Dear Dr. Democrat:
I’m confused by all the talk about the Florida and Michigan delegations to the Democratic Convention. Who decides whether the delegates get seated at the convention and how many of them go? Is it Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean?
Disturbed Over Delegates
Dear Disturbed:
I have to reiterate that it won’t be up to Dr. X (ed. note: Dr. Democrat’s playful nickname for Dr. Howard Dean) who gets seated at the convention. It will be up to Barack Obama, and as soon as Obama has enough delegates to win without Florida and Michigan, which I believe will happen after West Virginia and Kentucky, he will seat the delegations as they are configured now.
This whole thing has been a charade from the get-go, and Dr. X’s threat not to seat the delegations has been 100 percent horse hockey. Iowa and New Hampshire have extraordinary sway over the pols in both parties, and Dr. X had to do their bidding, but it was never up to him who would be seated at the convention, not for a second.
Obama will have to smooth the waters among the pols in Iowa and New Hampshire, but if they are at their least pliable a year before the primary/caucus, they are at their most pliable two months before the convention. This will cease to be a controversy in this cycle, but GOP pols have been watching and have learned how to make mischief.
The only chance Dr. X might have had to decide anything about who gets seated would have been if the contest hadn’t been settled before the convention. But even then, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (currently the most senior elected Democrat) chairs the convention rules committee and outranks him. In the unlikely event that the race is still undecided in late August, Clinton and Obama will negotiate, and if they can’t reach a compromise, it will go to the rules committee.
Dr. X’s job from the moment Clinton drops out of the race and leaves the field to Obama is to be the nominee’s number-one cheerleader and to make sure the convention’s trains run on time and to the liking of the nominee (who speaks when, etc.). Despite having been elected DNC chair, Dr. X now serves at the pleasure of Obama. It is not done for the nominee to replace the DNC chair before the general election but, come January, if Obama wins and he wants a new chair, he’ll have one. In the meantime, if he is unhappy with Dr. X, he’ll put someone in as assistant chair or special counsel or some such, who will really run things while Doc X twiddles his thumbs.
Conversely, quite often party chairs who do a good job are rewarded with the post of secretary of commerce in the new administration.
Dr. D
