Obama was not on the ballot in MI but he was on the ballot in FL.

No matter, Terry said that when you included the original results, meaning the entire pop. vote in MI and FL, and the remaining states, Hillary would have the pop. vote lead.

He said the Clinton campaign would be willing to except a deal in which only half the delegates are seated.

What he didn't agree to is that the pop. votes in those states would not count.

They can't win the delegate count.

They want to move the discussion to pop.vote to make their case.

The pop. vote cannot and should not be certified under any circumstances.

Even if they decide to seat half the delegates, the pop. vote must remain nullified.

Posted at May 11, 2008 3:28 PM in response to McAullife on MTP

The candidates all signed a four state pledge agreement. Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Meaning only these four states are allowed to have legitimate primaries before Feb. 5th.

FL and MI were the only states that defied the rules and the agreement in my comment above clearly states that each candidate would not participate in those state's primaries.

Posted at May 11, 2008 3:19 PM in response to McAuliffe Says Clinton Would Accept 50% of FL and MI

Here's the operative part of the four state agreement each candidate signed:

Note that it says "I will not campaign or participate in any state..."

Therefore, they agreed not to participate in the FL and MI primaries.

THEREFORE, I _______________, Democratic Candidate for President, pledgeI shall not campaign or participate in any state which schedules a presidentialelection primary or caucus before Feb. 5, 2008, except for the states of Iowa,Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina, as “campaigning” is defined byrules and regulations of the DNC._____________________________________John/Jane Doe, Doe for PresidentDATE

Posted at May 11, 2008 3:05 PM in response to McAuliffe Says Clinton Would Accept 50% of FL and MI

Anyone know what he meant when he said the rules only say you lose 50% of the delegates?

As I understood it, the agreement each of the candidates signed ahead of time, and the DNC has been enforcing, is that if FL and MI held early primaries, none of the delegates would be seated. None of the results would count.

??

Posted at May 11, 2008 11:58 AM in response to McAuliffe Says Clinton Would Accept 50% of FL and MI

Sounds like you're a great parent.

Posted at May 10, 2008 9:48 PM in response to What Gets Lost

Even if Obama is ahead, I don't think he should except the Clinton version of seating the FL and MI delegates. I don't think the DNC should tolerate one candidate breaking the rules and making an issue out of it under the guise of democracy.

We don't negotiate with those that threaten to withdraw their financial support if the candidate they support isn't appointed as the nominee.

Had the DNC been steadfast with their decision to uphold the original agreement, we would be united already running against John McCain.

Hillary agreed to uphold the agreement. Then she changed her mind.

If we've learned anything in this election, it's that we can't take her word for anything.

Posted at May 10, 2008 9:17 PM in response to Hillary Holds Private Conference Call With Her Super-Dels: "I Know This Is Not Easy"

Another poster focusing on the fear of what might happen.

Cheney and Obama may be cousins, Elf, but seriously, get a grip.

He inspires people. He's created immense support.

Not everyone capable of doing this is Hitler.

No one thinks he's perfect. He doesn't think he's perfect.

If you're going to speculate, why only speculate negative?

Posted at May 10, 2008 7:22 PM in response to How will his power be kept under control?

Regarding Hillary's leverage, I think like most other things the Clintons and the media exaggerate, there is not as much division among democrats as they would lead you to believe.

Democrats will unite like never before. But perhaps in ways like never before.

The most important thing to remember as pundits pontificate about who needs what states and which voter demographics is this:

In the general election, Barack may not win the same way Hillary would win.

There are states Barack can put in play that Hillary can't.

Let's not apply old electoral dynamics to this year's election.

Because if the Obama campaign did that, Barack would have lost a long time ago.

Posted at May 10, 2008 6:52 PM in response to My theory vis-a-vis the current full throttle Clinton campaign

sorry didn't see your comment earlier lucywho. Interesting theory.
Let's go through it:

"We invade Iraq expecting to accomplish oil privitization fairly quickly."

I think that's part of why we invaded Iraq. Saddam had plans to boost production of Iraq oil and trade it for euros, not dollars. Had we not invaded, the boosted production would have increased the supply of oil on the market, reducing the price. This wouldn't have been good news to Saudi Arabia, and moving to the euro would have been bad, potentially devastating for our own economy, in that it might have triggered other countries to drop the dollar for the euro. (I'm sure you know that Iran just did this and now they find themselves surrounded by more U.S. warships than ever.)

Back to the invasion of Iraq. The administration wasn't prepared for the chaos. They thought they could just build the largest U.S. embassy in Baghdad, and construct military installations near the oil fields--stabilizing energy security (for the U.S.).

But the worse the violence got in Iraq, the more attention it got.
Aside from the lack of security, it wouldn't have been good PR to have Exxon/Mobil or BP set up shop.

Lack of regulation over the speculative oil market, afforded by the Republican controlled congress, allowed the cost of oil to spring from $25 to $125. The best place for the oil in Iraq was to stay in the ground while the price of oil skyrocketed.

I honestly don't know enough to conclude that Iran could manage to sell Iraq oil on its exchange.

Regarding oil permits for the private companies--I don't know how well that's going to work out. I do think the current push to drill in ANWR is a safety--it's enormously expensive for the oil companies to get that project going. And for just 11 billion barrels? The fact that the administration is pursuing it anyway tells me that ANWR may provide international collateral for the historic U.S. international debt. It's also likely that the oil there isn't meant for our gas tanks, but rather the military's.

Iran and China and Russia are structuring what could be one of, if not the most influential oil partnerships in the next decade.

If you grew up in the Cheney era, you're mid 20th century "world domination" mindset might likely drive you to do everything in your power to attack Iran.

We'll see.

Posted at May 10, 2008 4:28 PM in response to The U.S. military is the biggest purchaser of oil in the world.

Based on the phenomenal participation of democrats in this election, can anyone estimate how many new voters would have been brought into the process if these states kept to the DNC schedule?

We only hear about representing the voice of those who came to the polls despite knowing it wouldn't count.

What about the voice of those who didn't go to the polls because they were told it wouldn't count?

That's the equivalent of voter fraud.

The only equitable way to solve this is to split 50/50.

Posted at May 9, 2008 3:57 PM in response to FL + MI / 2