Rules and Bylaws Committee

The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee has just ruled that the Florida and Michigan delegates will be seated at half-strength in Denver.

The committee agreed on a compromise offered by the Michigan Democratic Party that would give Clinton 69 delegates and Obama 59. Each delegate would get half a vote at the convention in Denver later this summer, according to the deal.

They also agreed to seat the Florida delegation based on the outcome of the January primary, with 105 pledged delegates for Clinton and 67 for Obama, but with each delegate getting half a vote as a penalty.

The net result is +24 for Clinton, but the more important result would seem to be the delegitimization of the last Clinton gambit, the bogus popular vote argument predicated on Clinton's having received one gazillion votes in Michigan to Obama's zero.

I also hope the obnoxious behavior of her supporters in the audience has also been noted for the record.

During his angry tirade before the Michigan vote, Harold Ickes threatened to take the matter to all the way to Denver. Let's hope, please, that it doesn't really come to that.