Do FL and MI Count?

(Newser) - The McCain campaign is giving up on Michigan, the Detroit News reports. The Republican is pulling all ads, mail, and staff there to focus on more competitive states, a move that points to the difficulty the GOP faces in winning blue states. Michigan—which holds 17 electoral votes—was seen as a key battleground for McCain, but polls showed him slipping further and further behind. More »

(Newser) - The much-contested delegations from Michigan and Florida will receive full voting rights at the Democratic National Convention tonight, the Washington Post reports. Michigan and Florida’s primaries favored Hillary Clinton, but adjustments have been made in Obama’s favor, and Clinton seems poised to release her delegates to vote as they choose. More »

(Newser) - Yesterday Hillary Clinton gave a speech in Florida, site of her uncontested primary victory, and urged Democrats to vote for Barack Obama in November. But as the New York Times reports, many at the rally found her support for the presumptive nominee lukewarm at best. In a room full of her supporters, the sentiment prevailed that Clinton's performance was more perfunctory than heartfelt. More »

(Newser) - The Democratic rules committee has begun a daylong meeting to try to settle the dispute over the seating of Florida and Michigan’s delegates, chosen in violation of party rules. Many Dems expect half the delegations from each state to be seated, the Washington Post reports, which would do little to alter the delegate math that underscores Barack Obama’s virtual lock on the nomination. More »

(Newser) - Democratic leaders say the primary fight will be over next week, making it all but certain that Barack Obama will be the nominee. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and party chief Howard Dean say they will press uncommitted superdelegates to make up their minds by midweek, after Tuesday's final primaries, the New York Times reports. “By this time next week, it will all be over, give or take a day," said Reid. More »

(Newser) - A plan to give each of Florida’s Democratic delegates a half-vote and to split Michigan’s halved delegates evenly between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is “gaining some traction in the right circles” ahead of Saturday’s DNC meeting, Talking Points Memo discerns from an MSNBC report. The compromise would net Clinton 19 delegates and set a new “magic number” of 2,118. More »

(Newser) - By Democratic Party rules, the long-awaited committee meeting on Saturday is authorized to re-seat no more than half of the outlaw delegations from Florida and Michigan, party lawyers have advised in a new memo. The Rules and Bylaws Committee is required to maintain a penalty for the leapfrogging states that cuts their original delegate counts at least by half, the AP reports. More »

(Newser) - Attempts by Hillary Clinton supporters to link the push to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations with fights for suffrage and other freedoms the world over is "an equation that makes a mockery of democracy and feminism,” Harold Meyerson writes in the Washington Post —particularly since Clinton herself supported sanctions on the states until it became politically urgent to shift course. More »

(Newser) - Barack Obama is urging supporters not to demonstrate at Saturday’s meeting of the Democrats' rules committee, hoping to keep the event from becoming a cable-news circus, the Hill reports. Clinton supporters have pledged to gather outside the meeting, where party bigs will decide whether, and how many Florida and Michigan delegates are seated at the convention in August. More »

(Newser) - Bill Clinton claimed this weekend that there is a conspiracy to bury polls showing Hillary to be the better Democratic general-election candidate against John McCain, adding, “I have never seen a candidate treated so disrespectfully just for running.” “Oh, this is so terrible," said the former president of conspirators' reaction to positive Hillary Clinton tidings, "we have to cover this up.” More »

(Newser) - With primary voting in its final stretch, the long-simmering argument about outlaw Florida and Michigan balloting is heating up. Hillary Clinton's camp is still arguing that all delegates should be seated, while Barack Obama said seating half the Florida delegates would be “a very reasonable solution”—though he discounted the vote's legitimacy, calling it “essentially a referendum on name recognition.” More »

(Newser) - Hillary Clinton’s insistence that she’s winning the popular vote not only promotes a meaningless rubric in a delegate contest, but it's also a dangerous claim—and a false one, Jonathan Alter writes in Newsweek . Not only is Clinton trampling on old sore spots (think Al Gore in 2000), but she’s also in the wrong, Alter asserts, then runs through the math. More »

(Newser) - Hillary Clinton today rejected the latest plan for seating Michigan’s rogue delegates, Talking Points Memo reports. A campaign rep wrote of the scheme settled on by state Dems that would award Clinton 69 delegates to Obama’s 59: “This proposal does not honor the 600,000 votes that were cast. Those votes must be counted.” January's extra-legal vote netted her 73 conventioneers to 55 for “uncommitted.” More »

(Newser) - Barack Obama plans to lay claim to his party’s nomination on May 20, the day that votes in Kentucky and Oregon will net him a majority of pledged delegates, a top aide tells Politico, setting up what David Paul Kuhn calls “a train wreck waiting to happen.” For at least 11 days—until the DNC meets on whether and how to seat Michigan and Florida’s outlaw delegates—the Clinton camp will dispute it. More »

(Newser) - The Michigan Democratic Party agreed yesterday to a plan to split its delegates to the August convention: The state wants to award 69 to Hillary Clinton and 59 to Barack Obama, who did not appear on the ballot in the primary, which was voided because it broke party rules. Michigan would also seat 29 superdelegates, reports the Detroit News . More »