Patterico's Pontifications

3/26/2008

The Democratic Party Credentials Committee

Filed under: 2008 Election — DRJ @ 9:45 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Hillary Clinton on Fox News with Greta, March 26, 2008:

“[Hillary] Clinton said, barring a resolution on Florida and Michigan, the fight goes to convention.

“You know, you can always go to the convention. That’s what credential fights are for,” he [sic] said. “Let’s have the Democratic party go on record against seating the Michigan and Florida delegations three months before the general election? I don’t think that will happen. I think they will be seated. So that’s where we’re headed if we don’t get this worked out.”

There is an excellent discussion about the history and make-up of the Credentials Committee in this Maryland Politics Watch post, including:

“So who is the Credentials Committee? Every standing committee of the Convention has three chairs and its membership includes twenty-five party leaders/elected officials nominated by Howard Dean and 161 other members elected by the state delegations. The three chairs for the 2008 Credentials Committee are Alexis Herman, James Roosevelt Jr., and Eliseo Roques-Arroyo. None of the three donated to any of the presidential campaigns, though Alexis Herman did donate to Clinton’s Senate campaign. All three are also unaffiliated super delegates. More interesting however, is that Alexis Herman was Labor Secretary under President Clinton and Roosevelt was an Associate Commissioner in the Clinton-era Social Security Administration. Of the 25 party leaders and elected officials, three were Clinton super delegates at the time of this writing. The chairs and party leaders/elected officials will not have full control over the outcome of committee decisions, but they will have a lot of influence.”

NOTE: I’m not familiar with and can’t vouch for the Maryland Political Watch blog, but I think it’s very interesting and definitely worth a look.

— DRJ

17 Responses to “The Democratic Party Credentials Committee”

  1. There is no way that they nominate Hillary, barring a complete meltdown of Barack Obama. Doing so would be worse than what happened in ’68. It would destroy the Democrat coalition for a generation. It might even give the Republicans the opportunity to regain the black support they had for the century following the civil war.

    I really don’t know what Hillary is thinking, unless she’s hoping for just such a collapse. Because a nomination wrested from the hands of African-Americans wouldn’t be worth a warm barrel of piss.

    Kevin Murphy (0b2493)

  2. The Democrats are stuck in quagmire of illegal delegates from count-every-vote Florida (and Michigan).

    Democrats can’t even run their own party, how are they going to manage foreign policy, social security and health care?

    Perfect Sense (b6ec8c)

  3. If (when) the party goes to Denver without a nominee, expect the “Recreate68” crowd to have lots of company fighting with the DNC over Civic Center Park. It should inspire a few Flounder moments as 1) “progressives” get to encounter the business end of democracy, and 2) Minneapolis gets public sympathy for its preemptive crackdown.

    rhodeymark (6797b5)

  4. And the media will blame the riots on Bush’s failure to maintain “law and order”, just as they did with the Rodney King riots and Bush 41.

    nk (34c5da)

  5. This is going to be delicious.

    JD (75f5c3)

  6. Would it really be such a tragedy if the Democratic nominee were not decided until the convention? After all, that is what the convention is for.

    dchamil (793092)

  7. If the “Credentials Committee” is anything close to what its name suggests, it would fun listening in on their meetings. What does the Credentials Committee do when the party’s nomination is down to two junior Senators who don’t have any?

    Xrlq (b71926)

  8. Would it really be such a tragedy if the Democratic nominee were not decided until the convention? After all, that is what the convention is for.

    No, no tragedy at all… “Rove, you magnificent b*****d”

    rhodeymark (1aaf2a)

  9. Check Dr. Sanity for why Hillary cannot bow out.

    LarryD (feb78b)

  10. The downside to a convention fight for the nomination is that the Democrats will have all the media attention through the summer and into August. McCain will have trouble getting his face on TV during that time.

    The upside is that some faction of Democrats will feel screwed over, and the Democrats will have only two months to figure out how to reconcile them.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  11. funny cartoon from don asmussen’s bad reporter.

    assistant devil's advocate (2172d5)

  12. “What does the Credentials Committee do when the party’s nomination is down to two junior Senators who don’t have any?”

    It’s the Dems, remember – they make them up.

    Dana (fba430)

  13. The downside to a convention fight for the nomination is that the Democrats will have all the media attention through the summer and into August. McCain will have trouble getting his face on TV during that time.

    That’s true, but the Dem convention takes place before the Republican convention. McCain will get his face on TV then…and maybe will be able to rub a heaping helping of salt into the wounds of disgruntled Dems.

    Steverino (e00589)

  14. I forgot to mention an upside for the GOP, which is that it is likely that there will be some violent protests at the Democratic convention in Denver. “Recreate 68” is the name of one group that intends to disrupt the convention.

    They forget that the violence at the ’68 Democratic convention was one factor that got Nixon elected.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  15. Hillary should stay in there and fight to the end. Some men always try to push women around-I see it at work all day long. I am thankful to be a man, it is tough for women and my sisters go through this women discrimination on their jobs, and promotions. The riot of “68” forget the civil rights riots what about the women’s rights, we will lose all the great women in the democrat party if we push Hillary out the door.

    Dr. Block

    Dr. Thad Block (f39006)

  16. Not counting votes is not an option in a democracy. How dare the democratic party think they have the right to pick and chose whose vote will and will not count. If the delegates from Michigan and Flordia are not seated we might as well give it up, game over, our democracy is dead, and my own party we be the killer. Surely, this party is not so stupid to cut it’s own throat by disenfranchising millons of it’s own voters? Are the democrats trying to hand the election over to McCain on a silver platter? This issue is so much bigger than Clinton and Obama, it goes to the very point of which our nation was founded. Please, please don’t tell me that all these years of voting and supporting democrats was a waste of time. I will turn in my democrat card, and vote republican if my fellow Americans are disenfranchised. No longer will I be proud of my country or the party for it all will be a fraud.

    Susan Wease (ab4979)

  17. DiMaio Revises Lawsuit To Claim Reverse Discrimination
    Posted Apr 10, 2008 by William March
    Updated Apr 11, 2008 at 05:56 PM

    Vic DiMaio and Mike Steinberg, two Tampa Democrats who have sued to overturn the national Democratic Party’s sanctions against Florida, have revised their lawsuit to make a claim of reverse discrimination.

    They contend the national party discriminated against Florida by favoring the black and Hispanic minority voters in South Carolina and Nevada, which were allowed to hold early primaries.

    The background: The national Democratic Party says it won’t seat Florida’s national convention delegation because the state’s primary was held too early, on Jan. 29. But the DNC allowed South Carolina and Nevada to hold early primaries in order to balance the influence of the mainly white, traditional early states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

    “It may have seemed a fair way at the time to handle the situation … but they really can’t do that – it’s a violation of the civil rights act,” said Mike Steinberg, the attorney in the case, who’s also local party chairman.

    One lawsuit over the party sanctions, by Sen. Bill Nelson, has already failed, and any litigation faces difficult hurdles because courts have long ruled that political parties are private entities, free to set their own rules for choosing their presidential nominees.

    But Steinberg and DiMaio, a local party activist and consultant, contend they have a good legal argument because the courts have made one exception: Parties aren’t allowed to discriminate by race. A 1953 Supreme Court decision in a Texas case, for example, invalidated “whites only” primaries in which blacks weren’t allowed to vote.
    To be tried 5/28 Eleventh USCircuit Court of Appeals.

    JACK AMES (58675d)


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