Lanny Davis' "Compromise"

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26 May 2008 06:00 pm

I guess he does make a good lawyer, if you count pushing the envelope to destroy any semblance of fairness as being a good lawyer. But this should make any sane person fall off their chair:

Go back, in effect, to the status quo ante and make some reasonable and fair adjustments. In Michigan, Clinton received 55 percent of the vote. According to Thegreenpapers.com, she thus should receive 73 pledged delegates based on that percentage. What about the 50 remaining uncommitted delegates, and 7 collectively cast for Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, who were also on the ballot? Some of those 50 delegates might have been for Clinton as a second choice to candidates other than Obama, so it would be totally unfair to award all 50 delegates to Obama...

"Totally unfair". The rationale? I hope you're sitting down:

One little known fact: Clinton complied with party rules by allowing her name to remain on the ballot, as did Dodd and Kucinich. Obama was not forced by party rules to remove his name — he chose to do so.

And so he should be punished. The upshot of Davis' chutzpah is that Clinton should get 102 out of 130 delegates in Michigan.

So Michigan isn't penalized for breaking the rules (can you imagine what that precedent will do for future primary schedules?). Clinton isn't punished. She is rewarded with a number of delegates she would never have won in a normal primary. Obama is punished. And Clinton gets almost 78 percent of the delegates from Michigan in a state where she was running neck and neck with Obama before the illegitimate primary.

Recall that 538's demographic assessment of how Obama would have done in Michigan if it had been counted as a regular state (and not broken the rules) is as follows: 65 to 63 for Obama. There is no conceivable way that Clinton would have won Michigan by a margin of 102 - 28, or 78 to 22 percent, a far bigger margin than Clinton win in any other primary or caucus. And yet that's what the Clintonites are demanding.

This is what they are aiming for: stealing this nomination by the Rules Committe and then corralling the super-delegates to back them. If the supers do not go their way, they have already warned that Florida and Michigan Democrats may not back Obama in the fall.

The thought that these creeps could find their way back into the White House is terrifying.

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