Now for the Championship

The Florida/Michigan Democratic Primaries that "Will not count" according to Hillary Clinton will now be counted. A Clinton campaign paid staffer, Harold Ickes, was a member of the Rules and Bylaws Committee that voted overwhelmingly in favor of the proposals put forward by the Florida Democatic Committee and the Michigan Democratic Committee. The Compromises went heavily in favor of Hillary Clinton with being awarded the maximum number of delegates that could have been awarded to her under the bylaws of the Democratic Party, and she's just not happy.

Fourteen of thirty Committee members are announced Clinton delegates. Seven are announced Obama delegates. At one point Obama supporters had won the vote to evenly divide Michigan delegates 50-50, and frankly, this was the result actually supported by rule. Magnanimously and rather than have a one vote victory that would have given so much whine material to Clinton, they asked, instead, that the proposal by the Michigan delegation be accepted, which gave Hillary more delegates. Nothing seemed to make the Clinton people happy and five announced Clinton delegates may have decided that they aren't Clinton delegates any more and then voted to accept the 69-59 Michigan proposal, and that did it.

So here is where we stand..

Florida and Michigan delegates will be seated at the convention, but as punishment for breaking the rules will only have a 1/2 vote each.

2,117 delegates are needed to win the Democratic Presidential nomination.

Hillary Clinton has 1876.5 delegates and would need 240.5 to win.

Barack Obama has 2053 delegates and needs 64 to win.

There are 86 delegates to be decided in the last few primaries and 205 unpledged Superdelegates.

The Boston Celtics will face the L.A. Lakers for the NBA Basketball championship.

Barack Obama will face John McCain for the Presidency of the United States of America.

But there's an aftermath...

Here's an interesting discussion of the legal BS with links to videos. I am now a huge Donna Brazile fan.

Here's the Salon rundown on what happened...Very concise, considering it was an all day affair and you can read this in a couple of minutes.

Salon sums it up well:

Despite the marathon cable TV coverage and the breathless sense of showdown, Saturday's rules committee meeting was never really about Obama vs. Clinton. Rather, it was designed to paper over the Michigan and Florida disputes, while, at the same time, underscoring that states that hold illegally scheduled primaries will be penalized. Those accomplishments will probably matter far more than Clinton's Saturday bounty of 24 delegates.

The Clinton campaign made loud and rather silly pronouncements that the Committee took away delegates and that they reserve the right to complain about it all the way to the Denver Convention. It's the difference between Clinton having 47.7% of the delegates to her having....uh...47.7% of the delegates.

Obama has 52.2%, a 9% margin of victory over Clinton which will only increase as the Super Delegates join the team.

...and not only that but, Go Celtics!

Peace,

Steve