DNC Rules Committee Is a Toothless Tiger – Nominee Will Restore Votes to Florida, Michigan

Except to deliver a public scolding to Democrats in Florida and Michigan — and to expend a lot of hot air — it is hard to see what good came out of the day long meeting of the DNC Rules Committee on Saturday. In fact, it was much like watching a toothless tiger picking his teeth.
The seating of delegates is the prerogative of the nominee. Both Obama and Clinton have told Sen. Levin that they would seat the full delegations from Florida and Michigan.
The Rules Committee rules don’t matter. It’s up to the presumptive nominee — when we get one — to decide who gets seated at the Democratic Convention:

[It] seems that even though the committee voted to give the delegates from Michigan and Florida only half a vote each at the convention, they will end up getting full votes.

That is the prerogative of the nominee. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan says that both Senator Barack Obama and Mrs. Clinton have told him that if they were nominated they would give the delegates full voting strength.

“We’re assured we’re going to get a full vote,” Mr. Levin said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

He added: “And both candidates have said that they want Michigan’s delegation to have a full vote. She said that yesterday and Senator Obama has said that he can guarantee that the Michigan delegation will be seated and they’ll have a full voice at the convention, when he has enough delegates to know that he’s the nominee.”

This raises some interesting questions — like whether the rules matter.

So what is really going on here?

In Florida, moving the primary date into the early forbidden zone was deliberate — and quite successful — mischief-making by Republicans, especially including Gov. Charlie Crist, who last September threatened to veto any bill attempting to change Florida’s presidential primary to a later date. “It doesn’t have a chance,” said Crist, a Republican. “I think Florida’s doing the right thing.”

But the Michiganders appear to be up to something else altogether:

][Why] was Michigan so eager to have full delegate strength at the convention if the nominee will already have been chosen?

As Mr. Levin reminded listeners, there’s more to a convention than just nominating a candidate.

It’s about having enough votes to do other things — and if you are, say, Michigan, that includes pursuit of your long-time goal of toppling New Hampshire and Iowa from their perches of primacy in the nominating calendar.

“So this is not about Senator Clinton or about Senator Obama?” Bob Schieffer, the host of “Face the Nation,” asked Mr. Levin. “This is about New Hampshire?”

Mr. Levin: “You’re exactly right.”

Mr. Levin has been on that crusade for years. He suggested that the chaos this time around was a small price to pay if it could advance that cause. He went on to cast Michigan as an agent of “reform” of the system, which, he said, “is a really messed-up system where a few states always go first.”

So look for Michigan to be back on both feet to continue the contentious fight to knock out New Hampshire and Iowa. (It will be interesting to see how the party of a President Obama might deal with this, since he won Iowa but lost New Hampshire.)

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