Cooking the Books

I watched the speeches tonight, and will let the Democrats offer their perspective on them. They are proud of their speechmaking. Sen. Kennedy was his inimitable self, always who he is, which made the soft Michele Obama seem off, sort of like Hillary in her headband sixteen years ago - polished and appealing, but not exactly herself.

I noticed a smaller event, which will be overshadowed by the coverage of the opening day. Early on, Michigan and Florida delegates had their full voting rights restored. As political junkies know, both parties threatened sanctions on states who moved their primaries earlier than their chosen cut-off date (which makes no sense to me - why should parties dictate to soverign states, until THEY foot the bill for the elections?). Michigan and Florida, swing states, broke that deadline.

The Democrats were always more draconian in their threats - they threated to also sanction candidates who campaigned in those states, or had their names on the ballot. The GOP did neither. Clinton guessed that the DNC would fold on the campaign sanctions, and they did, so hers was the only name on the Michigan ballot. She and Obama were both on the ballot in Florida.

The GOP immediately decided to sanction the states by cutting the delegates in half. After dithering for months, the Democrats eventually reached the same solution - one half value in Florida. Their problem was the Clinton was the only one on the Michigan ballot, although Michigan primary voters could vote 'None of the Above', and many did. In May, the DNC had a formal meeting to deal with the delegate issue. Since Obama wasn't on the ballot, they decided to apportion the delegates, and actually gave Obama more votes than he could have earned had he appeared on the ballot, more than if he had gotten every undecided vote cast - poor John Edwards and the others were never even considered. The party of 'count every vote' legislated away actual ballot numbers in favor of popularity poll numbers. By eliminating those crucial delegates, they effectively handed Obama the nomination.

The PUMA movement was born in the angry voices of the women in that room.

Today, the DNC quietly restored the full value of those delegates, now that it's too late for Clinton. In the same spirit that created the SuperDelegate class, to ensure that the pesky electorate wouldn't be able to nominate the 'wrong' person, they have now established the precedent of disregarding ballot results in favor of committee opinion.