Mar 05 2008
Dean: Take A Mulligan - Or Else
Howard Dean appears to have intervened in the dispute about the void Michigan and Florida delegates in a way that may favor Obama. He will not allow the party rules to be bent retroactively to seat the delegates. The states will either have to hold a do-over vote or submit to the credentials committee. In other words, Hillary Clinton does not get to count - or count on - those delegates without a bruising fight in either the committee or in the new Mulligan primaries. On the other hand, Obama isn't completely immunized. He is not shielded from those two state's delegates completely.
Howard Dean will not bend the party rules to grandfather in the disputed delegates from Michigan and Florida, the Democratic party chairman said in a statement today.
Instead, he put the state parties on notice: either they can wait and allow the credentials committee to decide whether to seat their delegates, or submit to a re-vote sanctioned under DNC rules. "We look forward to receiving their proposals should they decide to submit new delegate selection plans and will review those plans at that time," he said in the statement.
"Everyone seems to be asking what the DNC will do," a Democrat close to Dean said. "But the question is: what will the state parties do."
Dean's statement implies that he has no intention of changing the rules to accommodate any solution proposed by the candidates or the state parties. There has been some suggestion that the two remaining presidential candidates might try to broker a deal among themselves. His line in the sand narrows the options for Hillary Clinton's campaign because it is unlikely that a credentials committee would endorse a delegation congenial to her mathematical interests.
Dean will make the rounds of the network morning news shows tomorrow to explain his reasoning.
Unless someone comes up with a way to fund the two do-overs, the point may be moot. But this ensures a brutal fight scenario one way or the other.
Dean isn't exactly pouring oil on the waters here. But he's splashing a goodly amount of gasoline on the fire.
4 Responses to “Dean: Take A Mulligan - Or Else”
Why does "The blind leading the stupid." come to mind when I read this?
It does seem a tad disjointed. I wonder what Pelosi had to do with this? A hive can’t have two queen bees you know.
Dean is an ambitious idiot, and both candidates’ campaigns reflect that.
As a voting resident of the state of Florida I am sick and tired of both political parties presuming to dictate to us when we can or can’t hold our primary. The date of our primary was voted on by the Florida Legislature - the body of elected representatives voted in by the citizens of our state. And a bunch of un-elected party bosses have the gall to tell us they aren’t going to seat the delegates we voted for? What a load of horse manure! Then they add insult to injury by telling us that they’ll seat our delegates if we spend millions of dollars (yes it would cost that much) to re-run what was a legal election in the first place? I say the hell with them! I think the ballot in Florida’s general election should have the names of those candidates who won the primary in our state - and no others. If their general election candidate isn’t the person who won our primary, well that’s just too dadgum (a favorite word here in Tallahassee) bad. Their candidate just won’t get the electoral votes from our state! If it costs their candidate the election - well they should have thought of that before trying to penalize us for running our primary the way we decide to.