Ethics

The Florida and Michigan Compromise

By Ed Brayton

I watched a fair amount of Saturday's hearings before the DNC rules committee as they tried to come up with a reasonable solution for the problem of the Michigan and Florida delegates to their national convention. All in all, I think they did about as well as they could do under the circumstances. Whether you agree with them or not (and I think they're ridiculous and need to be changed), the DNC rules required quite clearly that the delegates for each state be cut in half.

They accomplished that by seating all the delegates but giving them a 1/2 vote each. It wasn't a perfect solution, but there was no perfect solution possible. When it came to proportioning the delegate votes for each candidate, the committee split the difference between the two parties and came close enough that the only real complaint coming from the Clinton campaign is that she should have gotten 4 more votes from Michigan than she got.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on June 02, 2008 (boomark / email).