So Dork, just what the hell is going on?
Its the meeting of the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic National Committee, which you'll hear called the "RBC" by countless numbers of reporters who didn't know it existed six months ago.
The committee is made up of two co-chairs and 28 members. All items voted on by the committee pass or fail on a simple majority vote. Of the
30 members of the committee, thirteen have endorsed Hillary Clinton, eight have endorsed Barack Obama, and nine (including the co-chairs) have not announced who they are endorsing.
These thirty party hacks are going to decide what happens to Florida and Michigan?
That's the theory. In practice, any ruling that comes out of this weekend can be appealed to the Credentials Committee, which meets in July...
They get the final word?
You must be new to Democratic party politics. All it takes is 20% to appeal the ruling of either committee to the next level, and after the Credentials Committee the next stop is the full delegation at the convention itself. That's the floor fight you hear people talking about.
Are you saying there's really nothing to stop Clinton from forcing a floor fight?
Yeah, there is one big thing that can stop it but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Okay asshole. Why don't you tell me the question I should be asking?
You probably want to know what will happen to Florida and Michigan.
Don't let me stop you.
By all accounts the Clinton campaign is offering zero compromise. They want both delegations seated at full strength - and they want the delegates awarded by the most restrictive rules. They don't want Obama to get any pledged delegates from Michigan, and they want Edwards pledged delegates from Florida to be uncommitted super delegates.
The DNC has been sticking to its guns that no delegates from either should be seated until the nomination has been decided, if ever. Their position is that if Florida and Michigan are not punished severely for willfully breaking the rules, the party will have no control over the next primary season. If the state politicians continue their imbecilic belief that only early primaries matter this means we could easily have states leapfrogging one another to get an ever-earlier primary date. If you think this election has been ungodly long, you ain't seen nothing yet. Take away the ability of the party to enforce its primary schedule and you'll get the Iowa caucuses before Halloween.
It doesn't get a lot of media attention, but every state and territory not named either Florida or Michigan is 100% behind the DNC in punishing the two who did jump the line. You really can't overstate just how alone these two state parties and the Clinton campaign are on their insistence of seating Michigan and Florida like nothing happened. One of the most telling stats of this whole mess is how Obama has just dominated Clinton in super delegate endorsements from state party officials, even in states Clinton has won by large margins.
You're drifting again.
Yeah, sorry. Anyway, Clinton wants everything that will help her and the DNC isn't backing down. Today a group of lawyers for the DNC who had looked at the bylaws and rules released an opinion that the RBC could not seat more than 50% of the Florida and Michigan delegations without breaking the rules. The Clinton camp immediately responded with something close to "oh look - its another asshole with an opinion", but the ruling doesn't help their case with the uncommitted committee members they need to win anything.
Okay, now its my turn to get sidetracked. Is this 50% thing bullshit?
Yeah - its total bullshit as far as the nomination process is concerned. Michigan and Florida are both large states and cutting their delegation in half would in theory give them much less influence. But at this stage and in this race, giving Florida "only" 105.5 delegates is really no different from seating them at their full strength. Even under the best-case scenario for Clinton she would still be more than 100 delegates behind Obama and would need to win an impossible 70% of the remaining super and pledged delegates to get the nomination.
I don't think you should forget that from the DNC's perspective this is about punishing Michigan and Florida so no one will break the schedule again. The 50% rule is punishment because that means each state can only bring half as many delegates to the big party. That is the punishment.
In a similar vein, both states will be given the worst hotel assignments if they are seated, and there has been a novel suggestion that the delegations should be seated at 50% and the party officials in each state who were responsible for breaking the schedule should have their super delegate status stripped for this year. It's mostly an ego thing, but if you want to hurt a big league politician like Carl Levin, that's what you aim for. I won't be surprised if that is the ultimate solution.
You haven't said anything about the Obama campaign? What do they want out of this weekend?
Very little. Their big goal is to not piss off any of the undecided members of the RBC, or the unannounced super delegates who will be watching on C-SPAN. Slice and dice Michigan and Florida any way you want, Obama will still have an insurmountable delegate lead.
If there is going to be a fight, the Obama team wants it to be between the Clinton campaign and the DNC. They don't want to be in a position where they are defending the DNC for taking away all of the Michigan and Florida delegates, and they damn well don't want to give Clinton anything to take to the super delegates that Obama is too angry or confrontational to be the nominee. Because of the 20% standard for appealing any decision, they know it won't end this weekend, so don't expect them to treat this like a last stand. A good weekend for them is if they come out looking like the people trying to pull the party back together and get everyone united against John McCain.
It's not just rhetoric. Earlier this week Clinton supporters announced they would be protesting the RBC meeting, even taking out ads in the NY Times and USA Today to get people to show up in Washington. Obama supporters immediately started to organize a counter-protest, but the campaign quickly shot it down and asked the would-be protesters to do a voter registration drive in Virginia and Maryland instead. The last thing they want is the news being led for a week with their supporters and Clinton supporters screaming at each other.
If Obama will have an unsurmountable lead no matter what happens to Michigan and Florida, why not just give Clinton what she wants and get it all over with?
Ding. If there is any surprise that comes out of this weekend, I think that's what it will be.
If you seat Michigan and Florida at full strength, under the most generous rules for Clinton, Obama needs just 69 super delegate endorsements (out of 259 available) to lock Clinton out. He gets the nomination at 88. Anything over that is gravy.
If Obama gets behind Clinton on this, the ultimate display of party unity, could he get a large pool of supers to come out en masse at the same time and end it all? The undeclared supers want a solution that doesn't tear the party apart and this would be one. It gives Clinton what she's been calling for, gives them cover to get behind Obama in the name of party unity, eliminates any chance of her taking this further, and forces her to live up to her pledge to shut up and get behind the nominee.
Are you smoking crack?
Probably, but its not entirely out of the question. A lot of prominent supers have been very quiet since Oregon and Kentucky last week. They are looking for a solution to this mess and this is the easiest way out. Clinton's vows this week to fight for Michigan and Florida all the way to the convention is going to really crank up the pressure on them to end this.
I don't think the Obama campaign could put this together without the honchos in the party. But if they could get Pelosi, Emanuel and Reid on board - then yeah, this is doable.
Hey, it's no less likely than a lot of other weird shit that's happened this year.
Your Guide To the Florida and Michigan Showdown This Weekend
We have the battery of Scott and Scott. Scott pitches to Scott, who hits it over the fence. These guys are practically neighbors, so you know they've been practicing. They are professionals and the rest of us are mere amateurs.