"Nuclear" option

The Huffington Post has an article today on the possibility that Clinton will get Michigan and Florida seated via the Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC), on which she has more members than Obama. I posted on this in March, but now Demconwatch has a nice list of the RBC members, and their endorsements. Edsall, at Huffington, has an estimate that's off -- Clinton actually has 12 declared supporters on the committee. There are 30 members on the committee, but members from a disputed state can't vote on that state's being seated. That means there will be 29 members voting on each state, since there is one member each from Florida and Michigan. Will Clinton be able to get 3 votes from members who haven't endorsed her? Possible. But there's more.

The next stage, as Edsall says, would be a challenge at the Credentials Committee. There, Obama is leading by various amounts -- here's a spreadsheet with the numbers. Obama is leading by 11.5 with all state delegates included (bizarrely, FL and MI will be seated on the Credentials Committee), and MI's three uncommitted going for him. However, FL members cannot vote on the FL challenge, and likewise for MI members. Obama's lead goes up to 13.5 for the FL challenge, and stays even for the MI challenge, except that the "uncommitteds" now in his column go away, as do 3 members in Clinton's column. Since Obama's lead will almost certainly stay the same through the rest primary process, that means that Dean's 25 appointees would have to break 19-6 for Clinton to seat MI, and 20-5 to seat FL. That is clearly a very unlikely scenario.

Thus, we can see that, even if Clinton wins the RBC fight, she will almost certainly lose the Credentials Committee fight. What happens after that? The Credentials Committee report, along with a "minority report," dissenting from the decision, goes to the full convention. And here's where things get more tricky: by VII.B.1. of the DNC's Rules,

The Secretary of the Democratic National Committee shall determine a Temporary Roll of delegates to the Convention which shall consist only of those persons selected and certified as delegates in accordance with the Rules and pursuant to this Call, unless a credentials contest shall have arisen with respect to any such person(s), in which case the Secretary shall include on the Temporary Roll the name of the credentials contestant recommended for inclusion by the Credentials Committee in its report.

Since Obama will win the Credentials Committee fight, the delegates voting to approve the Credentials Committee plan will not include FL and MI (who wouldn't be able to vote on their own states' delegates anyway).

So where does this leave us? Clinton can't win this battle as it stands. She could drop a nuclear bomb by convincing the RBC to seat FL and MI as they stand, but it would almost certainly be overturned by a Credentials Committee controlled by Obama, and upheld by Convention delegates supporting Obama. More likely would be some sort of compromise -- penalizing FL and MI half their delegates, etc. That might be politically harder to overturn. The question will be, if the RBC denies her, will she continue to fight it, knowing that she will lose at the convention? That will say a lot about her goals for this campaign.