MI, FL Delegates Each Get Half a Vote

The Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee met in Washington on Saturday to discuss possible solutions to the delicate issues of seating Michigan and Florida's delegates.

And guess what? They listened to me! They did exactly what I suggested they should do in yesterday's article, which was to seat all of the delegates from Florida and Michigan and give each of them have of a vote at the convention. As a result, the magic number of delegates for clinching the nomination has now changed from 2,026 to 2,118.

The only difference was in their decision about Michigan, in which they gave Hillary Clinton 69 delegates to Barack Obama's 59--taking into account the thousands of write-in ballots that were most likely for Obama--when in fact the vote total showed that Clinton should have received 73 delegates to Obama's 55--giving Obama the uncommitted delegates according to the January 15 vote. So basically they stole four delegates away from Clinton and gave them to Obama.

Now, this is not that big of a deal with only four delegates changing hands (8 net delegates) because Obama is currently up by over 175 pledged delegates. But after the compromised was reached, Clinton campaign adviser Harold Ickes issued this statement:

"We reserve the right to challenge this decision before the Credentials Committee and appeal for a fair allocation of Michigan’s delegates that actually reflect the votes as they were cast." The Credentials Committee will meet at the end of July.

Now, should we take this threat seriously or is the Clinton campaign just holding on until the clock runs out? I think the latter is more likely.

And even if Obama has not reached 2,118 delegates after the Puerto Rico primary on Sunday and the Montana and South Dakota primaries on Tuesday, aides to both Obama and Clinton said they expected enough superdelegates to endorse Obama in the 48 hours after the final primaries to allow him to proclaim himself the nominee.

In addition, Clinton's associates said she is coming to terms with the fact that she will most likely not win the nomination.

Now, the question is when, how--or if--Clinton will drop out. Will she wait until he has reached 2,118, or will she protest the committee's decision until July? Or will she take it all the way to the convention?

Absolutely not. The real reason that Clinton has stayed in for this long is because she wants to be seen as someone who doesn't give up or quit--a fighter. She wants to have people see her this way because she still badly wants to be president.

Now, I don't know how she wants to go about doing this--whether as Obama's VP or quietly hoping that he loses this year so she can run in 2012. But if she takes this to the convention and the Democrats lose in November, Democrats will blame her for the loss and her presidential hopes will be shattered. And she is fully aware of this.

I fully expect Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race and endorse Barack Obama within the 24 hours after he reaches 2,118 delegates. But we'll wait and see what happens.