Howard Dean Lays Down the Law, Protects NH in the Process

by: Dean Barker

Wed Mar 05, 2008 at 18:50:08 PM EST

"We're glad to hear that the Governors of Michigan and Florida are willing to lend their weight to help resolve this issue.  As we've said all along, we strongly encourage the Michigan and Florida state parties to follow the rules, so today's public overtures are good news. The rules, which were agreed to by the full DNC including representatives from Florida and Michigan over 18 months ago, allow for two options.  First, either state can choose to resubmit a plan and run a party process to select delegates to the convention; second, they can wait until this summer and appeal to the Convention Credentials Committee, which determines and resolves any outstanding questions about the seating of delegates.  We look forward to receiving their proposals should they decide to submit new delegate selection plans and will review those plans at that time.  The Democratic Nominee will be determined in accordance with party rules, and out of respect for the presidential campaigns and the states that did not violate party rules, we are not going to change the rules in the middle of the game.

Team Clinton: Florida and Michigan a Civil Rights Issue

by: Dean Barker

Tue Feb 05, 2008 at 08:27:13 AM EST

Because of the issues I raised in today's earlier article on super delegates determining the nominee, like Matt I jumped on a conference call with the Clinton campaign. I prepared myself by typing out the following question:

Do you think there is a meaningful difference in the democratic, lower d, quality of super delegates and pledged delegates, or that there could be a crisis of legitimacy in the Democratic nominee if he or she wins the nomination without the support of the majority of pledged delegates?

To my surprise, the campaign actually took my question, along with those from he likes of Ron Brownstein and Judy Woodruff (that was pretty cool--my zero years of journalist training are finally paying off). Although I lack sophisticated recording techniques, I did manage to take down most of their response. The basic gist of their response was as follows:

The rules the party has put in place to choose its nominee are not the rules of the Clinton campaign and, just like the Obama campaign, we are doing what we can under those rules to secure the requisite number of delegates for the nomination. One way to avoid the situation described above is to figure out some way to honor the votes of Michigan and Florida, where there was record turnout. Counting the delegates in Florida and Michigan is a civil rights issue, and a solution needs to be figured out before the convention. (Note: italicized text should not be considered a direct quote, just my quick transcription.)