Clinton campaign is optimistic about seating Fla., Mich.
Officials of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign told reporters in a conference call today their goal at Saturday’s daylong meeting of the Democratic National Committee’s rules committee is to obtain a decision allowing 100 percent of the pledged delegates from Florida and Michigan to be seated at the Democratic National Convention in August.
Those two states were denied the right to seat their delegates because their primaries were held early in violation of party rules. The Clinton campaign maintains that the party organizations in those two states have been punished enough and the decision of the voters should be recognized.
“We obviously believe there is a path to the nomination and we are following it,’’ said Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s communications director.
Barack Obama’s campaign said today that he is within 46 delegates of reaching the 2,026 needed to clinch the nomination.
However, if the rules are changed to recognize the Florida and Michigan delegations, the total number of delegates need to win the nomination would rise.
“Any compromise is going to clearly benefit Sen. Clinton,’’ David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, told reporters in a conference call this afternoon.
Clinton supporters—most of them from Florida – are expected to demonstrate outside of Saturday’s meeting in Washington. Wolfson said the demonstration is not being organized by the campaign.
The Obama campaign is not encouraging supporters to demonstrate, according to Plouffe. “We don’t think it’s a helpful dynamic to create chaos,’’ he said.
| 
Email This
Advertisements
The fact that millions of votes by US citizen’s in Florida and Michigan are not counted in this primary election is anti-democratic. The fact that Iowa and South Carolina both broke the rules having their primaries early, yet their votes count in full, but Florida and Michigan’s don’t, that’s just plain unfair. The fact that Obama broke the rules by running TV ads in Florida, and took his name off the ballot in Michigan because he saw he was losing there is cheating. The fact that the DNC lawyers are saying that the people who live in Michigan and Florida are half citizens is against the fundamental principle that we are all created equal. I guess those who live in Florida are not equal? The people on this blog who tout breaking rules, well maybe we should still have the rules that African Americans and women should not vote! Rules that are undemocratic, unfair, promote cheating, should be thrown out, and apologized for. As a Democrat who voted for Kerry and who wants to vote Democrat again, I pray that the rules committee will count these votes in full.
clinton supporters should get real…the democratic
party rules make it virtually impossible for clinton
to win…too bad…she would defeat the republican
as state by state polling demonstrates…..obama is
not acceptable in swing stats..but the democrats have
rules that apportion delegates…they have caucuses
not primaries..and certainly not winner take all…
they don’t want anyone to feel badly..consequently they
will get their collective butts kicked by the republican
in november.
Let the fight continue to the floor of the convention. Denver can turn into Chicago ‘68, minus Abbie Hoffman and a few others. Instead of the Chicago Seven, we can have the Denver Dozen. Che! Che! Che!