Yesterday, the state's Democratic Party Executive Committee had a conference call, and two plans were presented by the Gang of Four. The 80-member committee voted for the 69-59 option. The alternative that was voted down was 73-55, which was based on the proportion of the January 15 results. The 69-59 proposal is considered a compromise to make up for Obama not being on the ballot.

Both proposals were developed and presented by the Gang of Four, a group put together by the governor of Michigan to help broker a deal to get the Michigan delegates seated at the convention. The Gang of Four are:

• Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-MI)


• Ron Gettelfinger, President of UAW


• Sen. Carl Levin (MI)


• Debbie Dingell (the dem party official who pushed the hardest to move up the primary in the first place, also happens to be wife of Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) according to Yahoo News)

Although all sources agree that there is no guarantee that the DNC Rules Committee will accept this proposal (or any proposal), there are quite a few hints that this plan has been approved, at least somewhat, by the Obama campaign. At the very least, the Obama campaign has been involved in talks with the Gang of Four regarding the proposal that was accepted by the Michigan Democratic Party Executive Committee. David Plouffe and two Obama campaign spokespersons have also made positive comments about this proposal.

Several media outlets have noted that Plouffe has had positive remarks about this proposal. Detroit News went as far as to say that Plouffe "had his kindest words yet for the plan."

I must note, though, that although several articles describe Plouffe's remarks as very positive, and some reports intimate his approval, the quotes the articles provided were somewhat inconclusive (IMHO).

Detroit News quoted Plouffe as saying,

The 'Gang of Four' sent out a letter recently that was really meaningful.  [It was] an underappreciated moment.

The Detroit News also notes:

While [Plouffe] didn't fully embrace the plan, he said the Obama campaign continues discussions with Michigan officials and remains open to negotiations with Florida.

Additionally, the Detroit News says:

The Clinton campaign has described such negotiations as "backroom deals" in which it won't participate.

Politico reports that Plouffe wrote in a memo:

With the Clinton path to the nomination getting even narrower, we expect new and wildly creative scenarios to emerge in the coming days. While those scenarios may be entertaining, they are not legitimate and will not be considered legitimate by this campaign or its millions of supporters, volunteers, and donors.

Toledo's local Fox station had this quote from Plouffe:

It's clear if this is going to get settled from a negotiation standpoint, it's going to require us being generous and offering to give her some delegates. We're actively reviewing that proposal.

Senator Levin (MI) said:

What [Tuesday's primary outcomes] does is ... make it more likely that Obama will emerge and as soon as somebody emerges, I think this gets resolved.

According to mlive.com (a Michigan news outlet), the chair of the Michigan Democratic Party said of this proposal:

[We] are closer to reaching a solution agreeable to the candidates and state and national party officials.

According to Yahoo News, Obama spokesperson Bill Burton said:

It is clear results in January won't be used to allocate delegates, and we agree with that decision. We have been talking with Michigan leaders about this proposal and will continue to do so.

Democratic National Committee members Joel Ferguson of Michigan and Jon Ausman of Florida had filed a separate plan with the rules committee previously, but according to mlive.com (and other news reports), that plan will be withdrawn in favor of this new plan. Their plan called for seating the delegates with half a vote each, based proportionally on the January 15th primary results.

So, what would this mean for the delegate count?

Ok, first of all, the 69-59 split would not include supers and add-ons. Michigan also has 26 superdelegates and 2 add-ons (someone correct me if I'm wrong on this). Right now, the magic number is 2025, but if we add 156 delegates, then the magic number goes up to 2104.

It should be noted, though, that none of the articles mentions superdelegates. I would personally like to see the Michigan (and Florida) party leaders who got us into this mess punished by not seating them as superdelegates. I have a feeling that won't happen, but who knows.

You shouldn't worry about this making it easier for Clinton to steal the nomination from Obama. The only way to significantly change the math is to add a significant number of delegates that can still be allocated. This proposal adds delegates that are already allocated, giving only a net 10 gain to Clinton. If they seat superdelegates (and I haven't seen anything saying that they will or will not), that only gives about 26 supers and 2 add-ons that are unallocated. If Clinton somehow got all of those to commit to her, it would barely make a dent in her delegate deficit.

The Obama campaign says it ends May 20

If Michigan and Florida (especially Michigan) were not settled, then Clinton would surely make it as difficult as she could, using whatever clout she had left, for Obama to wrap up the nomination. Given this fact, I don't think the Obama campaign would be setting a date for the end of the primary if a deal with both states were not in the works.

In fact, an Obama senior advisor told Politico that the Obama campaign will declare victory on May 20th. David Axelrod confirmed this morning with Newsweek that May 20th is the date that Obama expects to wrap up the nomination.