A point on the Michigan & Florida issue

So as you probably know, the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee is meeting this Saturday in DC (an event I tried to get a pass for but they sold out in ten minutes). And in the meeting, the 30 members of this committee will decide the fate of 366 delegates from Michigan and Florida. More delegates than the total amount remaining from other sources. So the decision of the RBC will be very important in framing the remainder of the primary battle.

In case you've been living on Mars the past few months, both Michigan and Florida were stripped of all their delegates to the nominating convention for moving their primaries before February 5th. You can see a good timeline of the full MI & FL history here (hat tip to Mr. Super, who is an actual superdelegate from California).

The Clinton camp is fighting hard for a full seating of the delegates selected in these elections. The narrative seems to have coalesced around the point that some compromise has got to be reached. Some Obama supporters have even suggested that he should call Clinton's bluff and offer to seat the delegations in full as per election results. But such analysis ignores a key point regarding process, and one I feel is crucial to future reform of the primary system.

Both Florida and Michigan moved up their elections because they wanted to have more influence over the nomination process. They argued that the DNC rules prohibiting states from moving up before 2/5 were unfair, and in doing so both states directly challenged the DNC's authority to set the rules of the nomination process. Regardless of whether or not the DNC's rules are fair, they are the rules nonetheless, and therefore both elections cannot be considered legitimate.

The stakes of the party committee holding its ground on this matter are huge, and not just for Hillary Clinton. If DNC decisions about election process are viewed as something less than absolute, reformation of the primary process for 2012 and beyond will be nearly impossible. In such an atmosphere, we can expect Iowa and New Hampshire to pull out all the stops to maintain their first-in-the-nation status, setting a race to the front where many primaries could move deep into the year before the general election. That would be an absolute nightmare. And don't think the RBC and the DNC isn't fully aware of that point.

This doesn't mean that the original decision to strip the states of 100% of their delegates needs to be upheld; it just means that the elections cannot under any circumstances be recognized as fully legitimate after the fact.

Expect Florida to cut the delegates in half, but assign them according to election results to appease the Clinton camp. This is not an ideal solution by any means, but it seems to be the easiest way to keep both sides relatively satisfied. Okay, I don't think any hearing result will satisfy Hillary herself at this point, the key is satisfying her reality-based supporters as to blunt any argument that the election was stolen. Plus it maintains some form of penalty on Florida for breaking the rules.

Michigan, however, is much trickier. I believe the proper word would be "clusterfuck". Michigan's Soviet-style "election" in January yielded 73 pledged delegates for Clinton, and 55 for that formidable candidate Uncommitted. Obviously the Clintonian camp's claims that Obama deserves zero delegates from Michigan is obscenely absurd on its face. So a full recognition of the MI vote is virtually out of the question. It remains to be seen, however, whether they allow even partial recognition in determining if/how to seat the state's delegates. I hope they don't, cut the delegates in half and split the allocation right down the middle - 32 Clinton, 32 Obama. More likely we will see something akin to the 69-59 split proposed by the state Dem establishment, and hopefully cut in half to 35-29.

As the saying goes, we shall see...

Update: The entire RBC must have read this post and were deeply moved by my advice (hey, a guy can dream). On Saturday they decided to do exactly what was predicted above, although Michigan ends up at 34.5-29.5. This is a small numbers victory for the Clintonites, but way short of what they would have needed to stay relevant. Obama's magic number (before P.R.) is now up to 63. Clinton's is 240.5.

Update x2: Clinton wins huge in Puerto Rico, 68-32. Word is she pandered hardcore to the pro-statehood faction, which tends to vote much more consistently in statewide elections. Kudos to the Clinton campaign for pursuing a successful strategy for a change. However, Obama's magic number is down to 46. Expect him to get over the hump on Tuesday or Wednesday as superdelegates declare in droves.

See detailed delegate news & updates at DemConWatch

Why I don't subscribe to the Washington Post

I'll admit it. I don't read the major newspapers all that much. I do read the Express, the free paper they give out at Metro entrances, regularly on the way to work. But I don't have any interest in buying any of the more "serious" daily papers. Today's leading media outlets have utterly failed to provide unvarnished truth and information in an atmosphere of increasing uncertainty; indeed many have willingly participated in the destruction of reality-based public discourse. In terms of failing to live up to its classic image, the Washington Post is the worst of all. Along with the New York Times, it is supposed to be the gold standard of quality reporting, hard-hitting journalism and timely analyses, transcending the partisan muck of Beltway politics. Yet its persistent tendency to obfuscate conflicts of interest, kowtow to a wildly unpopular White House and present opinions as news deeply belies such a reputation. Frankly, at this point I find certain blogs and independent newspapers to be much more reliable news sources than such a compromised tool of the cocktail-party circuit.

Although I don't subscribe to the Washington Post, my roommate Brian [update: apparently not Brian], however, does. A few days ago, I was eating breakfast and caught a glimpse of a headline starting at me from the other side of our kitchen table:

Obama Has the Upper Hand. But McCain Can Still Take Him.
by Dick Morris

I knew Dick Morris was a former Bill Clinton strategist and the kind that urged Democrats to reject liberalism, so I figured this would not be an article telling Obama to remain true to his grassroots-driven message of change. Little was I prepared, however, for the mind-boggling dishonesty, jaw-dropping stupidity and downright wrongness of the literary hairball Morris has coughed up with this column.

The first line of the article should have told me enough to avoid reading on:

John McCain is America's favorite kind of candidate.

Oh, you mean the angry old warmonger with the consistency problem kind? Or the ultra-partisan, lobbyist-loving and economically clueless kind? Please provide more specifics.

With his record of extraordinary patriotism and his distinctive Senate tenure, McCain is a nominee whom voters from both parties -- and independents, too -- could easily support.

Hmmm. The McSame campaign couldn't have said it better themselves. So we would expect an unbiased source to treat the Obama camp in a similar manner, right?

Meanwhile, McCain's likely rival, Barack Obama, has raised such doubts among voters that their concerns momentarily energized even Hillary Rodham Clinton's sagging campaign.

Actually Dick, no, your perceived doubts about Obama didn't energize the Clinton campaign. In the two weeks prior to the publish date of this moonbat screed, 49.5 superdelegates publicly endorsed Obama, as opposed to just 7.5 for Clinton.

Obama

Clinton

Uncom- mitted

Obama Lead

Obama %

5/4

248

269

278

-21

48.0%

5/11

275

270.5

250

4.5

50.4%

5/18

297.5

276.5

222

21

51.8%

As you can see, Obama took the superdelegate lead during this period. Thus Clinton lost a major justification for continuing her campaign, that superdelegates would favor her come convention time. Furthermore, she now has a formidable war chest of around negative $10 million. Clearly, two "energized" weeks for this increasingly quixotic campaign.

That's just a small taste of the incomprehensibly inane offering Mr. Morris lays forth to the unwitting reader. Here are a few more classic lines.

• To sum it up: A candidate who cannot get elected is being nominated by a party that cannot be defeated, while a candidate who is eminently electable is running as the nominee of a party doomed to defeat.

Funny how Mr. Unelectable Scary Black Man is beating Mr. McMaverick in all the recent national polls, and an electoral analysis shows that a blowout victory (around 360-178) is well within reach for Obama. More analysis to come on that in the near future...

• [McCain's] base will be there for him; indeed, it will turn out in massive numbers. Wright has become the honorary chairman of McCain's get-out-the-vote efforts. The growing fear of Obama, who remains something of an unknown, will drag every last white Republican male off the golf course to vote for McCain, and he will need no further laying-on of hands from either evangelical Christians or fiscal conservatives. So McCain doesn't have to spend a lot of time wooing his base.

Yup, that's exactly why McCain is pulling only 3/4 of the recent GOP primary vote against Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee, even with the latter having emphatically endorsed his former adversary. Also, maybe Dick Morris' friends play golf all the time, but believe it or not there are some white Republican males who think of golf as throughly elitist. Bloviating types tend to call them "Reagan Democrats". Ya know, the ones that Obama can't win. They've been Republicans for the past three decades. So either Mr. Morris either thinks it's 1976, or he is admitting that the only real Republicans are the rich ones.

• If the GOP nominee were [anyone else], independents and Democrats might not vote Republican even if they became convinced that Obama is some kind of sleeper agent sent to charm and conquer our democracy.

Wow, what an ass. On another note of equal journalistic integrity, some people say that Dick Morris is in charge of a secret child pornography ring in Cambodia.

• Earlier in the race, Iraq might have been a deal-breaker. But a kinder, gentler war has emerged. Still, most Americans don't like the war, and McCain must deal with their opposition if he wants to win.

That's right, it's the fault of the damn pinko hippies for not clapping loud enough. If only they were all "disappeared", then the war would be as popular as it should be. Nevermind the fact that our veterans get treated like and torture is now

• Which brings us to George W. Bush, the least popular president of modern times. Unlikely as it sounds, the soon-to-be former president needs to get out of the White House, reenter the political arena (much as it will pain him) and go around the country telling us two things: First, we are winning in Iraq; second, the economy is not as bad as most people think. With the Dow at around 12,800 and unemployment at 5 percent, Bush can make a good case that things aren't really headed for the rocks.

Hahahahahahahahaha. Oh goody, yes, please do George! I'd love nothing more than for you to remind Americans that Republicans are responsible for the Iraq mess and the current state of the economy. Let's not forget to mention our friendly neighborhood oil companies and how well they're doing! Seriously for a second, it takes a special kind of Beltway obliviousness to think either of these issues can work to the advantage of any Republican.

• Forget about the base. It will be there. Obama's liberalism, his pro-tax agenda and his proposed weakening of the USA Patriot Act -- as well as fears that he would appoint to office people such as Rev. Wright and William Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground -- will all assure the full mobilization of the right. Immigration reform and McCain's other acts of apostasy will be forgiven for the sake of beating Obama. So McCain needs to go after the swing voters.

Again, the Patriot Act...there's another GOP political winner for ya! I do agree that immigration reform will be forgiven by the base - they don't really care that much about it anyway. How did Tom Tancredo do in the primaries? And honestly, the only reason why people might worry that Obama would appoint Scary Black Men to office is blatant fearmongering like yours, Dick.

• [McCain should] go after the Democrats for their proposals to lower sentences for crack cocaine to make them equal to those for powder cocaine. (Instead, McCain should urge raising penalties for regular cocaine.)

That right, lock even more nonviolent offenders in jail and throw away the key. Inmates generally cost over $20,000 each per year. That's some solid fiscal responsibility right there!

• The collected quotes of Rev. Wright will be a bestseller this summer. Obama once had to prove to us that he was not a Muslim; now he must convince us that he never really went to church much. Just as Sen. John F. Kerry was buffeted by veterans who had less than heroic memories of their service with him in Vietnam, so Obama will have to weather the recollections of his fellow parishioners. Count on several to surface and claim that they sat next to him during some particularly incendiary sermon.

Actually, media bias may become an issue as this plays out. Yes, I do count on something like UCC-Trinity Members for Truth to become a reality during the sweltering summer months. But the traditional media has the responsibility to expose their blatant lies, if they can be easily disproven, as such. It's important to point out that NONE of the Swift Boat Veterans were EVER ON A SWIFT BOAT, and therefore had no business commenting on "their service with him". The corporate media just parroted their talking points without ever stopping to question their validity. They may choose that path again in 2008, but trust me, they won't get anything remotely resembling a free pass if they do. This time, Dems and their base are prepared.

• The American public will not ultimately doubt Obama's patriotism; that is a bridge too far. But we will come to think less of his credibility and strength as he fumbles his way through awkward denials.

So let me get this straight. The Manchurian Candidate garbage won't stick to Obama, but he'll be done in by failure to articulate fully why he isn't indeed a terrorist for the thousandth time?

Color me confused. Maybe I'm just not as intelligent as Dick Morris. I guess I just don't fully appreciate the potent bloviationary capacities unleashed by engaging in transparent cognitive dissonance.

After finishing the article, the scariest thought I had was that I was not that shocked by it. I have come to expect such useless tripe from the Washington Post.


P.S. Dick wants your feedback! I encourage you to tell him how much you loved his opinions at:
dickmorris@dickmorris.com