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National Committee members Joel Ferguson of Michigan and Jon Ausman of Florida, both superdelegates, apparently will be withdrawn now that the Michigan executive committee has settled on the 69-59 plan.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.

Clinton Machine Grinds On

Stealing Obama's votes

Make no mistake about it: Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer wants to make damned certain you never have a chance to cast a vote for Barack Obama. So does Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

They, and the ruthlessly ambitious Debbie Dingell, want to be behind-the-scenes kingmakers. They want to deliver the Democratic presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton, for the sake of their egos and their careers. But it isn't turning out the way they planned.

They are in trouble now, and starting to panic. The nomination is slipping away from Clinton, and from their grasp.

Having stupidly botched the primary, they are now fighting desperately to keep from doing the right thing.

Michigan needs a new round of voting. The national Democratic Party agrees, and wants the state to hold caucuses.

But our local party bosses say: No way.

Pfft. Democrats.

Ickey

Flip-floppin away-

WASHINGTON (AP) — Harold Ickes, a top adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign who voted for Democratic Party rules that stripped Michigan and Florida of their delegates, now is arguing against the very penalty he helped pass.

In a conference call Saturday, the longtime Democratic Party member contended the DNC should reconsider its tough sanctions on the two states, which held early contests in violation of party rules. He said millions of voters in Michigan and Florida would be otherwise disenfranchised — before acknowledging moments later that he had favored the sanctions.

Campaigning in Wisconsin after Ickes' remarks, Clinton echoed his contention that a suitable arrangement could be worked out to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations.

"The rules provide for a vote at the convention to seat contested delegations," she said. "This goes back to the 1940s in my memory. There is nothing unusual about this. My husband didn't wrap up the nomination until June. Usually it takes awhile to sort all this out. That's why there are rules. If there are contested delegations, the convention votes on it."

Ickes explained that his different position essentially is due to the different hats he wears as both a DNC member and a Clinton adviser in charge of delegate counting. Clinton won the primary vote in Michigan and Florida, and now she wants those votes to count.

Good thing I'm not a democrat. As a resident of Michigan, I'd tell Hillary Clinton and her advisors to piss off. But that's just me.