Make no mistake about it. The decision rendered today by the Democratic National Committee's rules panel showed that Barack Obama has displaced Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, as boss of the party.
The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee gave Obama exactly what he wanted - a firm decision on seating Florida and Michigan delegates. Even though Clinton wins a small net gain in nominating delegates, it is not enough to seriously boost her chances for the nomination.
No decision would have best served Clinton today. Her nomination hopes are dependent on a chaos theory, which would have been best supported by keeping the status of Florida and Michigan in limbo.
Losing what they needed today proves that for the first time in 16 years the Clintons are no longer in charge of the Democratic Party. There is a new boss in town.
Democrats Compromise, Will Seat Florida and Michigan Delegations
By Marie Horrigan, CQ Staff
Washington, D.C. — After hours of tense presentations and debate, the Democratic Party Rules and Bylaws Committee finally resolved to allow the Florida and Michigan delegations to vote in the Democratic National Convention.
But Clinton advisor Harold Ickes said Mrs. Clinton was reserving the right to take the dispute to the party credentials committee.
Under the proposal, which passed unanimously for Florida, each pledged and unpledged delegate (“superdelegate”) would get 1/2 of a vote at the Denver convention.
For Florida, that means, that Hillary Rodham Clinton would receive 52.5 votes at the convention, Barack Obama 33.5 votes and former candidate John Edwards 6 votes. Edwards has endorsed Obama.
“It’s not perfect, but it’s good” said Clinton supporter Alice A. Huffman of the Florida decision, who just before the compromise vote had offered a plan to fully seat the entire delegation with whole vote, which was rejected.
For Michigan, the equation was a little different. Clinton’s campaign argued that the state’s entire delegation should be seated according to the results of the Jan. 15 primary, where Clinton got 55 percent of the vote and 40 percent voted “uncommitted.” But Obama’s name was not on the primary ballot - he and several other candidates had removed their names because the state violated national party rules.
The Michigan Democratic Party proposed solution was to seat the state’s entire delegation to the convention, allocating 69 delegates to Clinton and 59 to Obama.
The committee voted to accept that equation and seat all the delegates, but, as with Florida, give each delegate 1/2 of a vote. That means Clinton would get 34.5 votes and Obama would get 29.5 votes from Michigan.
The vote on the Michigan proposal was 19 for and 8 against.
An irate Ickes objected to the Michigan solution, saying: “This motion will “hijack, hijack,” the (delegates) won by Hillary Clinton.
“Was the process flawed? You bet your ass it was flawed,” he said after the vote.
Hundreds of Obama and Clinton supporters applauded and jeered throughout the testimony.
Some of the frustrations of the day were expressed by DNC member and Clinton supporter Hartina Flournoy
What you’ve proposed here is you go into a voting booth and at some point way down the road someone decides that your vote goes to someone else. Where does this end? Let’s cancel 2012, let’s sit in this room right now and divide all the delegates.”
In his introductory remarks to the day, DNC Chairman Howrd Dean struck a hopeful (and what proved to be prophetic) tone: “The compromise that you discuss here today will not make anyone completely satisfied . . . [but] your actions today will put our party on a course of unity.”
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