The DNC is making it very hard for Hillary Clinton to win Florida and Michigan’s delegates through the back door, Marc Ambinder reports.
Howard Dean will not bend the party rules to grandfather in the disputed delegates from Michigan and Florida, the Democratic party chairman said in a statement today.
Instead, he put the state parties on notice: either they can wait and allow the credentials committee to decide whether to seat their delegates, or submit to a re-vote sanctioned under DNC rules. “We look forward to receiving their proposals should they decide to submit new delegate selection plans and will review those plans at that time,” he said in the statement.
“Everyone seems to be asking what the DNC will do,” a Democrat close to Dean said. “But the question is: what will the state parties do.”
This is a dangerous stand for the Democrats politically, in that it threatens to disenfranchise two states that will be important in November and could well artificially decide the nomination in favor of Barack Obama. I commend Dean for sticking to his guns in enforcing the rules despite the enormous pressure to do otherwise.
The Florida Dems, especially, are in a pickle. A caucus would not only be expensive but, as state chair Karen Thurman notes, exclude its large contingent of military members serving overseas — even in combat zones. But it’s a mess of their own making.
Photo credit: Esoterically
