NewsGang Live 05.07.08
Day One: Matt Terenzio, Debi Jones, Karoli Kuns, Bruce Lerner, Michael Vanderhort, and Jerry Schuman and the UstreamGangers. Recorded Wednesday, May 7, 2008.
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Industry experts and thought leaders mix it up in The Gillmor Gang's daily conversation on what's hot in technology and social media.
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May 8th, 2008 at 3:30 am
How about Florida and Michigan? Should those votes not count?
I think Clinton and Obama are about equal in number of votes and pledged delegates if you count in Florida and Michigan.
So let the super delegates decide at the convention who is the best candidate to beat John McCain.
You’ve been saying in every episode of your podcast for the past several months that there is no need for the remaining states to vote, there is no mention of Florida and Michigan.
May 8th, 2008 at 4:03 am
Current delegates for Obama: 1,588
Current delegates for Clinton: 1,422
Superdelegates: 800 excluding Florida and Michigan
2.5 million people voted in Florida and Michigan. Those states represent 9% of the US population.
Normal amount of delegates that should represent Florida and Michigan: ~ 500
Current difference of delegates between Obama and Clinton: 166
Current superdelegates and delegates for Florida and Michigan that can affect the result at the national democratic convention: 1300
Sure 520 something of the 800 superdelegates have so-called pledged their vote already. So nearly 300 of the superdelegates have not yet said who they think they will vote for. But there is nothing legally stopping all of the superdelegates from choosing their vote not before the national convention. That is what a political campaign is for, for candidates to convince voters and superdelegates.
So 500 (Florida and Michigan), + 800 (superdelegates) - 166 (Obama current delegate lead) = that is a 1034 delegates still to be confirmed at the democratic convention.
If someone has better source for the exact numbers that Florida, Michigan, Superdelegates amount to, then please post.
May 8th, 2008 at 4:18 am
Also there are 217 normal delegates still to be won in the remaining 6 primaries.
May 8th, 2008 at 7:29 am
@Charbax It would be just for the FL and MI delegates to not be counted at all. Democrats in those states knew the rules, and broke them anyway. For the sake of party unity, they should probably be seated. But not in any way that would overturn the results of the legitimate primaries and caucuses.
Also, if you haven’t noticed, the superdelegates aren’t exactly flocking to Clinton’s side.
It’s time for Clinton supporters to start accepting the reality that this thing is over. This delusional think that there’s still a chance for Clinton to win *could* hurt Obama’s chances to win if it continues for too long.
It makes me wonder if Clinton’s hardcore supporters would prefer McCain over Obama.
May 8th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
It’d be ridiculous not to count all the FL and MI delegates.
155 delegates from MI should go to Clinton. And most of the 210 delegates from FL should also go to Clinton. That’s according to the 2.5 million people who voted at the primaries in those states.
Perhaps the best solution though would be to set a new democratic vote in MI and FL on for example the 15th of June or something like that, there is nothing that should stop that from happening. This way both candidates can campaign in MI and FL and the 365 delegates for MI and FL can be distributed to each campaign accordingly.
It is simply wrong to say superdelegates aren’t flocking to Clinton. There are over 300 uncommitted superdelegates and any of the 500 committed superdelegates can perfectly change their mind any time they wish to up until the national democratic convention.
It’s also wrong to keep saying that this race is destroying the democratic party, or that it could hurt the nominee if it continues for too long. The big vote is in November, that’s over 6 months from now. And it is probably very good for the democrats to get all this free advertising all the time by being constantly on tv news. Democrats have something like 5/1 advantage over Republicans now for TV exposure. And there is no such thing as bad tv exposure. The more the Democrats are on TV, the more people will vote for them.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
> 155 delegates from MI should go to Clinton. And most of the 210 delegates from FL should also go to Clinton. That’s according to the 2.5 million people who voted at the primaries in those states.
The idea that we should accept the results of an election where one person was on the ballot is utter foolishness. Do you know where else they hold those kinds of elections? Places like Iraq when Saddam Hussein was in power.
> It is simply wrong to say superdelegates aren’t flocking to Clinton. There are over 300 uncommitted superdelegates and any of the 500 committed superdelegates can perfectly change their mind any time they wish to up until the national democratic convention.
As the saying goes, “Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.”
And you don’t think that racial and classist signaling like this isn’t harmful?
“Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”
Again, foolishness.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:32 am
> The idea that we should accept the results of an election
> where one person was on the ballot is utter foolishness.
This is Obama’s camp who actively decided not to be on the ballot. This is probably cause the Obama camp knew they were quite a lot disadvantaged in Michigan, so instead of being ridiculed at the vote, they decided to just disenfranchise the Michigan voters by acting as if Michigan voters shouldn’t have their votes counted since Obama wouldn’t even be on the ballot.
With that kind of mentallity, then Clinton could have removed her name from the North Carolina primary cause she knew from opinion polls that black people wouldn’t be voting for her in that state.
Hey I agree the result in Michigan as 100% for Clinton wouldn’t be fair for Obama, cause it doesn’t have to be his fault that someone in his campaign advised him to remove his name from the Michigan primary. Then what simply should happen is quite simple:
1. Re-vote in Michigan and Florida
2. If you absolutely don’t think you have time or money to re-vote in Michigan and Florida, only logical outcome is you take the january primary results and distribute all the delegates accordingly.
3. Nobody in their right mind can think any other kind of determination of how many delegates each candidate should get would be valid coming from Michigan. Re-vote or give 100% to Clinton. Sorry but there is no other democratic way to do it.
4. I’m sure Clinton would agree to do a re-vote in Michigan and Florida. So there is nothing stopping it from happening, podcasts such as Gillmor Gang should promote that idea, push DNC people to decide to do it. This way all 50 states would be included in the final undisputable result.
I think the only democratic thing that should have been decided by Florida courts in 2000 when Bush won the state of Florida under bucketloads of uncertainties, would simply have been: “Hey, we obviously don’t think we know what the people of Florida voted, we want to re-vote in Florida. And if the rest of the states don’t think we should re-vote alone, then let’s have a nationnal re-vote.”
No candidate in their right mind and being democratic should be allowed to contest that there needs to be a re-vote when there is uncertainties in election results. A national presidential election, all states vote on the same day. So that is not the same. But for primary elections, each state vote on different days, so logically there should be NO PROBLEM to ask Michigan and Florida to vote again for whom they think should be the democratic candidate for president.
Florida and Michigan complained not having enough power to influence the democratic primary, now they can be the last states to vote and thus have the final say on who should be the democratic candidate. So logically Florida and Michigan should have nothing to complain about a re-vote.