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Is The Obama Campaign Making A Mistake ?

Posted by PATRICK EDABURN in At TMV.
May 31st, 2008 | Comments

In watching the debate at the DNC rules committee I am starting to wonder if the Obama campaign is making something of a tactical mistake of being so aggressive in pursuing its position regarding Michigan and Florida.

To begin with, I think they could have chosen a better spokesman from Florida. Perhaps it is just me but Congressman Wexler comes off as quite arrogant and seemingly unable to conceive that any fair minded person could disagree with him. Given the problems Obama has had on this topic recently I might have chosen a different spokesperson.

Further, I’m not sure that they need to fight so hard to ‘win’ this fight considering where the math is. Right now Obama has a lead of about 180 delegates and about 500,000 popular votes (not counting Michigan and Florida). Polls suggest Clinton will win Puerto Rico and Obama will win Montana and South Dakota. Just to be generous to Clinton, lets assume she wins PR by a 2-1 margin and ties Obama in Montana and South Dakota. This moves the delegate count to around 140 vote lead for Obama and the popular vote would be around 400,000 or so.

If you go with the Clinton plan to fully seat the delegations and split the delegates based on her share of the popular vote, there really would not be much of a change. In Florida she won 50% while Obama and Edwards split the rest. Since Edwards has endorsed Obama, it is likely his delegates would go with Obama, so there would basically be no delegate shift. In Michigan lets give Obama 40% for the undecided voters and Clinton 60% (she actually won 55% there). This gives her a gain of about 25 delegates, so Obama ends with a lead of more than 100 delegates.

In the popular vote, Clinton beat Obama by 100,000 votes in Michigan and about 250,000 in Florida, so Obama would also retain the lead in the popular vote, especially if you tie seating Florida and Michigan in full to also counting the votes from the various caucus states. So Obama could come in and offer to basically give Clinton what she wants and he’d sill be ahead plus he’d have taken away her major argument in terms of staying in the race.

I’m not one to give the Obama campaign advice, but it seems like they could have taken a smarter road.

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Jazz

I'd have to check to be sure, but I think Oregon already voted, didn't they?

Ron Beasley

Yes, Oregon already voted and Obama won by double digits. I don't see how you can make the case she beat Obama by 100,000 votes in MI when she was the only one on the ballot. How many Obama voters simply stayed home because they could not vote for their candidate. The only fair thing to do in Michigan is to give them half a vote, all uncommited.

Patrick E

Yes it was a typo on my part, I meant South Dakota, not Oregon. Thanks for the heads up.

As to making the argument she won by 100,000 votes I was trying to point out that even if you interpret things to the best advantage of Clinton, Obama would still have the lead.

In other words even if she gets what she wants she is behind, so Obama could have taken the high road and given her the benefits and lost nothing.

runasim

I lost interest in the tactics at this meeting long before it started.

At the beginning of the primaries, Clinton declared that the delegates from FL and MI should not be seated.
She created this problem by changing her own rules mid-stream, and now everyone has to accomodate her revised positions, as they come up one by one.

It would be different, if objections raised by FL and MI were unattached to a specific candicadate, but Clinton is playing them for her own agenda, not for the sake of the Dem. Party and not on behalf of FL and MI voters.

It's a little late in the game to start parsing the tactics of all those put in an awkward position by Clinton's political games.

Patrick E

Well again, my point wasn't to argue for one side or the other, merely to point out that Obama could give Clinton all she wants and sill end up ahead and he would look good while she'd look even more petty

donsingleton

If Obama had any sense he would have said that in the interest of party unity he asks the Rules committee to seat both FL and MI, giving him credit for undecided votes in MI. It would give Hillary all she says she wants, and yet the super delegates would flock to him. Then Hillary just has to hope e flubs up big, and since he just quit Trinity Church he is unlikely to be tied to more pastor problems from Trinity.

But Obama is not smart enough to do that.

pacatrue

If the Obama campaign disagrees with Don, it's obviously an indication that he's personally not terribly smart. Logically follows.

StockBoySF

On the one hand I can see how Obama would come out ahead by giving Hlllary what she wants. At the end of the day he's still ahead.

Though on the other hand, I don't think Obama wants to bee seen by other world leaders as someone who during negotiations will give away stuff just to be nice and look good. Also FL and MI did break the rules and should be sanctioned. I'm against rewarding scofflaws just because they scream loudly. What about all those states/territories which DID follow the rules? If there was no punishment for the rule breakers then in the future any state will feel that they can cherry-pick which rules they want to follow. Isn't that how banana republics operate?

So I'm happy that the DNC was fair (more than fair, if you ask me) about this issue. There was an accommodation made but the states weren't let off scott-free.

Patrick E

To be honest I actually tend to side with the idea that they shouldn't have gotten any votes at the convention. The rules are the rules and they should stick to them, at least in a perfect world.

However I also recognize the political reality of some 50 odd electoral votes so I know they had to do something

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