A Modest Proposal
As a Michigander herself, Firedoglake's emptywheel has a rather novel proposal to resolve the Michigan delegate standoff in about as fair a way as I've ever seen proposed. Now, it should be noted before getting to the meat of the proposal, what emptywheel's real concern here is. For most of us talking about this primary, we talk about the Michigan and Florida delegate situation in sort of abstract terms as something whose impact is almost exclusively a matter of delegate math vis a vis the primary election. emptywheel sees something much graver at stake.
More and more, I see volunteers who have been critical to our GOTV success in recent years tuning out of the party, utterly disgusted by the state and national politicians posturing about our vote.
And so in the wake of the April 19th Michigan congressional district conventions at which many of the delegates to the national convention were elected, emptywheel proposes the following:
My proposal is this: you seat the 83 delegates selected (plus alternates) on April 19 with full voting strength. That would net Hillary 11-16 delegates from having won the Clusterfuck in January. It would also ensure that the only reasonably democratic vote Michiganders got to cast this year--April 19's district caucuses--counts.You treat the PLEOs (spots for locally elected officials) as is. This would net Hillary another 3 delegate advantage from the primary.
You split the At-Large delegates 50-50 (that is, 14 each). This would give Obama the opportunity to influence the selection of 14 of the delegates in Denver (his campaign did not vet any of the people who ran as uncommitted delegates on Saturday and at least some of the delegates selected are not solid Obama supporters).[...]
You do not seat the super-delegates, at least not as super-delegates. The campaigns are perfectly free to use their 14 At-Large delegate slots to give to the people who would otherwise be super-delegates, but they will be delegates just like any other.
Of course, this will not be terribly popular with partisans of either side for whom any movement away from their candidate's position is unacceptable, but if you accept the premise that the only solution will be a compromise solution, this looks to be a pretty damn good one. As emptywheel points out, it actually does accomplish most of the goals that all parties involved have said they want.
It rewards Hillary, slightly, for having won the Clusterfuck. It penalizes Obama, slightly, for taking his name off the ballot in January...[but] it would also partially incorporate Obama's demand that the delegation be split 50-50...And it penalizes MI, 28 total delegates, for having broken DNC rules and moved its primary up.But it focuses that punishment on those who played Chicken with the votes of MI and lost, last year, rather than punishing those who had no choice in the matter and lost their ability to cast a vote in a truly fair election. It penalizes the super-delegates.
But for emptywheel, most important of all:
It would give MI's voters--the people who will do the grunt work to get our Democratic nominee elected in the fall--a say at the Convention.
So what do you think? If you like it, go sign emptywheel's petition asking Howard Dean and Mark Brewer, Chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, to adopt it.
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