Legal Commentary

Where Kos And I Agree . . . And Disagree

By Big Tent Democrat

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Kos responds:

[I]f the supers overturn the popular will by siding with Clinton, they will spur civil war ("up in arms", as Armando says) -- not because they broke a rule in pulling off their coup, but because they will have subverted the will of the party electorate.

Here Markos and I agree. If Obama is the pledged delegate leader and the popular vote leader (as me, Kos and a cast of a thousand bloggers, NBC, etc, expect), then any action by the super delegates to subvert such a result would be outrageous and wrong, imo of course. But as Kos acknowledges, NOT against the rules. It won't happen. More . . .

Where Kos and I disagree - he writes:

The rules state that Michigan and Florida don't count.

The rules DO NOT state that. The rules ACTUALLY expressly state that Michigan and Florida would suffer a 50% loss of elected delegate as a penalty for moving up their contests. The DNC violated its own rules in imposing the draconian punishment of stripping Florida and Michigan of their delegates. But let's not go all Walter Sobcek on this.

The REAL point is that revotes were planned for Michigan and Florida - revotes that were completely within the rules and more importantly, completely in the interest of the Democratic Party (but NOT in the interest of Barack Obama's chance to win the nomination, though certainly in his interest in winning the general election.)

Barack Obama blocked the proposed revotes in Florida and Michigan. To my way of thinking, this means Obama needs to have a margin in the popular vote that exceeds 500k, the amount of margin one could reasonably argue Clinton may have gotten from revotes in Florida and Michigan. He should be able to do that. And of course he will hold his selected delegate lead.

One last point, except for what I am writing with regards to the rules, everything I present here is merely opinion, not facts. Until the voters decide, this is all just bloviating from pundits like me, Markos, Josh Marshall and whomever you choose.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 25, 2008 (boomark / email).