Here’s my proposal: Florida and Michigan should have send delegations to the convention, but should be stripped of superdelegates. The superdelegates are the people who were responsible for following the rules. They should not get a vote at the convention. They need an accountability moment, and taking their votes out of the picture would hit them where it hurts. I suspect the people of Michigan and Florida wouldn’t mind punishing the people who put their votes at risk.
Once the superdelegate votes are gone, the tougher question remains of what to do with the delegates representing the popular vote. Since there was no real campaign (at least according to the candidates), there simply isn’t one good way to resolve the pledged delegate conundrum. My preference would be to split the delegates equally. Secondarily, I would propose an indepedently conducted survey of Democratic voters, with delegates allocated according to survey preference. A third possibility is to make all Florida and Michigan delegates unpledged, and let the campaigns work them over at the convention.
To me, the most important part of what happens is creating a compromise that keeps both states in play. However, the people of both states need to know that the Dems beef is with the people who would be their superdelegates, not the voters. What do you all think?
I like the idea of stripping superdelegates. Even though it was the respective legislatures and not necessarily the individual party leaders that made the wrong choice, it will at least send the message, as you said, that the beef is with the folks who moved the primary and not the rank-and-file voter.
<
p>I think you could even make a case that the Florida primary results are a good starting point to seat those delegates. Yes, no one campaigned and no one really knows who may have stayed home or voted Republican, etc, but at least there is a reasonable snapshot of what the breakdown ought to be. At least the candidates were on equal footing.
<
p>Where the whole thing gets really messy is in Michigan, because there is no way of translating what happened there into delegates. Not only was Obama not on the ballot, but neither were Edwards, Biden and Richardson, changing the whole dynamic of the race at that time. Would Clinton have gotten 55%? Of course not. But were all those 40% of Undeclareds for Obama? No way.
<
p>I say the best possible compromise is strip the supers, Clinton wins FL and 50:50 split in Michigan, but I can also see why some would object. I don’t see any solution that’s not going to turn off someone.
Allow MI and FL to send their full delegations to the convention.
<
p>Superdelegates get no vote.
<
p>Regular pledged delegates get full votes.
<
p>All uncommitted slots from MI go to Obama.
<
p>This gives Clinton most of what she is asking for, punishes the party officials responsible, but also acknowledges that people who voted for uncomitted were mostly voting for Obama and were definitely voting against Clinton.
<
p>No voters could be really be considered to be disenfranchised by this proposal.
of each state. I also think Florida’s delegates should be apportioned according to the popular vote in that state. The people who voted in Florida were able to watch the many debates that took place before they voted and they were probably exposed to t.v. ads, at least those run by the Obama campaign. They also could look at each candidate’s website to see where they stand on the issues. To say that somehow all that does not matter really sounds quite Republican to me. (Or is it Orwellian?) The Florida votes should count as they were cast. Otherwise, Demorats will never be able to complain about 2000 again.
<
p>Michigan is a little more troublsome, and I say this as a very strong Hillary Clinton supporter. I really wish they had found a way to do it over. No matter what they do with Michigan now will seem unfair to the voters of Michigan.