Obama's in a weak position over MI, because of the 55 he doesn't have in his pocket. Clinton can pull ahead on pledged delegates with MI & FL as is, and the popular vote.

perhaps it is a compromise the Clinton campaign would be willing to live with.

- Ain't gonna happen.

I am supporting Obama but a 50-50 split is just as bad as not seating anyone. It renders the state irrelevant. I would say Obama let 50% of the delegates sit and agree to not protest if all the uncommitted are handed over to him. The difference in delegates wouldn't be much.

This is his democratic solution, instead of a re-vote?  Ugh.

Right - give him delegates he didn't earn. He really does have an entitlement issue. Clinton should get the people who voted for her, and he should get whatever uncommitteds want to pledge themselves to him.

Fifty percent - no way. He didn't earn that. Lawmakers who endorsed him were behind the effort to move the primary date up. When the state was punished for that, Obama chose to take  his name off the ballot though the DNC didn't ask that of the candidates. His supporters in the state then actively campaigned for voters who  wanted to vote for him to vote uncommitted. Neither he nor Clinton campaigned in the state.

Fair is fair. His voters were asked to vote uncommitted since he took his name off the ballot. he should get the uncommitted delegates that want to support him. Clinton gets the delegates who voted for her. That's actually fair.

is he going to ask for 50% of Florida delegates as well?

I don't see how the current MI results can stand given that Obama wasn't on the ballot.  I think there are two solutions, both fair:

1. MI goes 50-50 and FLA seated as is.  Clinton benefits here because the full FLA margin stands. However, it seems that there needs to be some punishment for jumping the gun.

2. Same as #1, except that each delegate only gets 1/2 vote, cutting the delegate number in half.  Obama benefits here because Clinton's FLA advantage is reduced.

I would be happy with either solution.  No election where one candidate was not on the ballot can be considered a fair election, so I don't think there is any other way to do the MI delegation than 50-50.  This clearly favors Obama, however, which is why I lean toward #1 above because it favors Clinton in FLA.  That way, each campaign gets one of the delegations unbalanced in its favor.  I don't like that MI and FLA wouldn't get punished under this proposal, but I think it's the fairest to the voters.

Senator Obama firmly believes that the Michigan delegation should be seated in Denver. A 50/50 split of the delegates is an eminently fair solution,...

50/50 split is spitting in the faces of the voters. It's smoky backroom politics at its worst. Voters actual votes should mean something, and not be subject to the veto Obama and henchmen like Plouffe. The 1/15 vote should stand: Clinton gets 55% worth of delegates and the rest should be uncommitted. Everyone knows that the balance of those delegates are by-and-large Obama delegates. That's a fair solution.

with some nit-picky little quote from a one-time radio interview.

Is that where he gets his moral compass?  From Clinton radio interviews?  

Is this what he calls leadership?

Senator, here's a primary rule of survival: when you find yourself in a deep hold, STOP DIGGING!

As they are currently tied in polling in Michigan, if they had a re-vote it would presumably end up similar to 50-50.  So in that case, seems fair.

It isn't true that SDs won't be seated if the pledged delegates are seated.  There is an on-going appeal to the DNC on this issue because the DNC charter calls for SD to be automatic and it looks as though the Rules Committee cannot overrule the charter.  So there's a good chance Michigan and Florida SDs will be seated whether the pledged delegates are or not. Marc Ambinder has written on this.

Given that there may be no SDs to gain from this deal, I don't know why Clinton - or more importantly Michigan voters - would be content with this offer.  50/50 is no different than 0/0.  And, as Jeralyn Merritt, has pointed out, this proposal is essentially voter theft since, instead of giving Obama the uncomitted votes, it moves votes from Clinton to Obama.  I thought votes belonged to the voters.  And, it was Obama's choice not to put his name on the Michigan ballot and he has helped kill the revotes.  If Obama had backed revotes and they didn't happen, I'd be more sympathetic.

Let me start by saying your un dying support of Clinton is admirable.

Other than that, you guys are completely nuts.

If it were any other candidate, than the entitled Hillary Clinton, no one in their right mind would be discussing either state after the DNC stripped them.

Thats that, the time to argue was many months ago when the decision was made. OH WAIT, hillary was all behind the decision then.

Do you guys actually think Hillary or Bill give two shits about these states actual rights???? HAHAHAH.

You guys constantly make me laugh and I am a big hillary supporter.  Its just time to live in reality.  It was not Hillarys fault she lost this nomination process, she had a horribly run campaign by people less than her.  They should be fired and sued for malpractice. Cost our candidate the nomination.

I think that this is a fair solution to an ugly situation. If they were to revote the state it likely would be close to 50/50 anyway at this point. If it was 55-45 Obama (more like Wisconsin) or 55-45 Clinton (more like Ohio) the delegate split wouldn't be that far off of 50/50 anyway so what is the point of getting up in arms about it. The Obama campaign did not create this mess and shouldn't be held accountable for fixing it. I think 50/50 is a good fair call.

Give us a break!

50/50 because Hillary said that Michigan wouldn't count...THEN WHY THE F*CK DID YOU TAKE YOUR STUPID NAME OFF THE BALLOT?

What a fool!

And to give her 50% in a hypothetical head to head against Obama when she only got 55% against nobody (uncommitted) definitely looks more than fair.

Arbitrary division is pointless.  Those delegates will vote however they want to, doesn't anyone get that?  If they want to keep their jobs, they will do what their constituents tell them, DNC be damned.

I think regardless of the solution, the DNC should refuse to seat all the superdelagates from both states; they're the ones who either pushed to violate DNC rules, or did nothing to stop the change in dates.  There should be some punishment for those truly responsible for this mess.

Count me on the side of why on earth should Obama get 50%? - give him 45% - all of the uncommitted vote. Since he didn't want revotes, he can at least have that. Not that he deserves it. Does anyone sincerely believe that people went to the polls and voted for Hillary when who they really wanted was Obama or Edwards? If anything - they would have stayed home or voted uncommitted - and that's the only possible number then, which is based on the voters choice, that Obama could have - nothing more. Obama voters may have come out in higher numbers if he had his name on the ballot, but that was his choice to remove it causing no surefire way to know exactly what votes he garnered. 45% is the most fair.

that the popular vote is counted into the total as well.

heh.

Just give Hillary 55% and you can do what you want with the rest. Uncommitted got 40% and Obama told his supporters to vote uncommitted.

BTW, the popular vote for both FL and MI should be counted as cast since there is nothing in the DNC rules that say otherwise.

and ABSURD. it is worse than no votes at all.

Why?  Imagine this (use easy numbers):  Michigan has 100 delegates.  Now say they're all named "Bob," as in "Bob1," "Bob2," ... "Bob100."

Based on the election, Hillary gets Bob1-Bob55, and Bob56-Bob100 are uncommitted.  If you give them to Obama he benefits HUGELY, because some of those were for Edwards, Dodd, Kucinich, etc.  Bob1-Bob55 vote for Hillary, Bob56-Bo100 vote for Obama.

But now split it 50-50.  What do you do?  You actually force Bob51, Bob52, Bob53, Bob54, and Bob55 to vote AGAINST THEIR WILL.  You do worse than deprive them of a vote, you force them to exercise their vote CONTRARY TO THEIR INTENT.  

Truly, I can not imagine anything more undemocratic.  It reeks of Cuban elections.  Sure Castro got 99% of the vote.  Everybody was told who to vote for.  

Obama actually gains MORE from a 50-50 split than from no seating at all.  He gets 5 more Bobs than he is entitled to, actually adding to his delegate count.

Disgusting.

Since I just troll rated Jerome Armstrong, I'm probably going to get kicked off the site, but I just wanted to say that the hypocrisy of wanting to count Michigan or Florida as-is is a joke.

The general public thinks so, and so does anyone who remembers Hillary's statements about those delegates when she didn't need them. Her campaign had no idea this would go on so long, and she simply figured she would seat them at the convention as a formality.

Now she's for democracy, previously it didn't matter too much.

Obama's afraid? Of what Jerome? The fact that a bad decision by the DNC is going to hurt him in the fall in MI AND FL? He's got more to be afraid of there than of Hillary catching him, cause that ain't gonna happen.

But my eyes are on the prize, Jerome. If she wins the nomination, I'll vote for her, contribute and whatever else I have to do to get her in office.

Of course she won't agree to it.  This about creating enough uncertainty so she could stay in th campaign.  Even if they offered her a 60HRC/40 BO  split, I doubt she'd take it.  Having "hard math" of delegates works against her strategy.

Why award a candidate delegates when he PURPOSELY and KNOWINGLY removed his name from the ballot. 50/50 is not they way it should be. If Obama wants delegates, then either give him the Uncommitted delegates or give him a share based on exit polls.

Why award a candidate delegates when he PURPOSELY and KNOWINGLY removed his name from the ballot.

How about give her the 55% she earned and release the uncommitted to vote as they wish? That sounds fair.

That's ripe.  Obama takes his name off the ballot.  Obama refuses to allow delegates based on results because his name wasn't on the ballot.  Obama refuses to hold a new vote to get his name on the ballot and revote, but Obama wants to declare 50 percent of the delegates.

I can't wait to see OFFER for Florida's.  His name was there.  He won't allow a revote or count the delegates as the election was.  Maybe here he'll give 50 percent of his delegate to Hillary.(snark-in case you couldn't tell)

Thanks for taking away my ratings ability Jerome. It's nice to see democracy in full gear.

If I tell you I love Hillary, can I have it back?

Or what?

Look, Obama holds all the cards here, and Clinton can't really do anything about getting Michigan seated without looking like she is stealing the election.

I mean... She barely beat uncommitted.. SHE stood in the way of a revote by trying to force the original vote down our throats, and by claiming that only people who voted the first time could vote this time, thereby disenfranchising every independent and Dem that didn't bother going to the polls for a vote that didn't matter.

It doesn't matter, this election is pretty well done anyways regardless. Let's start focusing on McCain.

I will settle for nothing less than 58%/42%. That is the share based on the 55%/40% results of the primary.

Seat them 50-50.  Or don't seat them at all.  I really don't care.  Michigan made itself irrelevant when it broke DNC rules (after being repeatedly warned), and they had an early contest without most of the candidates and no campaigning.  Is that the kind of election you all want to stand?  Clinton "won" on name recognition and nothing else.

Everybody agreed Michigan and Florida wouldn't count, then all of a sudden Hillary starts losing and now they must count.

The most likely scenario anyway is that once Obama has wrapped up the nomination by securing enough superdelegates, he can sit the delegations as is (even with the 0-73 from Michigan), and it won't change the outcome.  Then we can all move on and beat McCain.

Yeah, right. Why don't we just divvy up Pennsylvania and Indiana and West Virginia 50-50 so Obama can win. Better add Puerto Rico as well. Give him 50% of all those states, since he doesn't poll well there either. Think maybe he can win then?

50-50 is unfair. Seating the whole delegation is unfair. Not seating the delegation is unfair. The only fair options are for Florida and Michigan to create a process that doesn't violate the rules (an invitation to both states that has been open since August 2007) or to return to the original, stated penalty of reducing the voting strength of both states' delegations by 50%. The states should be able to determine how that 50% reduction occurs as long as it respects the registered vote in the two tainted state processes.

eh.

I think there should be no delegates from MI unless there is a revote.

i disagree with obama on this one. I'm all for Obama winning but I'm also all for having a solution that doesn't trample on the rules set forth by the DNC.

While a revote might be bad news for Obama, it's the only "fair" solution I see at this point.

Who in their right mind, would ask for 50% of something they never even competed for?

He chose not to compete in MI, he shouldn't get 1 delegate.  Uncommitted should get them.

In FL if he wants to do that, well that's something that could be worked out.  But not in MI.

They will just spit in his face, and forget about the general election. MI knows exactly who stole their vote.

Since this controversy began, I've consistently argued for the half-Nelson, since it addresses basically every concern - 1) it punishes the states for breaking the rules; 2) it allows the states to participate in the process; 3) it acknowledges and rewards those people who went to the polls despite being told that their votes would not count.  I would not include superdelegates in that scenario because those states' elected officials must bear the primary blame for this mess.  A 50-50 split obviously does not address all of the above concerns unless the superdelegates are factored in, in which case perhaps it equates to about the same thing.  

As for the popular vote, I don't see how those states can be included in the calculations.  It's simply impossible to account for the voters who either stayed home or voted in the Republican primaries (and those voters are entirely blameless).  Moreover, it is impossible to know what effect campaigning would have had in those states.  The data is hopelessly incomplete on that front.

This is going to come down to a convention fight, and there is a very good chance that the delegations from FL and MI will be seated as is.

To refuse the delegations would insure that the democrats lose in the fall.

Obama blocked the revotes, so his battling to block the delegations at the convention will be ugly. It will be hard to get it done.

Start thinking about what happens if he fails and the delegations from MI and FL get seated as they now stand.

and give him great press coverage. So, it makes perfect sense from his point of view to give him half of the delegates. He clearly comes out ahead.

That's why his supporters blocked a revote. He probably wants to split Florida as well. It is still disenfranshising the voters in those two states any way you slice it. What a sham.

How many unfair advantages does Obama need in order to win? The media is in the tank for him bigtime and two of the biggest states in the union are not going to have their votes counted.

Once he is the "nominee" the media will take off his training wheels and he will crash. No objective person will be able to say that there weren't red flags pointing to an Obama landslide loss.

he has a lot of nerve.

Wow, on top of everything else, Obama wants to steal Clinton's votes. I'm not impressed.