The Democratic National Committee's Rules and By-laws Committee, after vigorous debate, basically voted to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations with 1/2 vote per delegate (pledged and super).
According to the findings, Clinton will gain 87 pledged delegates and Obama will gain 63 and Edwards will gain 6.5 (from Florida). If one assumes Edwards' delegates will shift to Obama based on Edwards' endorsement of Obama, Obama will gain a total of 69.5, not including the handful of super delegate from each state that have already endorsed him but had also been excluded from the total.
Before the new math on MI and FL, Obama had 1985 total delegates with 2026 needed to win. After the new math, something like 2105 delegates will be needed to win. Today's events give Obama just under 2055, meaning that he will carry the nomination by Tuesday's contest in Montana and South Dakota with an assist from Puerto Rico – even without securing another superdelegate endorsement before then.
I suspect the Obama campaign prefers to win the nomination as a result of an electoral contest rather than on a superdelegate's endorsement. So look forward to an awesome speech Tuesday night!
Interestingly the vote to seat the Michigan delegation, perhaps the most contentious challenge of the two as Obama's name wasn't on the ballot there and which was pushed by the Clinton campaign, won 19-8 with no abstentions out of 30.
The Clinton campaign sought to block the motion to seat the Michigan delegate, ironically, because it wanted to have the delegates given their full vote at the convention. But only 8 Clinton supporters voted that way, meaning that 5 Clinton endorsers sought to avoid a divisive and contentious outcome.
Only 8 members of the committee have endorsed Obama.
Another point of information: the proposal to seat the Michigan delegation with one-half vote each came from a joint proposal made by both Obama and Clinton supporters in the Michigan Democratic Party.
Despite the heated contest over the past year or so, the Michigan Democratic Party showed maturity and a strong inclination to unite around the nominee and the campaign to defeat John McCain in the fall.
But the process of the Democratic Party and heated discussions should not obscure the fact that this week, Barack Obama is going to win the nomination of the Democratic Party. It is an historic moment in our country's life, and the beginning of a new journey toward victory for the people and the working class in November.
[Update 1] Huffington Post has a similar total count with even fuzzier math, but you get the point.
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Showing posts with label michigan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label michigan. Show all posts
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Lowdown on Michigan Primary Results
By Joel Wendland
Of Michigan's more than 7,141,000 registered voters, only about 1,470,000 went to the polls, or about 20% voter turnout. TV people talked about it being snowy and cold, but it really wasn't so bad. It was worse in Iowa for the caucus, as I understand it.
Sen. Clinton won the most votes on the Democratic side, as only she and Kucinich were on the ballot. She did not campaign here; only Kucinich did. So for the most part this was an uncontested election.
Yet Clinton garnered nearly as many votes as the Republican front-runner.
Interestingly, "uncommitted" Democrats scored about 40% suggesting some dissatisfaction with Clinton's candidacy and somewhat embarrassing for her, but not a national news story to be sure. Washtenaw County (Ann Arbor) went "uncommitted," and three of the states other biggest counties – Wayne County (Detroit), Kent County (Grand Rapids), and Oakland County (Detroit suburbs) – edged for Clinton by slim majorities, suggesting that she has a lot of work to do to convince Michigan voters – both Black and white.
Exit polls indicated that African Americans would have voted for Obama by more than 7 to 3 if he had campaigned in the state.
Hold on, though, Michigan. Clinton did very well in the debate in Las Vegas. I especially enjoyed her line about Bush's "pathetic" attempts to beg lower oil prices out of OPEC. Her strongest qualities are her sharp anti-ultra right programs and her detailed plans for tackling the looming economic crisis. She has also come a long way on the war.
For the third straight primary/caucus, the big story, however, has to do with turnout. Even though the Republicans came here and pretended they cared about jobs (offering no solutions like fair trade, union rights, ending Bush tax breaks to companies who move out of town and country a la DeVos' Amway, etc.), they couldn't get Michigan voters excited about Republican ideas or four more years of a Republican presidency.
In states where Democrats contested the elections and debated the issues and talked about bringing the troops home from the war, about change, about universal health care and creating jobs, about ending our dependence on oil, about workers' rights, people came out in icy weather in Iowa and balmy weather in New Hampshire.
Of Michigan's more than 7,141,000 registered voters, only about 1,470,000 went to the polls, or about 20% voter turnout. TV people talked about it being snowy and cold, but it really wasn't so bad. It was worse in Iowa for the caucus, as I understand it.
Sen. Clinton won the most votes on the Democratic side, as only she and Kucinich were on the ballot. She did not campaign here; only Kucinich did. So for the most part this was an uncontested election.
Yet Clinton garnered nearly as many votes as the Republican front-runner.
Interestingly, "uncommitted" Democrats scored about 40% suggesting some dissatisfaction with Clinton's candidacy and somewhat embarrassing for her, but not a national news story to be sure. Washtenaw County (Ann Arbor) went "uncommitted," and three of the states other biggest counties – Wayne County (Detroit), Kent County (Grand Rapids), and Oakland County (Detroit suburbs) – edged for Clinton by slim majorities, suggesting that she has a lot of work to do to convince Michigan voters – both Black and white.
Exit polls indicated that African Americans would have voted for Obama by more than 7 to 3 if he had campaigned in the state.
Hold on, though, Michigan. Clinton did very well in the debate in Las Vegas. I especially enjoyed her line about Bush's "pathetic" attempts to beg lower oil prices out of OPEC. Her strongest qualities are her sharp anti-ultra right programs and her detailed plans for tackling the looming economic crisis. She has also come a long way on the war.
For the third straight primary/caucus, the big story, however, has to do with turnout. Even though the Republicans came here and pretended they cared about jobs (offering no solutions like fair trade, union rights, ending Bush tax breaks to companies who move out of town and country a la DeVos' Amway, etc.), they couldn't get Michigan voters excited about Republican ideas or four more years of a Republican presidency.
In states where Democrats contested the elections and debated the issues and talked about bringing the troops home from the war, about change, about universal health care and creating jobs, about ending our dependence on oil, about workers' rights, people came out in icy weather in Iowa and balmy weather in New Hampshire.
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