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Could John Edwards Decide the Democratic Nominee for President?

Submitted by mark karlin on Sat, 02/09/2008 - 7:45pm.

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

Mark Karlin, Editor and Publisher, BuzzFlash.com

February 10, 2008

john edwards

With only 26 delegates to his name at the time he "suspended" his campaign for president, it is unlikely that John Edwards will be the final factor that puts Clinton or Obama over the top, but not impossible given how close the candidate count is.

First, a little delegate counting background. Three of the BuzzFlash staff were on a DNC phone call on Friday about the technical issues surrounding the election, counting and seating of delegates. (For the record, the DNC staff was scrupulously non-partisan and professional.) First of all, that threshold figure you see for obtaining the nomination does not include the controversial Michigan and Florida delegates.

As far as all the different delegate numbers that you see for Obama and Clinton, there is good reason for that. They are largely just estimates. In many states, final delegate allocations are determined at a follow-up state party convention or state party meeting. The counts won't change dramatically, but they will change. (This explains the differing claims over whether Clinton or Obama won one more delegate in Nevada. This won't be finally determined until a Nevada state party convention a little further down the road.) Also, the superdelegate "pledges" of support are just that. They aren't recorded by the DNC, but kept manually by various media organizations.

(By the way, if you are wondering who are the superdelegates (officially called ""party leaders and elected officials"), the DNC provided a breakdown of who they were by category and how many for each state. Here it is: 411 of them are DNC members active in their state parties; 259 are Democratic members of Congress (House and Senate); 27 of them are Democratic governors; 23 of them are "Distinguished Party Leaders," which includes former Democratic presidents, former Democratic leaders of the senate, speakers of the house, etc.; and 76 "add-ons." That makes a total of 796 superdelegates.)

So let's follow through a couple of scenarios. If Hillary Clinton were to reach the current threshold number necessary for nomination (that is minus the Florida and Michigan delegations) through elected and superdelegates, then the Edwards delegates, as well as the Florida and Michigan delegates would not matter.

If Barack Obama were to get enough elected and superdelegate votes to reach the threshold figure for nomination, then, given the statements of Hillary Clinton and her campaign, she would try and get the Florida and Michigan delegates seated based on the results of the unsanctioned primaries. To do this, the Florida and Michigan delegations would have to file an appeal to the DNC Credentials Committee, which won't meet until July or August. (It should be emphasized that the state parties of Michigan and Florida would have to file the appeals, not the Clinton campaign, but the Clinton campaign has indicated that it would support those appeals.) However, in this hypothetical, there would potentially be a complication for the Clinton campaign; here's why. Supposing the Credentials Committee were to decide to seat all the currently "elected" delegates from the unsanctioned primaries, the first order of business of the 2008 convention would be to decide whether or not to accept the recommendation of the Credentials Committee. This is a full delegate vote. If Barack Obama already had enough votes for the nomination, it is more than likely that his supporters would be instructed to vote against the hypothetical Credentials Committee recommendation, since the nomination might then be snatched from Obama.

Okay, now we get to the more likely scenarios. Neither Obama nor Clinton have enough pledged and superdelegates to reach the current threshold. In this case (the Florida and Michigan situations aside), the 26 Edwards delegates might be enough to put either one over the top, it it is that close.

So, there is the small potential that Edwards can obtain commitments to achieve his populist goals from Clinton and Obama and then decide who to throw his 26 delegates to.

Improbable, perhaps, but this has been a year for improbability.

By the way, for those who don't know yet, the superdelegates came into being in 1982 and played a role in securing the presidential nomination for Walter Mondale in 1984. They "represent less than 20% of the total number of delegates at the Convention," according to the DNC.

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

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Edwards decides???

Submitted by marcwatt on Sun, 02/10/2008 - 10:02pm.

very simple. NO. he will have no impact, although i did just read that hillary ran down there to try and woo him. i seriously doubt edwards wants anything to do with her. it seemed clear to me that there was a lot of bad blood between them. but then again, as this contest moves forward, her disapproval ratings keep growing as fast as Obamas donations. People are rejecting her, regardless of the media's attempt to coronate her early.

I like Edwards, and i think he would make a great Attorney General in Obama's cabinet.

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Dream Team

Submitted by georgegreer on Sun, 02/10/2008 - 4:01pm.

The New Dream Team Of Obama & Harold Ford Jr.
I wonder How this Will Play Out in November ?
George Greer

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Edwards Delegates?

Submitted by Paul50 on Sun, 02/10/2008 - 2:33pm.

While I will not deny that Edwards may be able to say what were his delegates with an endorsement. It is my understanding that under DNC rules a candidate that withdraws forfeits his delegates and they become free agents.

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Edwards

Submitted by sclark on Sun, 02/10/2008 - 12:32pm.

Edwards was my candidate from the beginning and is still the better person on the issues, by far.

sclark

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John Edwards

Submitted by Reddaddy012 on Sun, 02/10/2008 - 11:00am.

I want to thank the media for picking our candiates once again. Also Buzzflash for letting us down. The feeding frenzy on race and gender made good copy. Edwards said in a debate all of the bickering isn't getting health care to a needy child. I can clearly see that buzzflash ahs crowned Obama.
There were many good canidates at first. Many with better platforms that were well laid out. the media and bloggers in my opinion, thought that it would be more fun to have a Presidental Race that was built on race and gender, rather than the issues.

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Buzzflash and the media - what is their real power?

Submitted by Colleen Clark on Sun, 02/10/2008 - 1:31pm.

Reddaddy's comment is over the top.
I was an Edwards supporter and believe that the MSM gave him short shrift, especially toward the end. But I don't believe that in the end the reason Obama and Clinton are the Democratic candidates left standing just because there has been a media "feeding frenzy" on gender and race.

Let's consider how the race looked, say, 6 months ago. How many Buzzflash readers and/or Democratic and independent voters at large seriously thought that Biden, Dodd, Kucinich, or Richardson (alphabetical order)had a good shot at outpolling Clinton, Edwards, or Obama? I think the first four candidates were committed to their own campaigns and hoped that their personal histories and political views would catch public attention. They did not. We can hope that a Democratic president, which we have every good reason to expect to be inaugurated less than a year from now, will make use of their talents and experiences either in Cabinet positions or in leadership in Congress.
Clinton, Edwards, and Obama were much better known than the other candidates. Is this under any dispute? I don't like the focus on "identity" politics either. Edwards dropped out before the primary in my state. Personally, I was not making a choice between a (white) woman or a black (man). I was choosing between a senator who voted for the Iraq war, and has never disavowed her vote, and whose husband we know will be heavily involved in her administration if she is elected, and a charismatic younger and more recently elected senator who entered the Senate with a very liberal record but who has been cautious, shall we say, in his Senate votes. A fresh but more opaque face.

I sent out a personal poll to my circle of family and friends, most of them over 60 like myself. Most said they were going to vote for Obama, citing dislike of Clinton's Iraq vote and/or "Clinton fatigue" (and worried about Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton), being impressed with "Dreams from My Father", and the preference of younger people. Clinton voters liked her experience, her toughness, her health care plan. Overall some voters were very committed, many highly ambivalent. I doubt that any of them were much influenced by the MSM or what they read on Buzzflash.

Colleen Clark
Cambridge, MA

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JRE The Compromise Candidate

Submitted by linda4dems on Sun, 02/10/2008 - 2:56am.

In conventions of old, when there was a split in the party between two candidates, a "compromise candidate" was nominated. I think that nominating John Edwards would be the smartest thing the Democrats could do in August. The HRC and BHO supporters are at each other's throats in caucuses and elsewhere, and many will not vote for the other candidate. The polls I see show that John Edwards has the lowest "negative" rating and also is the only Dem who can beat John McCain. My Republican friends tell me they would vote for JRE in November but will vote for McCain if the Dem is HRC or BHO. The Rezko trial begins on Feb. 25th which could tarnish Obama, and there are rumors about Bill Clinton's lovelife over the last few years. Improbable, yes, but the best shot for Democrats would be to nominate John Edwards for President in 2008.

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Edwards nomination

Submitted by marcwatt on Sun, 02/10/2008 - 10:09pm.

with all do respect, that really doesnt make sense to elect a candidate at the convention that was rejected so early. i like edwards a lot. would definately support him over clinton. soon enough i think dems will rally to obama and this will be sorted out and the party will come together to support him. i also think that edwards deserves a very prominent position in the cabinet. He would make a terrific attorney general.

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Tell The Whole Story

Submitted by cal1942 on Sat, 02/09/2008 - 8:44pm.

"superdelegates came into being in 1982 and played a role in securing the presidential nomination for Walter Mondale in 1984."

Come on Mr. Karlin let's tell the whole story.

It wasn't just super delegates. A number of state conventions altered the distribution of delegates. The delegate distribution didn't match the primary vote distribution.

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