Okay. What’s the new numbers?
Obama is… plus or minus, 1984?
Obama: 1984
Hillary: 1782
Total: 2025
So… 2048 is the new total?
Some people argue that he should have, and I see their point… although the DNC has to kind of do something punitive or in 2012 six states will have their primary on January 2.
2118
You’re not taking into account the delegates they each picked up in the ruling. New counts are:
Obama: 2053
Hillary : 1876.5
She ended up netting 25 delegates in the debacle, her best showing in months, and her highest ever single day net!
The people have spoken.
I think it’s fair enough. If Clinton actually takes it to the credentials committee at the convention, I’m going to be really pissed. Hopefully, enough supers will declare in the next week to settle this damn thing one way or the other.
The credentials committee at the convention has full authority over seating delegates. They can seat or bar delegates for any reason or none.
That’s exactly what will happen. Pelosi and Reid both have said they’ve had enough. And after the embarassing spectacle her supporters made of themselves today, I’d imagine there are lots of supers chomping at the bit to announce.
Oh but don’t you wish! To clinch it in a completely hedge-proof way, Obama needs to get to 2209 without any help of the Michigan delegates and Florida completely counted as is. Why? Because the credentials committee could theoretically restore the voting power of FL and MI and then make those 55 unpledged delegates really unpledged. You have to make it possible for Obama to beat Hillary after she gets every delegate in Michigan and her fair share in Florida before you can get them to give up. I don’t think that this is what it will take to avoid a convention floor fight, but that is the only way I’ll be satisfied.
Currently MyDD (I assume their delegate counter is as biased as possible) has this total. Not including what happened today, but based on 100 percent FL and MI seating.
Obama 2043
Clinton 1973
Uncomitted 55
Edwards 20
Available 86
Now add those 55 to Hillary’s total…
That makes 2028 for Clinton.
Al Giordano (My new go to guy) has the upcoming elections handicapped as follows…
So we can give Obama the new number of 125 super-delegates to get to 2209. If he can get 125 superdelegates out of 205, he will have clinched the nomination in such a way that no ruling by the convention in Denver could possibly dethrone him. That is going with a worst case scenario with the 55 unpledged Michigan delegates which by all accounts would have mostly all have gone to him anyway. You can’t tilt the board any further in Clinton’s favor, and if he still wins that way she’ll have no choice but to accept it. She’ll have no pathway to the nomination. The current one is: “Wait for the convention and hope I can get FL and MI ruled heavily in my favor” It won’t happen, but that hasn’t stopped her yet.
I don’t see it going that way though. There is no reason why the credentials committee could be expected to provide a different outcome. Her only true hope is to win over the super-delegates now. Nobody will pay any attention to her if she waits for Denver to come.
But isn’t that the last cry for a party? We’re going to the convention?
Psst? You just gave Hillary an extra 100 delegates.
Edit: No, wait, I see what you did there. Worst case, right. Meh.
Obama: 2053
Hillary : 1876.5
2118 is the current total.
Obama gets 41 Tuesday, making 2094.
So, he’ll need 24 superdelegates to claim victory, assuming everything stands.
Meh, write-ins are rarely statistically significant.
Sorry, I didn’t show my math every step of the way…
Consider the following circumstance:
Hillary goes to the convention, gets the Credentials committee to seat FL and MI full strength, wins all 55 MI uncommitted to her cause.
This is clearly not going to happen. But this is tilting the board in her favor as much as possible. For there to be no hope for Clinton, Obama has to beat her under these circumstances. Or better put, he has to beat her under these circumstances to completely clinch it with no reservations on what any possible Credentials decision could do.
My math is tailored to winning despite Clinton’s best case scenario, and that means if Obama wins 41 in the rest of the primaries, he’ll need 125 super-delegates to completely shut Clinton down.
125 is the number of super-delegates that can completely shut her down.
Now if the Clintons don’t decide to take it to Denver, then the current rules stand and the new number to clinch is 25 super-delegates.
I’m a bit disappointed that there has been no reaction from either campaign. Especially the Hillary campaign. But these things take time I guess. I’m sure we’ll see a few nuggets drop tomorrow on the Sunday talking heads.
A shorter version of Ickes is, “Screw Unity, we’re going to Denver.” I think this kind of rhetoric could be something that ultimately loses it for them. The super-delegates that are left, are the most unconfrontational of the unconfrontational. So I think, faced with the prospect of a Denver meltdown or endorsing Obama, they’ll choose the later. Because their position seems to be based on political stability. They want to ensure their personal political stability. Well if Hillary does her thing in Denver, there will be no stability for anyone.
Clearly Ickes and company knew ahead of time that seating MI fully based on a non-valid primary that was in defiance of the DNC rules that he was part of enforcing was not on the table. Just as MI going to the convention with no representation was not on the table. So there were only a few compromise options left, and the RBC went with letting the Michigan Democratic party have it pretty much the way they suggested as a compromise plan. The actual delegate differnce, given that 22 of the 33 uncommitteds were clearly already known to be going to Obama, was very minimal. Kind of funny to be taking the position that Team Clinton wants to fight for the rights of Michiganders over their objections.
I hope that Hillary is able to actually concede with grace within the week and that her operatives are able to work towards healing the rifts with the same tenacity they have to fomenting it, but if not, then so be it. Obama would be making a mistake to kowtow to them too much. It would signal that his administration might defer to the Clinton side of the party at every sign of dissent in future conflicts during his administrations and that sign of weakness would cripple him. Some columnist (sorry no link) had suggested that this was the lesson that Obama needed to learn from Carter: don’t give away too much to your opposition within the party in pursuit of unity or you may be hamstringed from then on.
There’s no indication whatsoever that she will concede one second before Obama is officially designated the nominee at the convention. And even then, I suspect she’ll quietly undermine Obama’s presidential run in hopes of getting nominated in 2012.
Who is on this Rules Committee that Hillary will appeal to? Does she technically have standing to do so, as it’s Michigan and Florida that were affected, not her?
Since even Team Hillary isn’t contesting the RBC’s decision on Florida, the difference between the RBC ruling and Hillary’s position on Michigan isn’t going to make much of a difference.
With yesterday’s resolution, Obama’s magic number is 64. He’ll pick up 34 (been my WAG for weeks, and I’m sticking to it :)) between today in PR and Tuesday in SD and MT. He’ll need another 30 supers and Edwards delegates to get to 2117, the current 50% + 0.5 number.
If I understand correctly, the Credentials Committee decides just that - which delegates are credentialed to represent their states at the Convention. But ‘who’ doesn’t get you much if they still only count 1/2 vote each, and AFAICT that’s out of their hands. So the worst the Credentials Committee could do is deny Obama 29.5 votes. But it’s a safe bet that he’ll get the 30 supers for 2117, and another 30 supers on top of that to nullify a potential loss in the Credentials Committee, by the time that committee meets.
BTW, the rules for the Credentials Committee are found in the (42-page PDF) Call for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, particularly Appendix A.
Let me rephrase: I am given to understand that the makeup of the Credentials Committee is largely the same as the RBC. Given this trivial factoid, does anything Ickes say matter?
Demconwatch has Obama needing 48 to win. And no, nothing Ickes says matters.
Which is essentially the number he needed on Friday night. Not too shabby, considering.
I think, at the Convention, Obama should ask for his extra four Michigan delegates to be seated for Hillary. Just let the baby have her bottle and take the issue off the table. In fact, maybe he should announce an intention to do that now. Those 4 delegates mean nothing anyway.