Saturday, May 31, 2008

Going to the Convention?

Democrats on the DNC rules committee came to a compromise on the Michigan and Florida delegates. Clinton is now up 24 delegates as a result, but it's not near what she hoped for. Particularly regarding the Michigan outcome, the Clinton campaign is not happy -- nor are Clinton supporters, who let their anger be known at the rules committee meeting -- and her guy Harold Ickes is now threatening that this may go to the convention. The Times' Caucus blog, breaks down what today's outcome means:

The Upshot: It would appear, based on several calculations, that the committee’s decision today raised the threshold for achieving the nomination to 2,118 from 2,026. So even granting Mr. Obama more delegates from Michigan and Florida, he will still need more than the delegates achievable — through estimates — upon the results of the primaries from Puerto Rico (55 altogether tomorrow) and South Dakota and Montana on Tuesday.
That brings us back to the superdelegates. Democratic Party leaders like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been leaning in recent days on the superdelegates — about or more than 200 who are uncommitted — to make up their minds and announce their decisions in the coming week.