Why Obama Still Resists Seating Florida and Michigan

You might think that since Obama now has his much vaunted "majority of elected delegates" and probably would still have the majority at the end of the primaries even if Florida and Michigan are seated as voted, that it's time for him to be gracious and conciliatory. But I don't think it's going to happen. Here's why. Seating Florida and Michigan and recognizing the legitimacy of the votes there would seriously undercut his narrative of the campaign and would considerably strengthen Clinton's narrative of the campaign.

To tell the story he's trying to tell, Obama needs to pretend that Florida and Michigan aren't there. He needs to delegitimize those votes. He needs that so that he can discounts the votes actually cast for Clinton in Florida. He needs to keep up the pretense that his own name just magically "failed to appear" on the Michigan ballot. Of course, we all know that he intentionally had his name removed from the ballot as some sort of strategic ploy. But you will never hear him or his supporters own up to that fact. But the bottom line is that his deliberate strategic ploy has nothing to do with the legitimacy or illegitimacy of counting the Michigan votes in the total popular vote. If he agrees to count those votes, he has to give up the pretense. He won't do that.

Why does it matter, though, if he would still have the majority of elected delegates after the seating of Florida and Michigan. It's because of the popular vote meme would gain some legitimacy. That's deeply important to Clinton at this point because it undercuts Obama's claim that the elected delegate count somehow uniquely represents the "will of the people." Doesn't the total popular vote have as much of a claim to bea measure of the will of the people?

Moreover, the pledge delegates are chosen in all sorts of ways that are not terribly representative. I'm thinking of course of the completely undemocratic and unrepresentative caucuses from which most of Obama's delegate lead comes.

Obama has to keep the focus of the supers on the question whether he doesn't "deserve" the nomination, because of his lead in elected delegates. He can't let the focus of the supers be shifted to the question of who is best positioned to win the election. Pretending that Florida and MI didn't really happen, that they aren't really a test of his electability, is crucial to that. That's why he's doing nothing to help them get seated and being passive aggressive in seeing to it that they don't get seated.

Plus he probably knows that he couldn't really count on teh Florida and Michigan delegations actually staying loyal to a candidate who did everything he could to block them from being seated in the first place.

If this gets divisive and combative enough, I can easily see Florida and Michigan delegations deciding, once seated, to either abstain on the first ballot or deciding to vote in a bloc for Hillary in order to reward her for her efforts to enfranchise the voters of Florida and in order to punish Obama for working to disenfranchise them.


Wouldn't that make for an entertaining summer?

If you give him the minimum 230,000 votes he would have gotten (based on exit polls of who people would have voted for if everyone was on the ballot) and count Florida, he still leads in the popular vote. The only thing that might change that is Puerto Rico, and are we really going to argue for giving it to Hillary based on votes from people who don't even vote in the US election (or pay federal taxes)? And btw, there are still votes being counted in 2 Obama strongholds in Oregon.

using the exit polls from Michigan, he'd get 206,494 votes. 35% of 589,984 votes.

Using my calculation, Obama would get 208,039 votes and Clinton would get 273,423 votes. The reason her vote total goes down is because 18% of people who voted for her said they would have voted for Obama if he were on the ballot.

And piss off states who abided by the agreed-upon primary calendar?

They shouldn't have been. It was stupid of the DNC to punish those states' voters for the actions of the states' dem leaders. But the sanctions had been prescribed in advance, and ALL of the Dem campaigns agreed to them, including Hillary's. Then Obama did the honest thing and took his name off the ballot in MI, while HRC did not. He didn't campaign in either state, while HRC skirted around campaigning in FL. To count the results in full is nonsense. What will likely happen is a compromise, most likely a reduction by half in the FL and MI pledged delegate counts (with like reductions or not in SDs -- actually, the SDs, being Dem leaders in those states, should have deeper reductions than among pledged delegates). If FL and MI delegates were to pull some crap like you suggest, they should be outweighed by a concerted rush the other way by not-yet-committed SDs.

He's not that dishonest. We know where the dishonesty lies.

There's no point or fairness in counting what they did have, even without the issue of DNC rules, because a lot of people knew the elections wouldn't count and stayed home. Magically deciding that these elections will count after all, after the fact and in defiance of party bylaws, disenfranchises those voters and produces a skewed count.

Party leaders in Florida and Michigan had plenty of time to organize fair and rule-abiding elections (or caucuses, if they wanted to go cheap) and opted not to. They had plenty of time to petition to change the rules, if they thought they were unfair and should be changed. They chose to beg forgiveness rather than ask permission, and it bit them in the ass. Presumably, next election cycle, voters in those states will make sure their leaders hold a fair election in accordance with party rules, so that their primary votes will count.

Barack Obama will agree to the decision made by the RBC, and if hill knows what's good for her, so will she.

Enjoy your last two weeks of whining.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6065480

In other words, you're completely wrong.

(Oh, and Obama leads in EVERYTHING, including the irrelevant "popular vote" metric.)

you could help out and PM them that snuffing out all the voters in Mi and FL is no longer operative.

There are supporters all over DU promoting the old talking points!

FL & Mich violated the rules. If the DNC backs down on this they will never be able to run a primary again. The whole goddamned world does not revolve around Hillary Clinton.
Obama, I am sure would like this resolved but to do it in the Clinton way will make the DNC pretty much worthless. Comprende?

:thumbsup:

Why would you support abandoning the rules that all the candidates committed to at the beginning of the campaign, and which gave no special advantage to Clinton? If she had taken caucus states more seriously from the start, she would have won more of them.

No rules. And if you have rules, let the meanest in the crowd change them. Be just like republicans. that's what we should do!

If you count MI and FL what about MY state? MY state played by the rules. Shouldn't I get a reward for playing by the rules?

No, only those states that flip me off, flip off my party, those states should get to do what they want.

If Hillary wants it. If Hillary had lost in FL and MI she would not give a rats ass about them.

In fact, that's how she's treating the caucus states. Fuck 'em she says. The only ones that matter are the ones I say.

I do not see how I could ever vote for her. Ever. And what is alarming is that her supporters don't see it AT ALL.

Fox is fair and balanced?

Breaking the rules is the way to go?

Vote for me because I'm white?

She's no democrat. I want her OUT of my party when this is over. She can take her husband with her. Maybe they can triangulate their way to a victory in some other party.

80,000 people in Portland don't lie!

prejudices a candidate that relied on their ruling do you not understand. Those delegates will NOT be seated as is. The best option is likely a 50-50 split. Anything less and it will probably be thrown to the courts who will undoubtedly side with Obama because he is ENTITLED to rely on the previous ruling.

This is the Democratic election process and it has rules. The rules stated that the delegates would not count if they held their primaries when they weren't supposed to. What happens if they change the rules now? It opens the door for everyone to bend the rules whichever way they want in the future. No voters are being disenfranchised....this was Florida's and Michigan's decision and they must live with that decision. That is the only way out as far as I see it. There was no valid contest in either state so their delegates should not count.

Are these silly rules -- that were designed to placate IA, NH, NV, and SC -- more important than having a nominee that is actually chosen in accordance with the will of the people? IF not, then we should count the votes, seat the delegates, and let the chips fall where they may.

You're disingenuous. You're only saying these things because you're an Obama supporter and will do and say anything to help get him elected -- including advocating against counting the votes of fellow democrats.