DNC Denver – The “Don’t Nap on Clinton” Convention

This drama has not played out its’ final scene yet. I expect the last shoe to drop tomorrow as Senator Hillary Clinton’s name is placed into nomination for President of the United States.

Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Will Bower who is one of the core members of the group P.U.M.A. I wrote about their efforts to still elect Senator Clinton a few weeks ago, and I thought he would have some interesting insights into the last-minute maneuverings in Denver. Here is what I have learned:

According to DNC Convention rules, a candidate has two avenues of having his or her name placed into nomination: the Democratic Party chair (Howard Dean) or from a petition of 300 signed delegates from the floor by 12 p.m. noon tomorrow, the 26th. Bower told me that P.U.M.A and the Just Say No Deal coalition “doesn’t trust Howard Dean to do what is right by Senator Clinton so we will have the 300 signatures, just in case.”

The latest estimate is that Senator Clinton has 1886 delegates and would need a switch of 231 (or about 5%) of the delegates to switch to her. This seems an unlikely scenario but the delegates in question are the super delegates, not the ones who are committed via the delegate primary system.

Bower stated that he “thinks that some super delegates were paid off to support Obama because of the money given to them by his campaign. Some super delegates voted against the overwhelming wishes of the voters of their state. For instance, Senator Byrd supported Obama even though Senator Clinton won his state by forty points because of the money he received from MoveOn.org.” Bower has a point here because Obama has given three times as much money to super delegates than Clinton, and OpenSecrets.org shows that Byrd has received more that $88,000 from MoveOn political action.

Finally, Bower brought up an interesting point of Clinton’s situation in Denver that has a historical precedent – the Chicago convention of 1932. FDR was running for his first term and had won 11 out of 13 primary contests. However, he was not the favored candidate of the business establishment or the Democrat Party. Bower states, “Like FDR in 1932, Senator Clinton has the will of the Democratic voters behind her. It took four roll call votes for FDR to beat the party machine. We are here to make sure that Senator Clinton has a fair vote.”

I have maintained that this primary fight was far from over. Here is a friendly hint to Senator Obama…watch out for falling objects. By tomorrow afternoon, we shall see how far and fast the last shoe will drop.