A July 1 deadline for Dems gains support

April 2, 2008

DNC Chairman Howard Dean recently argued that, instead of waiting until the convention, superdelegates should announce their candidate preferences by July 1, which is well after every voter will have participated in every primary and caucus. Yesterday, Dean’s plan picked up some high-profile support on the Hill.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday threw his weight behind a plan to have superdelegates in the Democratic presidential primary make their votes public by July 1.

“I like that — July 1 or before,” Reid said of a plan floated last week by Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean for superdelegates to show their hands between the end of primary season on June 3 and July 1.

Asked what he was going to do to encourage such a plan, Reid told Roll Call, “I just did it.”

For those who don’t want to see the nominating race continue until late August, this sounds vaguely encouraging. Sure, we’d still have three full months of campaigning left, but three is preferable to five. For that matter, whichever way the superdelegates break, having a nominee two months before the convention will give him or her time — to vet potential running mates, to put a ground game together, to try to bring the party together, etc.

Clinton supporters, who accurately believe their candidate has the best shot at winning if the race goes to the convention, are pushing back, rejecting the idea of timeline altogether. “Superdelegates should be afforded the same courtesy as regular delegates,” said Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), a Clinton supporter. “They shouldn’t have to make up their mind according to the timetable of Howard Dean.”

And therein lies the problem with the July 1 deadline: everyone can ignore it without consequence.

The NYT’s Adam Nagourney noted what happened when Dean first raised the deadline subject.

…24 hours after he made his remarks, Mrs. Clinton said she intended to keep fighting for the nomination through the summer, if necessary. It was an unmistakable rebuke to Mr. Dean, who has never had good relations with the Clintons.

What can Dean (or Reid, or anyone else) do to compel the superdelegates to endorse a candidate by July 1? As far as I can tell, nothing. In this sense, Dean isn’t setting a deadline so much as he’s making a request.

But it’s easily ignored, and there’s nothing to stop hundreds of superdelegates — especially Clinton backers who see the benefit of waiting until Denver — from simply ignoring the deadline altogether. It’s not as if Dean can punish them for their obstinacy; the rules say superdelegates vote at the convention.

In other words, the July 1 deadline is interesting, and I’m glad it’s drawing support from leaders like Harry Reid, but it’s probably best not to assume that the matter will be resolved by then.

Fair enough, but Obama could really use the Clintons’ help right now. Why are Bill and Hillary still attacking the Democratic nominee for President, instead of attacking the GOP?

  • Isn’t the real question, “On July 1, how many Clinton backers will there really be?” My guess is that Obama will keep or even widen his lead between now and then, and the superdelegates who see him as inevitable will cave to further their own interests. Only if Clinton can make the delegate race significantly closer than it is now, will she be able to maintain a semblance of credibility by then.

  • Clinton supporters, who accurately believe their candidate has the best shot at winning if the race goes to the convention, are pushing back

    Did you mean to say, “has HER best shot at winning…”?

    Last I checked, Obama’s favored even if Hil holds on by her fingernails through August.

    Or is there something I’ve missed about a mass defection of Obama’s supers?

    If all Obama’s supers declare and he clinches a majority (even if a technicality would let Hil say he hasn’t been nominated yet), couldn’t he just start the vetting process anyway and reaching out across the aisle, etc. Respectfully recognizing the nomination is not FORMALLY his, but for the sake of hitting the ground running in August, he could offer to include them in the process of forming his general election campaign. Only the most delusional, zealous backers would abstain and the Hil campaign would be reduced to a laughable clutch of lurking, mumbling DLC toadies.

  • Well, I think such statements are more about the leadership prodding the superdelegates to come out and lay down their cards soon after the states have all finished voting, for the sake of the party. Superdelegates that are strong Clinton backers have already come out and said so, and likewise for Obama. The rest all seem to be sitting on the fence in a wait-and-see mode because neither candidate has truly delivered a finishing blow.

    Of course, theoretically, one could say that the superdelegates might continue to stay on the fence until the FL/MI question is resolved, but that may become academic if Obama does well enough in the remaining contests to result in a delegate lead even if FL/MI are included in the counts, and maintains a lead in the popular vote.

    I suspect that most of the undeclared superdelegates are remaining so mainly because they realize that even though Clinton’s chances of winning are slim, something like 48% of the people who voted in the Democratic primaries did vote for Clinton and as long as the chances remain “slim” and not “non-existent”, they don’t want to leave a bad taste in these people’s mouths if possible. So, let’s help Obama secure the nomination beyond a reasonable doubt!

  • I will predict that after the primaries are done, supers will line up and endorse, putting Obama over the 2024 number. But then Hillary will say, “Not so fast, we still have to go through the credentials committee to discuss Fla, MI, the Wash Primary, and the bowling match that Obama turned down.

  • Let’s not confuse the truly undecided (or decided but still quiet) superdelegates from the people who committed to Clinton long ago and are presuming to speak for the uncommitted. People like Berkley, who, like most serious Clinton supporters, is not an uncommitted superdelegate, are a minority in their expressed wish to let this go to the convention.

    It’s not time to worry yet, Scout.

  • The way to do it is to set up some kind of superdelage caucus on July 1. That way, anyone who doesn’t show is on record as being a holdout and compromising the party’s viability in the general.

  • Only Hillary “superduper supporters will remain undeclared. Here’s hoping the rest do with enough to put Obama over the top before Denver.

  • I will predict that after the primaries are done, supers will line up and endorse, putting Obama over the 2024 number. But then Hillary will say, “Not so fast, we still have to go through the credentials committee to discuss Fla, MI, the Wash Primary, and the bowling match that Obama turned down.

    If Hillary does that, tries to stay in it after Obama is over the 2024 needed, I think she will have officially jumped to shark for everyone in the party besides her die hards. It’s one thing to hang on to your shred of hope while it’s still a race. It’s quite another to do so after you have officially lost.

    I really hope she’s not that desperate – as much as I dislike her I think more highly of her than that.

  • Pardom my french but Dean is fucking Hypocrit.

    The democratic party stripped all the delegates from Michigan and Florida because they moved up there primary. Now the man who heads the democratic party is trying to move up the deadline for the superdelegates to vote.

    Someone needs to tell these dumbasses to stop trying to fix things and let the this thing run its course

  • Rick, ChicagoPat

    Popular vote will be a HUGE factor for superdelegates, do you honestly think after the fiasco we suffered after Gore lost to Bush after having won the popular vote that we want to go against the will of the majority in favor of a convoluted delegate selection process?

    This was NOT an April fools joke, this is serious. Hillary has a very good chance of winning the popular vote, especially if you include Florida where both candidates were on the ballot.

  • Better yet, make it July 4th. A more symbolic date they could not pick.

  • This is why I’m convinced this goes beyond just this primary: this is a battle for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. Do we want to continue to support perennial losers with attitudes like Clinton and the DLC or do we want to help Dean usher in a new way of thinking where every state matters and every seat is contestable?

    Do we want candidates beholden to Rupert Murdoch or Rupert Everyman?

    Do we want candidate who are determined in the face of all logic to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, who lie with ease, repeat Republican talking points, and enjoy the support of Rush’s moron army?

    Do we want candidate who talks out of the left side of their mouth in support of the people and their chosen delegates and out of the right side of their mouth courting those delegates in an attempt to overturn the will of those people?

    I certainly don’t. July is too late. This race needs to be and is over now, and anyone with even a single brain cell sees it already. She’s only allowed to continue because she’s a Clinton, which affords her an unearned and undeserved respect and goodwill which they have squandered throughout this entire race.

  • doubtful, calling for her to drop out before PA, PR, KY and WV vote would be akin to asking Obama to drop out because he was trailing with GA, AL, and MS yet to vote. It’s cutting her off before literally her best states vote

  • Hillary has a very good chance of winning the popular vote, especially if you include Florida where both candidates were on the ballot. -Greg

    Not without winning all remaining states by considerable margins, which isn’t going to happen. If she wins PA, it won’t be by double digits. She won’t win North Carolina. Indiana will be close. She’ll win Kentucky, but Mark Penn assures me that’s an irrelevant state. It’s not a plausible scenario.

    And you need to drop the pipe dream concerning Florida and Michigan. That ship has sailed.

  • Guess what? Bill Clinton knows it’s over:

    as the group moved together for the perfunctory photo, Rachel Binah, a former Richardson delegate who now supports Hillary Clinton, told Bill how “sorry” she was to have heard former Clinton campaign manager James Carville call Richardson a “Judas” for backing Obama.

    It was as if someone pulled the pin from a grenade.

    “Five times to my face (Richardson) said that he would never do that,” a red-faced, finger-pointing Clinton erupted…

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/02/bills-tirade-in-private-_n_94605.html

  • I can’t believe this is taking this long. The Convention should be just a big party and everybody, including supers, should have made their decision by then. All this proves is that the people in power are picking their candidates based on popularity rather than on their opinion of how good a job they will do. This is ridiculous. It shouldn’t matter how the candidates poll or how they do in the general, Supers need to pick the person they think will do the best job the same way I did when I voted.

    If they honestly think Clinton will do the better job, they would know that by now. If they think Obama would (as I do) they would pick him. Either way they would get their endorsements out and start raising money one way or another for the general. Why does it take a Super longer to decide than it took me. They have more information than I do and more access to the candidates themselves. Supers should actually be decided first.

  • Not without winning all remaining states by considerable margins – doubtful

    Look at the demographics, the maps on the website I linked earlier show which way the voters went on a county by county basis, you are literally discounting the fact that Obama has pretty much run out of his best performing states.

    Nobody can predict the future, but this is one possible scenario that is actually not without merit, so please don’t insult the intelligence of 48% of the voters who have already voted for HRC, and the possible 55-70% of those remaining who are expected to.

  • Hey Greg-the-Hillary-Troll, when you cut and paste other people’s words, you can either a) state that they are other people’s words, or b) commit plagirism. What you posted in #17 is exactly what Sean Oxendine said in the article you posted the link to:

    (BTW, also note that calling for her to drop out before PA, PR, KY and WV vote would be akin to asking Obama to drop out because he was trailing with GA, AL, and MS yet to vote. It’s cutting her off before literally her best states vote).

    So unless you are Sean Oxendine, you need to clean up your act.

  • If anyone really wants to understand why Clinton Incorporated is pushing the credentials committee, all you need to do is look at what she and her “volk” did at the county conventions in texas over the weekend. Their ultimate motive is to challenge the legitimacy of every single delegate who’s not in line behind her, and force those delegates who cannot remain in Denver for a protracted Convention to leave. The strategy is to either (1) force the Party to give her the nomination, or (2) shut down the convention and prevent a nominee from moving into the general election.

    In short: She is running a Manchurian campaign for McCain. She is already praising him; her only step-back from that came from massed objections by the public-at-large. Her favorite hangout now seems to be FOX. She’s played the “black-man-can’t-win” card that, until now, was the sole property of the GOP. She employs tactic after tactic that links directly back to the “Pandora’s Box” of Karl Rove. She continues to support the failed economic and foreign policies of the Bu$hylvanian regime.

    She cries about the importance of working people—and leaves behind her a trail of unpaid debts, primarily owed to individuals and small businesses.

    She’s not just Republican. She’s worse than Republican. She’s Republican on steroids; Republican incarnate; Republican Antichrist.

    She is doom itself. Limbaugh doesn’t want her to win because she’ll be easier to beat; he wants her to win because she’ll give more to the GOP than McSame ever will.

  • No sense arguing with Greg, folks. In 2010, when either Obama or McCain is President, he’ll be in here insisting that the Clinton’s latest lawsuit to overturn the 2008 democratic nomination and general election results is very likely to succeed and that Hillary will be retroactively named the winner of an election in which she wasn’t on the ballot. He’s highly committed, and probably should be.

    With regards to Steve’s article, it seems to miss the point. Of course Dean can’t set a deadline, and I don’t think his comments were intended that way. But, as leader of the DNC, he can set a goal and ask that the rest of the DNC adhere to that goal. And it doesn’t matter of hardcore Clinton supporters ignore the request; it’s not intended for them. Dean is speaking to the truly uncommitted superdelegates and asking them to please announce by July 1. He can’t make ’em, but a leader shouldn’t always have to rely on punitive power to lead.

  • Greg might want to check out the PPP poll—it just put Obama out front in Pennsylvania.

  • Whaddya know, Bill Clinton is fudging the truth again. Unless you think Richardson’s lying when he says this:

    And while I was truly torn for weeks about this decision, and seriously contemplated endorsing Sen. Clinton, I never told anyone, including President Clinton, that I would do so. Those who say I did are misinformed or worse.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/01/AR2008040100885_pf.html

    If getting red-faced angry is an indicator, I think we know who’s at it again.

  • Steve, you’re way over the top in #23.

    Clinton is not worse than McCain. What she does threaten to do (which McCain cannot do) is to demoralize some of the strongest components of the Democratic party. That is serious, and she’s done some other bad stuff, but jesus get some perspective.

  • 16. Doubtful

    I am curious which ideal you follow. You write

    Do we want to continue to support perennial losers with attitudes like Clinton and the DLC or do we want to help Dean usher in a new way of thinking where every state matters and every seat is contestable?

    But then you write

    I certainly don’t. July is too late. This race needs to be and is over now, and anyone with even a single brain cell sees it already

    So if the race is done today then what about the states that have not voted yet? Does then every state matter? Sounds pretty self serving

    BTW why such a big rush to get Clinton out? I mean she may be running a more negative campaign but she is pulling her punches, like Obama, to not screw up the democrats taking the white house. In the general election, the republicans will pull Obama’s head thru his ass if it means getting elected

  • 25.
    On April 2nd, 2008 at 12:17 pm, Steve said:

    Greg might want to check out the PPP poll—it just put Obama out front in Pennsylvania.

    They must have been asking Clinton vs. Obama Girl. Feel bad for the sick bastards who voted for Clinton on this one.

  • when you cut and paste other people’s words, you can either a) state that they are other people’s words, or b) commit plagirism. – RacerX #22

    Seriously?!?!

    I’m not writing a college report, and I’m not running for president, so take what I “pasted” at face value and stop trying to throw me under the bus, nobody cares.

  • But it’s easily ignored, and there’s nothing to stop hundreds of superdelegates — especially Clinton backers who see the benefit of waiting until Denver — from simply ignoring the deadline altogether.

    While this is technically true, as a practical matter I don’t believe it is. In fact, Obama’s supporters have a significant amount of power here if they choose to get a collective spine. If Supers start coming out for Obama in droves, Clinton’s Supers will have little choice but to respond and announce to try and keep pace — otherwise they risk an overwhelming conventional wisdom that this is over, which really will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    Indeed, I would argue that Clinton’s only viable options involve having periodic block announcements of Supers in her favor to (a) generate headlines that show continuing viability and (b) always keep her one step ahead of Obama in known Superdelegate counts. Waiting until convention to declare is only an option for Clinton if Obama’s supporters allow it to be an option.

  • Manny,

    You’re being disingenuous, and willfully so. There is no cognitive dissonance between wanting to follow the will of the people and calling the contest now.

    What part of ‘insurmountable lead’ don’t you understand? Or did you take Rovian Algebra 101 with Greg?

    You may think you’re clever, and that you ‘gotcha’d’ me, but it is clear that continuing the primary is destructive to the 50 state strategy because it is ultimately about getting Democrats elected, and continuing this primary is counterproductive to that goal.

    BTW why such a big rush to get Clinton out? -Manny from Miami

    Slowly, for the willfully ignorant:

    1. To raise money for the general. Obama is clearly the better fund raiser and has run a more efficient campaign. This is one of his strong suits and should be utilized to it’s fullest. Let’s leverage it for all it’s worth.

    2. Attack McCain. Hell, just let McCain have the spot light. He’s got a wonderful knack for making people like him less the more they get to know him. Right now, he’s back burner.

    3. It’s futile. She’s lost. Why continue to attack the nominee and waste money on a primary battle that could be spent on a general?

    4. The Presidency isn’t the only office. It will help down ballot to get Obama campaigning for other contested races. (As I explained above, this is where ending the primary now is more productive to the 50 state strategy.)

    No one is saying the remaining states can’t have their say in the primary. We’re just pointing out that it doesn’t matter anymore what they say, and we need to really behind Obama, the Democratic nominee for President.

  • 32. On April 2nd, 2008 at 1:50 pm, doubtful said:

    What part of ‘insurmountable lead’ don’t you understand? Or did you take Rovian Algebra 101 with Greg?

    Actually I took calculus but thanks for asking.

    Now obviously it is not an insurmountable lead if Clinton is still in the running, improbable I would agree with.

    I am not going to go after you point by point. I think you have some valid arguments for the willfully ignorant but to think that Hillary is going to drop out of the race at this point is ridiculous, it’s not going to happen. The democratic party need to keep pushing her to run less of a negative campaign. If she keeps on with this line of attacks it looks bad on her not neccessarily on the party. To tell her it’s time to leave at this point looks bad on the party because they are ignoring the states that have not run including Pennsylvania which is a big state. Bad timing with Florida, MIchigan debates still going.

  • I think you have some valid arguments for the willfully ignorant but to think that Hillary is going to drop out of the race at this point is ridiculous, it’s not going to happen. -Manny

    Oh, I fully agree with you there. I do have valid arguments. 🙂 Kidding.

    No, I agree she won’t drop out. That’s why the supers have to end it now. I’m genuinely concerned that prolonging it will be destructive to our chances in November.

    I think Clinton is afforded more leeway because of who she is and who she is married to. A candidate by any other name would have been pressured out already.

    Even as such, the pressure it mounting.

  • 31: agreed

    If everyone thinks Hillary’s only chance is at the convention, then there’s no reason for supers favoring obama to hold out and disregard dean’s request. they might as well go along with it. for those who favor clinton, then, there’s nothing to be gained by staying on the sidelines. quite the opposite

  • This sounds entirely stupid. The pledged delegates are pledged. The Clinton-leaning superdelegates will keep their votes to themselves until the convention. And the Obama-leaning superdelegates will announce their support for Obama. Their argument doesn’t make any sense. If the Clinton-leaning superdelegates are the only ones who keep their intended votes secret until the convention and everyone else announces, they will only be shooting themselves in the foot.

    So while Obama will be running against McCain, having already clinched the primary, Clinton will still be running against Obama, trying to win… what? Additional influence over the party platform? Dean’s position? Other than the nomination, what does more delegates at the convention get for Clinton?

  • I really find it hard to believe that by June Obama won’t have the 30% or so of the super delegates he needs. Why wouldn’t they come forward before the convention? If you’re a super delegate you really don’t want the spot light on your pick so as not to piss off one side.

    The longer they wait the brighter the spotlight on their selection and the more likely you’ll incurr the wrath of one side. Coming forward earlier your vote kind of gets lost in the mix.

    It’s really a stretch to think that Obama doesn’t have the number of super delegates he needs right now and will certainly come forward after the final votes. He only needs one third of them.

  • With Obama needing only 1/3 of support of super delegates, I believe with the steady amounts of them coming out as of late, it is the strategy of the supers (who already support him, just not publicly) to endorse slowly that way Obama will seemingly have won by primary results. The dem party knows he has to win this way as his win in Nov. depends on how the loser lost.

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