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Thursday, May 29, 2008

Florida delegates continue their status as political hostages

Once again, here we go. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Hillary's manufactured outrage regarding the seating of Florida's delegate slate at the convention is like watching an episode of "As The World Turns." You can step away for a week and miss the daily media melodrama and then jump right back into the story line and you can pick right up where you left off. IOW, you haven't missed a damn thing. Obama is trapped because if he comes out and says what everyone knows, that the nominee will be accorded the power and status befitting the winner, and allowed to seat the delegates, the Hillary supporters will go bananas. That's why he's walking the tight rope and letting this false meme play out so Hillary can have her moment and claim she got the delegates seated on her terms and having them count in her favor.

Here is some parlimentarian 101. After all the hand wringing resulting with the Florida and Michigan delegations being seated with half their votes or whatever formula they come up with, a by this time bored Obama convention manager will saunter up to the DNC Convention Chair and tell him/her to go to the podium and carry out the nominees instructions. The Convention Chair will then move to the podium, bang the gavel, lean down with a look of solemnity and a monotone voice and breath into the microphone, "The chair moves by resolution to suspend the rules of the credentials committee and seat all the delegates with full voting privileges by acclimation."

The convention floor erupts on que. The gavel wielding chairperson leans down again, "All those in favor say 'Aye.' Again, on que and the 'Ayes!' roar up at the podium. The chairperson immediately leans back down again into the microphone and asks, "All those against say 'Nay.' Then without pausing and waiting for a reaction from the floor he/she bangs the gavel and the chair proclaims, all for network tv of course, "The aye's have it!" The band strikes up, the MSM gets their moment of drama, the camera moves in on Bill in the President's box to catch the Arkansas grin and the Hillary wing is vindicated.

New Hampshire is happy. Iowa is happy. The delegates have been sutiably punished by not counting toward the total needed to get the nomination thereby preserving those two states' first in the nation status. But the full slate of delegates are now seated giving the swing state movers and shakers the recognition they want. Everyone is happy that we've finally moved on and the GE focus can now begin in earnest. Florida and Michigan delegates can now crank up their state machine, now that the delegates are officially seated you see, and kick into gear.

Lesson over. There will be a quiz on the day the convention adjourns.

Jesus, how hard was that?

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