know that’s bull shit. For one thing, if you work in a Black-owned business, you know it’s bullshit even when local Whites aren’t riled up about something that happens. In the past five years, I’ve seen a lot of crap and I think that’s just a reflection of what’s going on everywhere.
So yeah, that’s definitely not cool if she’s implying to choose her because something might happen to Obama. And let’s get real here. If she campaigns and he campaigns, who’s most at risk? So if anything, she should be concerned that this process of nomination and election be a safe one for everyone. And if she can’t do that, then she lacks the judgment (of which she’s already shown that) to be a leader of this country (although that’s not always a trait that’s seen).
A) Obama has had death threats against him pretty much since he announced his candidacy.
B) Huckabee made a “joke” to the NRA about Obama being assassinated.
C) Clinton references RFK’s assassination in June 1968.
Now, I personally believe that Clinton didn’t mean she better stay in the race cos someone might kill Obama, but it’s easily interpreted that way, and she didn’t even acknowledge that in her “apology”, and that’s what I find disgusting.
Maybe this is a tangent from the post, but her talking about Michigan and comparing it to the suffragists and abolition is also quite disgusting.
Plus her spouting of every right wing talking point in the book.
Now, I don’t think her staying in the race hurts Obama’s chances in November. The 2 months after the convention should be sufficient to win the election, and Obama is hovering around 50% of the popular vote with a narrow electoral win or loss to McCain in the polls while the Democratic party is divided in a bitter primary battle. He will bounce back and trounce McCain.
But the longer Clinton stays in the race the more damage she does to her own reputation. I liked Clinton better before she said that white Americans were the hard working ones, a lot better.
Clinton has referenced RFK campaigning into June multiple times before. The first time she did it, she used RFK’s death date as the marker for the fact that he was still campaigning. She caught some flack for it, so she stopped using the assassination as the marker, and started talking about RFK winning California in June. This time, she slipped and referenced his death again as a catchall for “RFK was still fighting for the nomination in June, and he would have won against Nixon if he had lived, so he is an example of how the Democratic nomination can be contested into June and still produce a viable Democratic candidate.”
It was a very bad slip, made worse by the fact that at this point the only way she could have become the nominee would be if something happened to Obama. That makes the “I’m still campaigning in case something happens to Obama” meaning much closer in everyone’s minds than the “I can fight all the way to June, win the nom, and go on to win in the Fall” meaning.
Now, I personally believe that Clinton didn’t mean she better stay in the race cos someone might kill Obama, but it’s easily interpreted that way, and she didn’t even acknowledge that in her “apology”, and that’s what I find disgusting.
Amen.
I’m a Michigan voter. I (and my wife) stayed home on the primary day because the candidate we wanted to vote for (Obama) wasn’t on the ballot and, on top of that, the primary wasn’t even going to count. So we went to work instead of waiting in line to vote. (And had Obama been on the ballot, even though it did not count, we would have gone and voted anyway – which is probably why Clinton supporters were out in bigger numbers that day – their candidates name was on the ballot).
Now, after the fact, for Clinton to come in and say that she should get a majority of the delegates and then also get even some of the uncommitted delegates is a load of horse****. If Michigan is seated at all, the ONLY fair thing to do is make it 50/50 at this point because there are so many what-ifs about what actually happened, that you really can’t draw any conclusions about who would have gotten how many votes were the primary to have been held on the day it was supposed to have been held (by DNC rules). As a Michigan voter, I won’t accept anything else. I’d rather Michigan delegates not be seated rather than see them given over unfairly. After all, that’s just following the rules.
It would have been nice if she did, being someone who herself faced a similar situation as cited here, one might think that might create some feeling of understanding. But it doesn’t always work out that way.