Trailhead: A campaign blog.

Dean's Fix

Jason Horowitz has a great write-up of a Democratic fundraiser last night, featuring angry Clinton supporters and a testy Howard Dean. When donors raised the issue of seating Florida and Michigan delegations,

Dean said that in his view, the question could be settled only after the primaries had finished in June, and after the superdelegates had made their decision.

At that point Clinton campaign finance chair Hassan Nemazee spoke up. He said Dean's response sounded to him as if the DNC chairman were "essentially trying to kick the can down the road" and that the chairman was not exhibiting the type of leadership one would expect. Nemazee said that since the campaigns obviously could not reach a solution on their own before June, Dean's argument amounted to passing the buck.

Dean then responded, heatedly, that in his experience, those who sought the intervention of party leadership were motivated by their own particular agendas. And that was not the sort of leadership he intended to provide.

This illustrates the problem we talked about the other day: Dean thinks he can broker a “compromise” on the issue, without recognizing that the two campaigns have no common ground whatsoever. Either the states’ delegates get apportioned in a way that influences the election, or they don’t. So no matter what, if he forces a decision, it’s going to look like he’s taking sides.

You can see why he wants to stonewall. By waiting until after the primaries, Dean increases the chances that Florida/Michigan will be a nonissue. If one of the candidates may have dropped out by then, he or she will gladly seat the delegates.

You can also see how much this helps Obama. Not only does Clinton need their delegates, but Florida and Michigan are key to her case to superdelegates that she should win the nomination. Without official recognition that the two contests counted, she’ll have trouble arguing that her victories there mattered—not to mention lumping their votes into the popular vote tally. (It’s a tough case, anyway, seeing as Obama wasn’t on the Michigan ballot.)

So in that sense, “kicking the can down the road” isn’t a perfectly neutral stance—it ends up slightly favoring Obama.

Dean Can Talk After All

The main criticism of Howard Dean since he took over as head of the DNC has been his silence. (First he was too loud, now he’s too quiet.) So now anything he says, however off-the-cuff, gets amplified to 300 decibels.

Sirens wailed, therefore, when he told CBS (you break that news, CBS!) that he’d like to see the nomination wrapped up by July 1. An aide clarifies to Politico that July 1 is really just a ballpark date, but it’s still a big deal that Dean is weighing in. In a separate interview with the Associated Press, Dean says:

“There'll be some nasty fights if it goes to convention, and people will walk out,” Dean said. “But I've also been talking to a fairly significant number of, by and large, nonaligned people about how we might resolve this.”

Contrast this with Hillary Clinton’s recent statement that she’s ready to take this to the convention, and you’ve got two very differing views of reality.

Dean stops short of favoring either candidate—that’s not part of his job description—but there’s a Pelosi-like quality to his statements. In the AP interview, Dean addresses Clinton’s recent claims that pledged delegates don’t have to vote as directed. Dean charitably calls that "a very technical argument” and adds, “You aren't going to get pledged delegates to move unless something really shocking happens.” He also told the AP that he doesn’t think superdelegates would support the candidate who doesn’t win the pledged delegate count. Given the numbers we’ve been looking at for weeks now, that’s tantamount to saying he thinks Obama has it wrapped up. But, of course, he can’t say that.