Saturday, May 31, 2008

The Delegate Dispute

I think she's going to the convention with it, don't you, readers?

She's like a bulldog with a bone, and ain't nothing going to make her let go of what is rightfully (in her mind) hers!


Update: Clinton backers decry party rules committee decision

Told ya!

"Clinton's advisers are confident all disputed delegates will be seated

WASHINGTON - Top advisers to Hillary Clinton said yesterday they are "quite confident" that a key Democratic committee meeting today will end in their favor - with a ruling that the disputed delegations from Florida and Michigan will be seated at the party's convention in August.

Harold Ickes, a top Clinton strategist, said Clinton's campaign lawyers have reviewed the party rules and concluded that the Rules and Bylaws Committee has the power to fully reinstate the delegations from Florida and Michigan, which were voided after both states held their primaries in January, earlier than the party allowed.

That is at odds, however, with a memorandum from the party's lawyers issued late Tuesday that says their review indicates that the committee has to penalize both states for jumping the gun and that sanctions begin at docking each state half of their convention delegates.

In a letter yesterday to the rules committee, Clinton's general counsel, Lyn Utrecht, said the campaign does not agree with the Florida Democratic Party's challenge, which offers as a compromise the seating of only half the 211 delegates, or with the Michigan Democratic Party's challenge, which calls for crediting Barack Obama with the votes cast for "uncommitted" in dividing up that state's 157 delegates. Obama pulled his name off the ballot in Michigan.

Obama's campaign has suggested a 50-50 split of the disputed delegates.

Ickes said it is premature to say whether Clinton would appeal to the party's credentials committee if, as expected, today's ruling falls well short of seating all the delegates with full voting rights.

An appeal would all but guarantee a potentially damaging fight during the Democratic National Convention in Denver in late August.

Clinton said yesterday that she expects undeclared superdelegates, who will probably determine the nominee, to decide who would be the stronger candidate soon after Tuesday's final nominating contests in Montana and South Dakota.

She told Montana reporters:

"I think that after the final primaries, people are going to start making up their minds. (Boston Globe May 31, 2008)."

We already have -- and we DON'T WANT YOU!!!!!!