Michigan Will Sit Down

The beat goes on.

LANSING, Mich. - Michigan Democratic leaders on Wednesday settled on a plan to give presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton 69 delegates and Barack Obama 59 as a way to get the state's delegates seated at the national convention.

Clinton won the Jan. 15 Michigan primary and was to get 73 pledged delegates under state party rules, while Obama was to get 55. The state also has 29 superdelegates.

The state party's executive committee voted Wednesday to ask the national party's Rules and Bylaws Committee to approve the 69-59 delegate split when it meets May 31. The plan would allow the state's 157 delegates and superdelegates to be seated at the convention.

A separate plan submitted to the rules committee by Democratic National Committee members Joel Ferguson of Michigan and Jon Ausman of Florida, both superdelegates, apparently will be withdrawn now that the Michigan executive committee has settled on the 69-59 plan. Under their proposal, delegates would have been allocated based on the primary election results, but have had only half a vote each. The superdelegates would have had full voting rights.

The 69-59 split was proposed last week by four prominent Michigan Democrats who have been working for months to find a way to get Michigan's delegates seated at the Aug. 25-28 convention in Denver: Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger, Sen. Carl Levin and DNC member Debbie Dingell, wife of Rep. John Dingell.

Granholm made a fine mess of the primaries.