Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Florida and Michigan superdelegates
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Here’s a list of the superdelegates from Florida and Michigan. We’ve always included these superdelegates on our lists of supers who have and have not committed to a candidate, but they’re shown in red, and not included in most of our delegate trackers. Whether these supers get seated is up to the RBC, the Credentials Committee, and the convention itself.
Florida Add-on Dan Gelber’s endorsement of Obama today was the first endorsement by a Florida or Michigan super in at least 2 months.
Florida: 26 superdelegates, including 3 add-ons (shown with a #)
- Clinton has 8 of them: Sen. Bill Nelson, Chuck Mohlke, Raul Martinez, Rep. Alcee Hastings, Rep. Corrine Brown, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Rep. Kendrick Meek, Ken Curtis
- Obama has 5: Allan Katz, Joyce Cusack, Rep. Kathy Castor, Rep. Robert Wexler, Dan Gelber#
- 13 are Uncommitted: Rep. Allen Boyd, Diane Glasser, Jon Ausman, Janee Murphy, Karen Thurman, Mitchell Ceasar, Rep. Ron Klein, Rudolph Parker, Terrie Brady, Rep. Tim Mahoney, Andrew Tobias, Alex Sink#, Steve Geller#
Michigan: 29 superdelegates, including 2 add-ons still to be selected on June 14:
- Clinton has 7: Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Rep. John Dingell, Rep. Sander Levin, Rep. Dale Kildee, John Cherry, Joel Ferguson
- Obama has 5: Rep. John Conyers, Robert Ficano, Virgie Rollins, Eric Coleman, Lauren Wolfe,
- 15 are Uncommitted: Sen. Carl Levin, Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, Rep. Bart Stupak, Arthenia Abbott, Debbie Dingell, Elizabeth Bunn, Jeffrey Radjewski, Joyce Lalonde, Michael Tardiff, Richard Wiener, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, Lu Battaglieri, Richard Shoemaker, Mark Brewer, Brenda Lawrence
Total: Clinton 15, Obama 10, Uncommitted and unselected: 30
Posted by Matt at 10:16 PM 
IT is my considered opinion that the single most effective and most appropriate punishment for Michigan and Florida would eb to seat Florida based upon the primary outcome, but give each delegate 1/2 vote. For Michigan, seat with the uncommitted vote going to Obama, but again, each delegate gets 1/2 vote.
The Super Delegates from each state should not be seated as they should have known better and done more to insure their state followed the rules.
I agree and I’ve never seen what the big deal is. There must be a lot going on behind the scenes over this issue.
The thing I don’t get is the automatic assumption that most people seem to be making that Obama is entitled to all the Uncommitted votes – weren’t there other candidates still in the race at the point of the Michigan primary who also encouraged their supporters to vote Uncommitted?
The problem is multi-layered regarding other candidates still in the race and the voting totals. Here are a few reasons:
1. Many Obama voters did one of two things when finding out that he wasn’t going to be on the ballot. They either voted repub in order to influence their outcome (see Operation Chaos for the republican version) or they just stayed home and didn’t go to vote.
2. He never campaigned in the state. If you look you’ll see that he has enormous gains when he campaigns in a state.
3. I believe their thinking is that this will average out reasons 1 and 2 that I gave (to some extent at least).
It should never have been an issue though since they pretty much disenfranchised themselves, it wasn’t the mean and petty DNC or Obama or Dean anyone else. If you are running a race and you jump the gun you can be disqualified. You are aware that that is in the rules. The states (MI and FL) were aware that them losing their vote was in the rules and did nothing about it (hear the democrats whine in FL but look and see how many people voted AGAINST moving the date. If I remember right it was only 2 out of hundreds).
Thralen,
good analysis!
About the two votes against moving FL date, those were Reps, no Dem voted against!
I believe current proposal still favours Clinton, but we can’t change the past so we better adapt and give her 10 delegates lead.
About uncommitted saying they will be misrepresented – does anyone believe uncommitted would be viable if Edwards and Obama were on the ballot? The only misrepresented is Edwards – I think he would get 15-20% of MI votes in a regular primary.
As a resident of Michigan, I can attest to the fact that many people did not vote in the primary for a variety of reasons. The main reason was that the candidate that they wanted was not on the ballot. the second reason was due to the massive media push that the votes would not count. Why waste the gas, when the vote would not count.
To now consider counting these votes is not democracy. If this was done in a foreign election we would be screaming foul-play.
There needs to be a message that the rules must be followed, and if you break the rules, there are penalties. I bet that we will not see states ignore the rules next election cycle.
I’m curious as to why a decision made by a few should be paid for by so many. In a democracy, isn’t EVERY vote supposed to count?
If all votes counted, we wouldn’t have closed elections. There were a lot of angry independents in Fla. that were surprised they weren’t allowed to vote.
The DNC should stick to their rules or they will have disrespect, disorder, and breaking of their rules in the future, with no credibility.
If they must seat Mi/Fla., they should half the delagates/votes as a punishment, and then split the remainder 50-50 as Clinton had the advantage of name recognition, first lady status, a popular ex president co-candidacy– and people in both states knew them. Obama was new and unknown, did not meet the people and campaign. Also, the Clintons were in Fla. in 2007, and Hillary had campaigners working on her behalf from Oct.to primary day and she campaigned in Fla. herself, that week, with meet’n greets, photo ops, fundraisers and a pre-arranged victory rally.After signing a pledge not to campaign or participate…SHE SHOULD BE PUNISHED FOR BREAKING THE RULES– NOT REWARDED BY BULLYING THE DNC!– And finally– everyone DID NOT VOTE– there WAS a mass media push that told everyone their vote would not count. Of course there were many who didn’t take off work to vote in a “non-contest”.
I don’t like how people in the Clinton camp or with other agendas lie so easily, and expect us all to go along with their spin on this, for their own gain.
Any superdelegate who voted to move the MI/FL primary dates should be banned from the convention.
Is there an error in your MI list? If I’m not mistaken, MI should have 27 supers plus 2 add-ons; above it says that have 26. I think you left out Brenda Lawrence.
Dan – You are correct, sir! Lawrence added, numbers corrected. (Note: numbers were already correct in the MI/FL post).
I pretty much agree with ‘betta daze’. It amazes me that Clinton or anyone who supports her can truly think that it is fair for her to get the votes she says she won in either FL or MI. Since Super Tuesday I have increasingly lost respect for Clinton. At one time, I would have been happy with either Clinton or Obama, but she has gone over the top on so many things in the last few months, that I would have to sadly sit out the election if she were to win the nomination by whatever hook or crook she could muster. I also have been a life long Democrat and if Clinton is given any advantage by the RBC in either FL or MI, I will (again) sadly have to leave the party.
This Michigander says:
The superdelegates from Michigan are the least deserving of being seated. These folks are the same cementheads who inflicted the January 15 Train Wreck Primary on the state’s Democratic voters. For this they deserve a trip to Denver?
If they’re seated at all, they should be put in the Bob Uecker seats in the top row, upper deck of the Pepsi Center–preferably in an obstructed-view area.
The longer the FL and MI seating goes on….the less respect I have for Clinton. In my opinion, she will continue to balk at any solution that is presented right up to the Convention. The ONLY way Clinton will not take it to the Convention floor is to have ALL delegates seated and she be given ALL delegates from both states.
IF that scenerio were to unfold the Democrats would not only lose in November to McCain, but would lose in party loyalist for a decade or longer. Is Clinton at any cost worth it to the DNC? That’s the 64 million dollar question.
I simply don’t understand people who favor Clinton or Obama and are interested enough in the system to post comments on blogs and then say they’ll sit out the election or vote for McCain. Have they simply been supporting a personality and have no actual interest in what happens to our Country in the future? It’s time to put our Democratic beliefs ahead of pettiness and take our Country and our Freedoms back.