The Last Primary

The Last Primary That Counts

The phone calls have tailed off. The emails have slowed. The constant, near maniacal search for any information about Barack Obama’s chances in the next state level contest has petered out.

“I guess it’s over,” a friend of mine said yesterday.

“You know,” I said, “when you cut the head off of a snake, you’ve still got to be careful, cause that sum bitch is liable to bite your ass for quite a while afterwards.”

This is the part that Hillary has been waiting for – an arena in which she and her cohorts can do what they do best – plead, cajole and arm twist a small group of like minded people until they get what they want. And if you are black, you are probably going to do what a lot of my friends will be doing next week – wondering if she can really come back from the dead and burst the bubble on this fairy tale.

Which is why I am so glad I came across the charts below, which were put together by a guy at the 2008 Democratic Convention Watch:

FL & MI By The Numbers

There are all sorts of scenarios concerning Florida and Michigan. Some recently discussed scenarios include seating all MI/FL pledged delegates with 1/2 vote, (supers at 1/2 or full vote), and a proposal by Michigan Dems propose 69-59 split. We've taken five of the most likely and interesting ones and run the numbers.

The scenarios are:

1. Do not seat Florida or Michigan. Current Official DNC rules
2. Seat FL 1/2 vote, MI 69-59 split and supers full vote.
3. Seat FL/MI all half votes, pledged and supers
4. FL/MI, pledged half vote, supers full vote
5. Seat FL & MI based on the elections that have taken place. This scenario is in the left sidebar.

Note that in scenarios 3-5, we do not assign any of the Uncommitted Michigan delegates to Obama. We understand he will get many, most, or even all of these Uncommitted delegates, but until we have some hard endorsements from specific delegates (which we're not tracking at this time), its easier to understand the numbers this way. Any further analysis of these scenarios should include some assumption of how many of these Uncommitted delegates should be placed in Obama's column.

We are not endorsing any of these scenarios. We're just providing information so our readers can judge how each scenario will affect the race.

List of Florida and Michigan superdelegates.

Others(1): Include Unknown, Uncommitted & No endorsements yet
NYA(2): Not Yet Assigned.
YTV(3): Not Yet Voted.

If you read this the way I did, you know there is practically NO way she can come out ahead. The "popular vote" may be "popular", but that has no real bearing on how the Democrats choose their convention delegates.

The thing that makes me stay up too late every night, tapping away at this keyboard, is the anger I can't let go watching her campaign heavyweights trot out this "mangy dog with fleas" idea that Florida and Michigan are ENTITLED (yes, I'll say it out loud) to be a part of their political party's selection process.