Dems Vote To Seat Fla., Mich. Delegates

(CBS/ AP)  After a day of fiery debate and closed-door meetings, Hillary Rodham Clinton picked up a net total of 24 delegates Saturday from the states of Florida and Michigan as the Democratic Party took a step forward in resolving the dispute over the delegations from those two states to the national convention.

But at the end of the day, Barack Obama remained well within reach of securing enough delegates to claim the Democratic presidential nomination as the primary process winds down next week.

According to CBS News delegate estimates, Obama needs a total of 69 more party delegates to reach the new threshold established by the inclusion of the delegations of both Florida and Michigan.

Obama and Clinton bargained and bickered through intermediaries during the meeting of the party's Rules and Bylaws Committee, settling on compromises in both states that will seat their full delegations at the national convention, but giving each individual delegate just one-half of a vote.

With the agreements, the number of total delegates required for the nomination rose from 2,026 to 2,117, according to CBS News. Under the allocations of the proposal, Clinton picked up 19 more delegates than Obama in Florida and five more in Michigan, based on the January votes taken in those states. Obama's total rose to 2,048 and Clinton's to 1,873.

Clinton's campaign argued that Obama should receive no delegates from Michigan because his name did not appear on the ballot in January. The committee agreed to award him delegates based on the "uncommitted" votes cast in the primary and that decision was a blow to Clinton's efforts to erase her delegate deficit.

The decision on Michigan prompted an irate reaction from boisterous Clinton supporters in the audience and her chief delegate counter, Harold Ickes. Ickes angrily informed the committee that Clinton had instructed him to reserve her right to appeal the matter to the Democrats' credentials committee, which could potentially drag the matter to the party's convention in August.

"There's been a lot of talk about party unity - let's all come together, and put our arms around each other," said Ickes, who is also a member of the Rules Committee that approved the deal. "I
submit to you ladies and gentlemen, hijacking four delegates ... is not a good way to start down the path of party unity."

"Clinton's campaign needed a total victory on the Michigan issue to post any real gains from this process," said CBSNews.com senior political editor Vaughn Ververs. "This result may have stretched the field just a bit, but not enough to keep Obama right on the goal line."

After a morning session that stretched well into the afternoon, the committee was scheduled to reconvene but wrangling over proposed resolutions regarding the situation in Michigan held members behind closed doors well past the time they were expected to appear.

In the opening hours of a daylong meeting of the convention's Rules and Bylaws Committee, Clinton's designated spokeswoman urged the panel to grant a full vote for each of Florida's 211 disputed delegates.

"In life you don't get everything you want. I want it all," California State Sen. Arthenia Joyner said with a smile.

But moments later, Obama's campaign called for half-votes for each of the 211. Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida said that marked an "extraordinary concession, in order to promote to promote reconciliation with Florida's voters."

If anything, the Michigan case was more complicated than the one in Florida. Obama's name was not on the primary ballot. Clinton prevailed over "uncommitted" and Obama's allies claim the large majority of those votes were cast by his supporters.

Mark Brewer, the state party chairman, urged the panel to award Clinton 69 delegates and Obama 59 - an allocation that neither candidate has endorsed publicly.

Not long afterward, former Rep. David Bonior of Michigan, speaking on behalf of the Obama campaign, said the delegates "should be split evenly between the two candidates."

But former Gov. Jim Blanchard, representing Clinton, said the former first lady should receive 73 delegates, with 55 awarded to uncommitted, in accordance with the primary vote. "Respect the voters of our great state. They deserve respect," he said.

The challenge is to "come together at the end of the day and be united," Howard Dean, the party chairman, told members of the committee gathered at a hotel across town from the White House.

There was no doubt that was the goal around the committee table and in the private conversations where compromises were floated - but that didn't make compromise any easier as a historic Democratic nominating contest between a black man and a woman neared an end. And the occasional displays of emotion among spectators at the meeting underscored the stakes.

"This is an important part of bringing the Democratic primary process to an end for party leaders wishing to avoid a protracted fight," said Ververs. "But the outcome of the meeting is highly unlikely to change the shape of the race on which Barack Obama has a near-lock."

Indeed, Obama intends to signal the beginning of his general election campaign next Tuesday by holding a rally in the arena in St. Paul, Minn., where Republicans will to hold their convention this summer. Still, in a sign that hard feelings remain, several hundred protesters maintained a noisy but peaceful presence on the sidewalk outside the hotel where party activists met.

Beverly Battelle Weeks, 56, said she got up before dawn to make the drive from got up before 4 a.m. to drive up from Richmond, Va. for the rally. She carried a black umbrella on which she had pasted letters spelling out "Count All Votes."

"The right thing to do is to seat all the delegates. Anything less is not democratic," she said.

Clinton won the Michigan primary Jan. 15 and the Florida vote two weeks later after all the candidates agreed not to campaign in either state.

At the time, she said the vote did not matter. But once she fell behind Obama in the delegate competition, her position shifted.

"It's important to send the right signals to them and the people living in those states that we Democrats value those states, value those voters and want them as full partners in a general election in assembling 270 electoral votes," said Clinton strategist Harold Ickes, a member of the rules committee.

While Obama initially showed no enthusiasm for seating the two delegations, he has shown more flexibility in recent weeks - as long as any compromise left his status as front-runner unchanged.

"We have both fought hard throughout the country, both of us, for delegates and the fact that we're willing to essentially cede her delegates we do not think is an insignificant gesture on our part," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said. "But we're willing to do this in the interest of trying to bring this to a close so we can focus on the general election."

[firststate]

Hillary''s main mistake was not forming a workable, coherent strategy with her senior staff. The process was treated as stops in states along the processional to her coronation as nominee. By the time they all realized she actually had competition, she was too busy campaigning to lead the revision of strategy she needed. There was no time to organize in the caucus states after super Tuesday, they weren''t supposed to have mattered. She was smart enough to hedge her bets and remain on the MI ballot, even as she said that election wouldn''t count for anything.

Bill wasn''t as much help as he could have been because he isn''t used to having to overcome strategic mistakes as well as beating the opposition.

If her staff had worked as hard and done their jobs as well as she campaigned, we could be looking at a different result, but that boat sailed.

[iddem]

obama8years, you shouldn''t type and listen to Limbaugh at the same time, you make even less sense than usual. Most Palestinians and those interested in peace in the middle east would rather see Obama elected rather than a Bush clone.

I don''t think much of Obama''s preacher myself, but if you want to talk religious fanatics or racism, all you have to do is look towards the Republican Party''s base.

What''s worse sitting in a church for 20 years listening to Wright, or selling your soul to the Christian radicals, otherwise known as the Party Base, by accepting money and endorsements from idiots like Hegee and Parsley, if you agree with their views, that god is punishing people in New Orleans and other places, maybe you can explain why he seems to be constantly punishing all those Christian Evangelists living in the U.S. Bible Belt by constantly sending them tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and drought.

And why was Old John''s wife investing in companies that support Iran, Hamas, Syria and others, along with why do members of his campaign lobby to support Terrorist''s?

[obama8years]

Which Candidate Would most likely be in bed with Hamas, secretly? Obama? Mccain? Hillary?

If you Picked Obama you are correct!

In that regard, Ali Abunimah of Al Awda is probably right about Obama going to work for the Palestinians once in office Obama%u2019s staffers certainly suggest the same.

The question is if we want a man in the White House who will regularly give his ear to the likes of a Reverend Wright, his and Sabeel%u2019s replacement theologies, and pro-terrorist propagandists like Ali Abunimah on a regular basis? In one sense, Obama could be considered the ISM%u2019s Manchurian candidate given his wide connections to ISM activists and campaign movements such as the Wheels of Justice Tour, Joseph Carr a.k.a. Joseph Smith, Hannah Mermelstein, Anna Baltzer and others.

[iddem]

Now it seems that Hilary wants to stay in the campaign until Obama agrees to "help" her pay off her $40 million debt, which whe wouldn''t have if she had dorpped out back when it became obvious that she couldn''t win.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/foreign/tobyharnden/june2008/cashtalks.htm

[iddem]

thgdriver, why should any of the Michigan or Florida votes be counted? The Party made the rules, Hilary agreed with those rules by signing off on them, both States broke those rules and knew that their votes wouldn''t count, Hilary said nothing about it, until she was behind in the delegate count.

The question shouldn''t be about how the delegates have been divided, the question should be about why the Party Rules were changed to benefit the wife of a former Democratic President, or about why does the Party have Rules if those Rules have no meaning.

Another question could be "Why doesn''t Hilary want to give credit to those of us in Caucus States who supported Obama, don''t our "votes" count, and why does she want to count the votes from Puerto Rico and not the Votes from the Virgin Islands?

Hilary claims the Popular Vote is so important, even though as in the General election it''s delegates that do the voting that counts, and yet she discounts the Democratic votes from States she says Democrats can''t win. Maybe she and Bill should publish a list of those States and all of us in States on the list can just vote Republican.

[iddem]

Sexism? How about the racism expressed by the Clinton Campaign itself, why such overboard coverage of things like Obama''s "Bitter" remarks and such little coverage of clinton''s outright lie about being under sniper fire.

Where have the complaints about media coverage of Hillary been for the past 8 years? She wouldn''t be a New York Senator if not for the "positive" coverage of the media and she wouldn''t have considered herself the anointed Democratic Candidate if the media had not given her the coverage it has over the past 8 years.

It''s not sexism that is Hilary''s problem, it''s arrogance and her sense of entitlement along with her being "Old Washington" that has cost her the election, that and the baggage of dragging Bill around.

The only sexism I recall from the long months of this primary was the coverage given to Hilary''s fake tears, for that she should have received an Emmy.

[blackyowe]

Fight Girl, Fight! We want you to be the one! The greenhorn is not up to the job! PLEASE don''t quit Hillary. Push all the way to the Convention! Time for a show down at the OK corral! The coastalcrats have no right telling us in the heartland what we have to do!

[libra127]

Howard Dean, Chair of the DNC, said on ABC''s "This Week" on Sunday:

"There has been an enormous amount of sexism in this campaign on the part of the media, including the mainstream media...there have been major networks that have featured numerous outrageous comments that if the words were reversed and they were about race, the people would have been fired....What you don''t get over is deep wounds that have been inflicted on somebody because they happen to be a woman running for president of the United States."

[crater7]

AMERICA IS '' JUST DOWNRIGHT MEAN''

PLEASE GIVE TO THE KEEP MICHELLE HAPPY FUND.

DEMAND BARRY BUY MICHELLE A PUPPY.

PLEASE MAKE MICHELLE PROUD OF HER COUNTRY AGAIN.

GOD "BLESS" AMERICA. NOT "G D" AMERICA.

[iddem]

I support Obama, for now, but after seeing how the Democrats run their own Party and seem unable to follow the rules the set themselves, I wonder just how they plan to govern the country. The past year and a half they''ve controlled congress they''ve demonstrated nothing but cowardice, afraid to confront Bush and the Republicans over the War or anything else. We''ve seen what the Republicans do when they have complete control of the government, it doesn''t appear that the Democrats will do any better, why not just throw all the Bums out in November and vote for Independents or members of "other" parties, it''s doubtful that anyone could do any worse than the two main parties.