From the "Delayed gratification" file.

Those of you who were able to resist attempting mischief in the Republican caucuses and thereby retained your eligibility for the Democratic caucuses can collect your reward this Sunday, as Washington Democrats begin the process of selecting 130 folks to represent us at the Democratic National Convention.

(It clicks a bunch bigger)

The main driver for caucus attendance is usually a hotly contested nomination race. This year there's no such motivation.  President Obama will be our nominee, and I fully expect our delegation to be unanimous in that regard. The nomination isn't the only question before the caucuses, though.  As the chart above shows, there is the opportunity at every level to move resolutions and platforms that reflect the principles and positions of the Democratic Party.  In that regard, this is where Washington Democrats can join the movement to include a marriage equality plank in the national platform.

I've already endorsed the language proposed by Freedom To Marry, but I'd happily settle for the language in our own 32nd Distict Democrats platform, which supports...

The right of every adult to marry the person of his or her choice without gender restrictions upon that choice, and to enjoy the same civil and legal rights accorded to all marriages.

Whatever the final language may be, it's time for the national platform to make our support for marriage rights explicit. Officials including the National Convention Chair, at least four former Democratic National Convention and a list of elected officials that includes our own Senator Patty Murray agree.

President Obama, I'm sorry to say, doesn't. Maybe I'm not such an Obamabot after all, but I don't think the Party should, as tradition would suggest, yield this plank of our platform to the nominee.  If he finds leading a Party committed to marriage equality uncomfortable, perhaps it's the irritant necessary to spur his evolution on the issue.  

I'll be caucusing Sunday afternoon, and running for delegate to the LD/County level with a pledge to support the nomination and re-election of President Barack Obama and the inclusion of explicit marriage equality language in the county, state and national platforms.  I'll be asking for a similar commitment from those who seek my vote for delegate to any level as the process advances.

Your precinct caucus is at 1:00 this Sunday afternoon.  If you don't know where, use the Washington State Democratic Party's caucus locator.  

Good question.

Unnamed (presumably Clinton) delegate, via Goldy.

“Why is it disunity for us to do our job voting for the candidate we were sent here to vote for?”

Of course, it isn't. In '92, when my mission was to whip Brown delegates from the upper left through the first ballot the mantra was "Unity doesn't mean uniformity." I was successful beyond my hopes that year when an uncommitted delegate joined our ranks at the last minute and we actually cast more votes for Governor Mayor Attorney General Brown than we'd arrived in New York with. On the other hand, within a week of my return I accepted an invitation to join the state Clinton/Gore steering committee and gave my all to the November effort.

Did we lose the efforts of some of the Brown stalwarts? Certainly. Did we even lose a few of their votes? Probably. As a self-proclaimed insurgent campaign, we pulled a lot of support from quarters with at best tangential relationships with the Democratic Party. The Democrats among us, though, came together with our fellows quickly enough, and completely enough, to render the unity question moot in the fall. T'was ever thus, and I expect it shall be thus again.

Never mind.

Predictably, the Obama campaign has moved to avoid a meaningless credentials fight over delegates from Florida and Michigan, proposing to seat them with full voting rights. Since Hillary has announced that she won't be nominated on the floor in Denver, restoring the delegations without contest has absolutely no consequence in terms of the nomination.

There's some rumbling about the implications of this move on the future of the nominating calendar and process. I wouldn't place too much stake in those prospects. While I support seating the delegations at full strength now, it's not because I think they were right then. It's because it just doesn't matter anymore and we're a big tent party. It's time to get over it - until next time, anyway.

As far as next time goes, there will continue to be internal tussles about rules and calendars, caucuses and primaries. I wouldn't count on wholesale changes coming out of this convention, though. After all, the process in question is the one that Obama won. The convention will be, in a sense, a celebration of that process. Obama loyalists will control the convention and its committees, and they're likely to be pretty satisfied with the way things turned out this time around.

Of course, at some point the delegates will, in some pro-forma bit of business, pass the ball to the National Committee for continuing refinement and supervision of the rules for 2012. Whatever's done in Denver, it won't be over. There will be plenty of opportunity for the intramural squabbling that our Party is renowned for, but the convention won't show much evidence of that. We're convening to celebrate Barack. We can fight later.

The Washington delegation…

…gets a little more representative of the people's will, as expressed in caucus, as DNC member David McDonald has endorsed Obama. That leaves two PLEOs from these parts uncommitted, McDonald's colleagues Sharon Mast and Ed Cote. Should they both join the Obama camp, it would bring the PLEO percentages pretty close to the caucus outcomes. Funny how those things work out sometimes.

Or don't.

Won't matter by Wednesday anyhow, I suppose

How they're representing you now...

Rep. Brian Baird: Obama
Sen. Maria Cantwell: Clinton
DNC member Ed Cote: Uncommitted
Rep. Norm Dicks: Clinton
Former House Speaker Tom Foley: Clinton
Gov. Christine Gregoire: Obama
Rep. Jay Inslee: Clinton
Rep. Rick Larsen: Obama
State party Vice Chairwoman Eileen Macoll: Clinton
DNC member Sharon Mast: Uncommitted
Rep. Jim McDermott: Obama
DNC member David McDonald: Obama
Sen. Patty Murray: Clinton
DNC member Pat Notter: Obama
State party Chairman Dwight Pelz: Obama
King County Executive Ron Sims: Clinton
Rep. Adam Smith: Obama

How're they doing?

I figured…

…all along that the Michida? Florigan? matter would be resolved at a time and in a way that would, ultimately, make no difference in the nomination contest. The decisions reached today by the DNC Rules Committee accomplished just that. Hunter sums up the bottom line...

Yesterday, Obama needed 41 delegate votes to clinch the nomination; Clinton needed 244.

Today, Obama needs 64 votes; Clinton needs 240.5.

There are 291 delegates remaining.

…and Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

I don't have much to quibble with, but I'm still a bit disturbed about the decision to assign uncommitted delegates to anyone. I hope that when the Obama campaign compiles its list, they include all their supporters who took the time and trouble to run on the uncommitted line. Any who didn't are likely now sympathetic Edwards supporters, and Senator Obama should take care of them, as well. That's inside Michigan baseball stuff, though, and I don't claim any special understanding of the game.

One thing assigning delegates to Obama does, though, is disprove this point from Gilbert Martinez at The Democratic Daily...

By seating the delegates in any fashion, the RBC legitimized the popular vote tallies from FL and MI. This means Hillary can legitimately claim a net of over 600,000 votes today.

It doesn't do anything of the kind, of course. Though Obama received no votes in Michigan, granting him delegates is, in effect, determining the will of some percentage of voters, and they would have to be included in any vaguely equitable count, if such a thing were possible. Of course, it's not. There is no popular vote, not in any measurable national sense, at least. There are a series of statewide processes, some elections, some caucuses, some combinations, that offer different choices in different manners at different times. It's not apples and oranges. It's apples, oranges, bananas, pears, mangos, kumquats, plums and then some. That's why Gilbert's exactly correct when he says...

No news source should report total popular vote numbers that don’t include the tallies from FL and MI.

No news source should, in fact, report total popular vote numbers at all.

There's no such thing.

Hi ho, hi ho....

...off to work. The DNC Rules committee should have a ruling by the time I'm back. Hope so, anyway. See ya' later...

OK…

…but what's the problem? Via The Democratic Strategist...

Key figures on the Rules Committee informally agreed by telephone Wednesday night to seat the entire Florida delegation based on the Jan. 29 primary, but to give them each only half a vote. The same principle would be applied to Michigan, but there are still unresolved complications over how to handle the "Uncommitted" delegates chosen in the Jan. 15 primary in which Barack Obama's name was not even on the ballot.

The uncommitted delegates don't need any quotation marks. Uncommitted delegates are a perfectly normal part of the Democratic nomination process, and they can (and should) be seated at the convention exactly as such. How the Michigan uncommiteds - who were elected to represent the people who didn't have a preferred candidate on the truncated Michigan ballot - cast their .5 votes should be completely up to them. They're not anybody's to assign.

Is anybody talking to these people? That's what delegates are, you know - people. Not digits on a vote tally. Not chess pieces to be shifted about strategically. They're people who were elected as, essentially, free agents. The fact is, most of them probably had a preference at the time they were elected, though some of them may have shifted allegiance since. It should be easy enough to poll the uncommitteds for pre-convention tally purposes. In any event, they should be seated as elected and should vote as they wish.

Complication resolved.

Songs were sung,,,

…pints of Ireland's fine brown brew were drunk and somewhere an election was held. Where It Stands sums it up...


Hillary apparently got her double-digit win, picking up a net ten delegates and closing the fabled "popular vote" margin by a couple hundred thousand. That leaves her about 150 delegates and a half a million votes behind. She reportedly raised $2.5 million dollars within 3 hours of the outcome being called, which sounds a little short of coverning the deficit she's run up. She'll need more. I doubt that political vendors will be extending any more credit to Clinton. Losers - and she's lost - pay cash.

All that, then, for 10 delegates. Less than 10% of the delegates she trails by, with precious few left to be had.

What have we learned? That white women of a certain age tend to prefer, when given the opportunity to vote for a white woman of similar vintage? That black folk, given the chance, tend to vote for black candidates? How many millions of dollars were spent, how much intra-Party blood splilled to learn what we already knew, lessons that likely have little to do with the final exam in November?

All that, then, for nothing.

Big whoop.

John Aravosis...

Pennsylvania may give Hillary a 3 delegate bump. That's a 0.2% increase in her number of delegates, meaning that rather than losing to Obama by 143 delegates, she'll be losing to Obama by 140. Yep, it's going to change EVERYTHING. Stay tuned.

That's the cliffhanger outcome we've been waiting for?

It's over. Really. Nothing left to do but damage.

From the "Be careful what you wish for" file.

She's correct, actually…if not exactly 'right'.

Clinton made it clear to North Dakota Democrats last night that she believes there is no such thing as a pledged delegate and highlighted that stubborn streak in her appeal for delegates to switch from Obama to her when the Democratic national party holds its nominating convention this August.

Of course, that line of argument might lead to this kind of result…

While it's too early to have state-wide results from these LD caucuses, the data points from the 48th district and from the neighboring 45th are indicative: the February 9th statewide vote went just about 60/40 for Obama vs. Clinton, whereas today's results in those two district both came out at 73/27. That's a 26 point swing for Obama in the two months since the precinct caucuses.

Ouch.

Hmmm.

Postman...

I don’t know if it’s the Clinton campaign, but someone is challenging Obama delegates. I just looked at a list of 38 challenged delegates in Skagit County. Every one questions the validity of an Obama delegate. There are no challenges against Clinton delegates...

...This really appears to be less an issue of voter misconduct or sloppy record keeping then it is about an aggressive, post-caucus attempt by Clinton supporters to increase their numbers before the next round of caucuses.

If it is the Clinton campaign pursuing these kinds of challenges at the upcoming Legislative District and County caucuses and conventions (and it's hard to imagine who else it might be), well, it's just another demonstration of their general inability either to grasp or to implement the kind of grassroots, neighbor to neighbor campaign that a successful caucus strategy requires.

They can file all the challenges they want, but you can bet the majority of them, when examined by the local credentials committees, will be denied. It's safest to expect the most expansive view of the rules, and most of the surface sins the complaints seem to rest on, matters like dates of registration and voter names, will be resolved in the delegate's favor without much rancor. Where there is ground for real concern - delegates not residing in the precinct they were elected from, for instance - there will still be a bias in favor of the delegate, and of all the precinct delegates who sent her or him forward. That neighbor to neighbor business, after all, is real.

The final decision on credentials belongs to the body of delegates assembled. These meetings are often populated by folks who actually see quite a bit of each other, at Party meetings, perhaps, and fundraisers, and at the grocery store and gas station, too. The solution producing both the least political and, no less importantly, social friction will always be favored.In many, perhaps most, of these meetings, Obama delegates will predominate, and will finally determine who is seated. When all else fails, every delegate has a corresponding alternate.

Challenges are the weakest strategic approach to a contest that's almost entirely turnout driven. The negligible gains that might be made by bogging down the process with a credentials fight don't mean a great deal in the first place, and even less if your own troops aren't on hand for the battle. The Clinton campaign's efforts would be better invested in stopping their own delegates, like Karina Putnam-Kaminsky, from taking Hillary's advice, which is true enough, that their pledges aren't binding too much too heart and signing in for Barack in a couple weeks. Of course, for every one of those there's some number larger than one more who simply won't show up, a number I suspect will grow as the desperation of the Clinton camp becomes continually clearer.

Don't beleive any national convention delegate count you've seen from Washington. This one's really just getting started.

Well, no…

…he doesn't actually have super powers, Bill Clinton's claims notwithstanding…

PARIS, KY. -- Bill Clinton raised the issue of seating FL and MI's delegates again today, telling a Kentucky audience that Barack Obama's camp is "desperate to disenfranchise" those states. He said Obama's team wants to prevent votes from being counted in upcoming states because they "know she can" win.

In fact, it's not within Barack Obama's power to disenfranchise anyone in the Democratic delegate selection process. That's a matter between the Democratic National Committee and the respective State Committees. The leadership of the Michigan and Florida Democratic Parties chose to use the results of procedures which they understood at the time of their decision were in violation of the Party rules. Whatever the reasons for their decisions, whether Republican mischief, pandering to local broadcasters hungry for early primary ad revenues or, well, whatever, they decided to break the rules, telling themselves that the national Party wouldn't dare enforce its rules. Michigan and Florida, after all, are too big, too important, too likely to provide make or break electoral votes in November. Obviously, states of such political import are above the rules, right.

Well, no again. It turns out that the people who make the rules and the people charged with enforcing the rules take the rules rather seriously. They've informed the Florida and Michigan Democrats that until they follow an approved delegate selection plan that respects the rules that the other 48 states and the various territorial and expatriate delegations have managed to adhere to, they needn't bother showing up.

Of course, it's not exactly 'disenfranchisement,' because absent an approved delegate selection process in the first place, there's no enfranchisement. Similarly, 're-vote' is a misnomer in this context, since there's never been a vote in an actual Democratic delegate selection process. All we've had in those states is what we were forced to endure here in the upper left - a state sanctioned straw poll conducted without the proper sanction of the Democratic Party. Of course, here in Washington, respectful of the rules, we don't use the state straw poll to select our delegates.

Nope, folks, it's not Obama. He didn't have the power to cause the problem, he doesn't have the power to solve the problem and he doesn't have the power to forestall a solution. He's something, alright, but he's not all that.

As far as votes in upcoming states, I haven't heard anyone suggest that the calendar be scrubbed. Every upcoming primary and caucus will be held, and there's nothing Barack Obama can do to stop those votes from being counted. We will not see an army of chino-clad Obamanites descending on Guam to stop the count by threats and intimidation. In every case, Democrats will vote, ballots will be tallied and the results will be announced. All within the rules of the Democratic Party.

I get that there's an element of anti-establishment sentiment out there, a small 'l' libertarianism that chafes at the concept of rules. I don't expect to find it among our presidential candidates or their top-tier surrogates. Overriding every other
issue in this election is the need to restore the principles of Constitutional government in the conduct of our national affairs. Enduring peace depends on it. Civil liberties are meaningless without it. Tax codes are trifles beside it. No, for Democratic victory to be meaningful, it must be a victory for the Constitution as well.

So, again, how can we be the Party of the rule of law if we aren't a Party that follows the rules?

And Bill? No she can't. But we could all lose.

Things that make me go hmmm.

Things like this. Harry Reid…

I had a conversation with Governor Dean today. Things are being done.

…and this. Brent Budowsky…

I am detecting a significant “behind the scenes” change, in the last 48-72 hours, from a growing number of superdelegates who want the Clinton carnage to end and will soon be moved to action.

Is there a "superdelegate surge" coming? Will this one work?

Hmmm...

From the "Truth Hurts" file.

Daniel Kirkdorffer...

This game they keep playing is more than getting old, it is dead annoying. The only measure that counts in a primary race is the delegate count. Clinton claims that the Florida and Michigan penalties for running early primaries has disenfranchised voters in those states. So what does her camp do now? They disenfranchise every delegate already determined by suggesting those in the states she didn't win don't matter, only the electoral vote weight of the state matters.

The Democratic primary process is a proportional allotment system. If she wants a winner take all primary she should have run as a Republican.

Then again, it is becoming increasingly hard to tell whether she isn't already doing so.

Ouch.

Yep.

Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen…

Unless Clinton is able to at least win the primary popular vote — which also would take nothing less than an electoral miracle — and use that achievement to pressure superdelegates, she has only one scenario for victory. An African-American opponent and his backers would be told that, even though he won the contest with voters, the prize is going to someone else.

People who think that scenario is even remotely likely are living on another planet.

It's all over but the bloodletting, which needs to end.

Hat tip to The Carpetbagger Report.

Quote of the day.

Via Political Wire…

"If there is simply a caving on this, we'll end up with primaries on Halloween."

DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee Chairman James Roosevelt Jr., in an interview with the Boston Globe, saying Florida and Michigan delegates will not be seated at the Democratic convention.

Sic 'em, Mr. Chairman! We can't claim t0 be the Party of the rule of law if we can't follow our own rules.

The Solomon Solution.

Todd at The Blue State likes it...

Make both Florida and Michigan split their delegates 50-50 between Obama and Clinton, then call it done.

Me? Not so much.

The solution is for the Democratic central committees of Florida and Michigan to submit new delegate selection plans to the DNC and follow them to assemble a slate of delegates to the National Convention. It doesn't matter what mechanism they use as long as the DNC approves, and I've got a hunch the DNC would cast a pretty approving eye on almost anything rational. Those are the rules, that's all that matters.

Seating the MI and FL delegations only on the condition that they be, in effect, irrelevant? I really don't get the appeal.

This isn't about the nomination. This is about the rules, the only real infrastructure the Party has. If we don't enforce those rules, do we really have a Party at all?

Truth…

From Joe Sudbay...

It's always the loser who wants to change the rules.

Perspective.

Bad Obama news getting you down? Kos offers encouragement...

So officially, Obama has a 13-delegate advantage for the week even before Mississippi votes tomorrow. Throw in the unpledged delegate in Wyoming who will certainly be an Obama delegate, and unofficially, Obama notched a 14-delegate gain in this "week from hell" for him.

Permission granted.

If you're a Washington State Democrat starting to wonder about that caucus day decision for Hillary, but got elected as a precinct delegate and feel some kind of obligation because of your "pledge," set your worries aside. The candidate has released you...

“There are elected delegates, caucus delegates and superdelegates, all for different reasons, and they’re all equal in their ability to cast their vote for whomever they choose. Even elected and caucus delegates are not required to stay with whomever they are pledged to.”

She's right, you know. If you've begun to have doubts about a candidate who will smear her opponent, trash the Party, challenge the rules in the middle of the game and tout the Republican nominee's qualifications, you can march proudly into your Legislative District caucus and sign in for Barack. There's no rule against it, no penalty for doing it.

And Hillary, it seems, endorses it.

I, naturally, encourage it.