Sunday, March 23, 2008

Michigan postpones its District Caucuses

WE'VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com

For those of us curious how Michigan's 55 Uncommitted delegates would survive the post-primary process, if the Michigan delegation in its current form is ever seated, we'll have to wait a few more weeks:

Acknowledging that Michigan's delegate selection mess is unlikely to be resolved in the coming week, the state Democratic Party decided to postpone its congressional district conventions. The 15 district gatherings, at which more than half of the Democratic delegates are elected to the Democratic National Convention in August, had been slated for March 29. The state party's executive committee late Friday postponed the conventions until April 19.

An early February article had noted plans to make sure the Uncommitted delegates didn't get poached:
Local activists and Sen. Barack Obama supporters are involved in a grassroots campaign to protect and escort that uncommitted vote all the way to the national Democratic Convention in Denver, Colorado, in August.

Maurice Badgett is one of several Detroit-area political activists who are determined to keep the uncommitted vote in the public eye. Like many others, Badgett is an organizer for Michiganders for Obama and considers it an injustice that many Detroiters were unable to cast a vote for their preferred candidate.

If citizens had a particular candidate in mind when voting uncommitted, vigilance and close observation of the party protocol will guarantee those candidates receive the appropriate number of delegates at the district, and then the national convention.

Michigan had 83 district-level and 45 state-level pledged candidates. The state-level delegates are still scheduled to be chosen on May 17.

2 comments:

Byzantine said...

there is some logic to continuing with the delegate selection process in Michigan despite there being next to no chance of the final delegate party they choose actually being able to vote in Denver

if there is no do-over and Obama and Clinton come to some compromise over how to split the delegates it may be necessary to know the exact numbers of how the deleagtes would have been divided if the original primary had stood, in which case Michigan Dems need to treat the whole exercise as if it was business as normal and come up with an official "result"

either that or its just a waste of time and money

byzantine330.blogspot.com : day to day analysis of US presidential campaign

Independent Voter said...

Can they legally do this? I had read somewhere that the weekend it was moved to (April 19) is the weekend of the Jewish Holiday of Passover. Anyway, just a question.