Legal Commentary

2209 is the Delegate Number, Not 2025

By Jeralyn

You'll be hearing this a lot in coming days. The true delegate number and the one Barack Obama must surpass is 2209, not 2025. Litigator Mom over at The Confluence explains, beginning with the correct calculation:

50% + 1 of all the delegates, pledged and SDs, alloted to the 50 states, Guam and Puerto Rico.

Not 48 states, but 50 states. She explains: [More...]

The DNC and the talking heads all say that “MI and FLA will be seated in some fashion.” That’s doublespeak for “MI and FLA will be seated in a manner which makes permanent the disenfranchisement of MI and FLA voters.” If, for example, the DNC awards Obama the nomination at 2025 delegates, then the MI and FLA delegates will have been rendered meaningless, whether they are “seated” before or after the DNC hands the trophy to Obama. You can’t say you’re seating MI and FLA, and then permit Obama to claim victory based on a magic number that doesn’t count MI and FLA’s delegates.

You can't expect an air of legitimacy to surround a nominee when 2.3 million voters are excluded from making the determination. These delegates not only must be seated, they must be seated when their votes count in determining the nominee. Seating them after that, so they have a chance to rah-rah for the candidate they had no say in selecting, won't cut it. And they certainly won't be satisfied with going to Denver just to weigh in on the party platform.

One person, one vote. 2.3 million votes have yet to be calculated in either the popular vote totals, the pledged delegate totals or the total number of delegates required to win the nomination.

Anyone have a button? "2209 or fight!"

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Full post as published by TalkLeft on May 07, 2008 (boomark / email).