When the Michigan Democratic Party first came out with it’s 69-59 proposal, I first thought it wasn’t that bad of idea.  It seemed to somewhat equitably split up the delegates between Clinton and Obama and would be a valid solution.

However, while I think both Michigan and Florida delegations getting 1/2 votes was the right move, the more I thought about, and the more I looked into the 69/59 compromise, the less I came to see it as a good solution.

The first reason for this change of mind was probably the fact that Obama had built a large enough lead in the delegate count that, frankly, a 77-55 split, with 55 uncommitted delegates – almost all going to Obama – was virtually no different than the 69-59 split, and it wouldn’t provoke the Clinton campaign as much.

The second reason for this change was the fact that I found the reasoning behind giving 59 delegates to Obama rather dubious.  First off, it assumed that all uncommitted delegates went for Obama, despite the fact that several other candidates – including Edwards – pulled his name as well.  Are they saying that Edwards wouldn’t have won any delegates, or are they just assuming that all of Edward’s delegates would have gone to Obama (not that it isn’t a bad assumption, but you still shouldn’t assume it).

Also, where did they decide to give Obama an extra 4 delegates?  Coincidentally enough, 59 is almost exactly between 55 and 64 – 55 being the original uncommitted count and 64 being the number of delegates Obama would have gotten if the delegation was split 50/50.  It seems to me that the Michigan Democratic Party split the difference, then came up with a reason to peg the number there other than just saying they split the difference.  The reasons they came up with included counting write-in votes for Obama – votes which weren’t supposed to count by Michigan law – as well as using polling, including exit polling which has long been shown to not necessarily be a reliable predictor of the margin, at least within about 5% or so.

So by using 4 pretty dubious standards, the DNC gave Obama all of the uncommitted votes, and then-some – even when most of the original 55 uncommitted delegates had already declared for Obama.  So in the name of gaining 4 delegates which Obama didn’t even need, his supporters on the DNC rules committee took an action which provoked the Clinton campaign to the maximum possible extent short of not seating the delegation at all, and causing doubt that the DNC was somehow trying to throw the election in Obama’s favor.

Of course, those 4 delegates did little to help Obama as he would have gotten the delegates anyway, but on the other side, because of that fact, the provocation of Clinton and her supporters was completely unnecessary and will just make it that much harder for Clinton’s core supporters to fall in line behind Obama.