Michigan Settles On Plan, But Clinton Rejects It

Michigan Settles On Plan, But Clinton Rejects It

Michigan Democrats finally, officially, we mean it this time, settled on a split the difference plan for trying to get its delegates from the rule-breaking Jan. 15 primary seated at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. But there's no buy-in from the Hillary Clinton campaign, and the campaigns aren't the only players at the table.

The state party’s executive committee voted Wednesday to ask the national party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee to approve a delegate of 69 for Hillary Clinton and 59 for Barack Obama on May 31. The result splits the difference between the 73 delegates Clinton "won" Jan. 15 and the 64-64 split the Obama campaign wanted.

But Thursday the Clinton campaign rejected the 69-59 Michigan proposal. "This proposal does not honor the 600,000 votes that were cast in Michigan's January primary," wrote spokesperson Isaac Baker in an email. "Those votes must be counted."

After Michigan and Florida scheduled their primaries earlier than party rules allowed, the DNC Rules and Bylaws committee voted to strip the two states of all their delegates. Obama took his name off the Michigan ballot to support Iowa and other early states.

Clinton has made Michigan and Florida a big issue, for reasons both self-serving (she won the two states) and principled. She had thr crowd chanting "Count! The! Votes!" at her Indiana speech Tuesday night. That same night, as pundits began declaring Obama the presumptive nominee, the Obama campaign began to indicate a new willingness to seat the two rule-breaking states.

But the Clinton and Obama campaigns are not the only players at the table, as MSNBC writes:

The hurdle isn't Clinton and Obama anymore, though; it is folks in the DNC who believe those two recalcitrant states still need to be punished in some form, so states realize there are consequences to doing this in 2012. It's clear to us that DNC types want some flesh on this issue. Many hate the idea of Florida and Michigan getting full delegations simply because now it appears their delegations won't make a difference in the process.