Avoiding a floor fight

Back in 2004 when I was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Boston, it was a pretty easy job: meet celebrities in the morning, be a tourist in the afternoon, and check in at the Fleet Center at 8pm to spend 4 hours as an extra in a giant television studio. This year, it might not be so simple.

You might have heard some obscure terms bandied around lately, like "brokered convention," "super-delegates," and "floor fight." Here's what that's about.

Last year when the primary season rules were put together by the Democratic National Committee, it was agreed that four small states geographically scattered around the nation would hold a sequence of early primaries and caucuses in January. This would give the candidates extended media exposure, face-to-face contact with voters, and some real-time binding feedback on how well their campaign messages were playing. Every other state was allowed by these rules to hold their primary or caucus on February 5 or anytime after. All the candidates agreed to these rules.

Two much larger states, Florida and Michigan, started whining that this was oh so unfair, and decided to break the rules and hold their primaries earlier. They were pigs, but who was going to stop them? One candidate decided to keep her name on the ballot in these two states and try to win the disqualified delegates, while the others directed their resources elsewhere. Naturally the candidate who worked in those states won those delegates.

So now we have the situation where the defecting candidate might need the disqualified delegates in order to win. The rogue states are complaining that they will be disenfranchised if their delegates aren't allowed to vote. Yet their delegates are to be selected in a manner contrary to the rules, that gives one candidate an unfair advantage.

The way things stand right now, if nothing changes the decision will be up to a vote of the remaining delegates at the Democratic National Convention. They could vote to suspend the rules and seat the Michigan and Florida delegates, but this might change the outcome of the election. It would be a heated, unscheduled decision: a "floor fight." Whichever side loses, will believe the outcome is illegitimate — like Mr. Bush being elected by the Supreme Court in 2000. It could produce a deep split in the Democratic Party that would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in November. 

If I were a delegate to the National Convention this year — which I won't be — I'm sure I would not want to be making this decision. I like both candidates and am eager to support the one who wins fair and square. People imagine that the result might be decided by the "super-delegates," the politicians and state party officials who automatically get votes at the Convention regardless of the primary vote. But these are people, too, and have to vote their conscience just like regular delegates. I don't think they want to be making this decision either.

There is room for negotiation here. Both candidates want to win, but neither candidate wants half the party to consider them illegitimate. It's not a victory if, in order to win in August, you have to split the party and lose in November.

I see in the past week that Howard Dean is trying to negotiate a compromise. If such a negotiation were to happen at the convention itself, Dean would be acting as a broker of votes and the Convention would be referred to as a "brokered convention." It would be much better to work out an agreement long before the convention. One proposal that has been floated in the past couple of weeks is to let each candidate's supporters select 50% of the delegates in Michigan and Florida. This would make it unlikely that they would change the outcome, but would still give them a vote, so they are not disenfranchised. Keep in mind that no delegate is legally bound to support any candidate; everyone is free to change their vote.

I think it's a good compromise. But now is the time to make it, while the delegates already pledged are split roughly equally between the candidates, with a third of the states still to decide. The longer we wait the more unlikely a compromise will be.