John Edwards today said he will not accept the vice-presidential nomination. Nor would he endorse either Hillary or Obama.

Ideas on why he wouldn't accept the VP slot? Here's mine: He doesn't think either Hillary or Obama will win in November and he wants to keep his path open in 2012. By being a good soldier and campaigning for the eventual nominee this year, but not sharing the ticket, he gets to be a team player but avoid blame for a loss, which may increase his chances next time.

Howard Dean and the Michigan Democratic party will put out a statement tomorrow that there will be no revote in Michigan.

In order for the delegates to be seated, the campaigns will have to agree on how to apportion those from the January primary.

Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton supported holding a second election so the delegates could be seated, but rival Barack Obama feared problems.

....In the statement, they’re expected to say the DNC is committed to seating Michigan’s delegates at this summer’s convention as long as any agreement is supported by the party’s two presidential contenders.

As to the candidate's proposals:

The Obama campaign has called for splitting the delegates 50-50, regardless of Clinton’s Jan. 15 win. The Clinton campaign so far has rejected that idea.

Delegates to the state convention will be chosen April 19. Michigan has 128 pledged delegates and 28 superdelegates.

There's probably something to like for everyone in this wide-ranging CBS/New York Times poll of all registered voters (not just Dems). (Full poll results here. (pdf.)

What stood out to me:

• Those polled who either voted or will vote in Democratic primaries prefer Obama to Hillary, 46% to 43%, a statistical tie. But, Obama fell from 54% in Februrary to 46% in March and April while Hillary rose from 38% to 43%.

• Obama does better than Hillary with Republicans. His support among Independents and Democrats is down a bit, but it's up among Republicans.

• Hillary leads Obama in who will do better with the economy and health care.

• Hillary and Obama both best McCain, with Hillary one point better than Obama. Whiile more people think Obama will win the nomination, they both beat McCain and are essentially tied here. [More...]

When Massachussetts federal bankruptcy judge Robert Somma tendered his resignation after being arrested for D.U.I while wearing women's clothing, members of both sides of the bankruptcy bar, those representing creditors as well as debtors, embarked on a letter writing campaign to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, asking it to reject the resignation.

"Recent events do not in any manner diminish Judge Somma's ability to fulfill his duties and to remain as a highly respected member of the bench with the overwhelming support of the community of bankruptcy practitioners," said the letter, which Moore helped write. More than 200 bankruptcy lawyers signed the letter, one of several sent to the court by Somma's supporters in the legal community after he submitted his resignation.

On Tuesday, Somma wrote in a letter to the editor of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly that the outpouring of support had caused him to reconsider his resignation, which he said he submitted following a "media frenzy."

The times, they are a changing.

The letter-writing campaign illustrates how perspectives have changed about behavior such as cross-dressing. Twenty years ago, several lawyers acknowledged, it was highly unlikely that the legal community would have rallied around a judge who was arrested under circumstances like those in the Somma case

By Big Tent Democrat

Ed Rendell asks:

In an interview with me, the governor was again in media-critic mode. "It took Saturday Night Live to bring some fairness to this election," Rendell said, referring to the show's now famous skit lampooning the media's crush on Obama. "It's stunning. Does Keith Olbermann get checks from the Obama campaign?"

(Emnphasis supplied.) Heh.

Update (TL): Comments are open again, the troll has been deleted. It was ObamaMama who registered as 8 users today, including the offensively named one. All such registrations and comments and comment ratings by him/her have been erased. Thanks to all of you who e-mailed me about it.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Obama supporter Jonathan Singer cites approvingly to the news that Obama supporters are backing Speaker Pelosi's divisive comments:

[S]everal major Obama donors called Speaker Pelosi and DCCC chair Chris Van Hollen asking how they could be helpful. . . . Mark Gorenberg, a member of Obama’s national finance team, and a long-time DCCC fundraiser, met with Pelosi last Friday.

Unlike Singer, I am bothered by the fact that Obama supporters have backed Pelosi's divisiveness. It is incredibly shortsighted. We will need a united Party in November and Pelosi has been as harmful a Party Elder as we have seen. Her reaction is predictable:

Chris Dodd backtracks big time. Today he says,

In an interview with CNN's John Roberts, Dodd — a supporter of Barack Obama — said he thinks the race will end when "the candidates decide they can't go any further.

"The last thing you want to do is lecture candidates to get out of the race," Dodd also said.

Last week he said,

"Over the next couple of weeks, as we get into April, it seems to me then, that the national leadership of this party has to stand up and reach a conclusion," he added.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Clinton supporter NJ Governor Jon Corzine adopts the proper standard for a Super Delegate, vote the will of the people as reflected in the popular vote:

This is the metric that supporters of both candidates will accept. And yes, let's revote Florida and Michigan please.

Similarly, John Murtha said:

Hillary Clinton simply cannot be the Democratic nominee if she doesn't win the popular vote, Pennsylvania congressman and Clinton-backer John Murtha said Wednesday. "Clinton has to win Pennsylvania," he argued in an interview. "She has to be ahead in the popular vote to have any chance at all of getting this nomination."

Good for Murtha. He is absolutely right.

I miss the debates. It looks like we will get at least one more and probably 2. . Hillary Clinton has agreed to a CBS North Carolina debate on April 27, in advance of the state's primary. No final word on whether Obama agreed.

An invitation to debate in Indiana is also pending.

There will be a Philly debate on April 16.

Yesterday, I asked what the difference was between the Credentials Committee and the Rules and Bylaws Committee and why the Clinton campaign in its response to Howard Dean's latest statement mentioned the Rules and Bylaws Committee when the media keeps talking about the Credentials Committee.

Marc Ambinder provides this possible explanation:

Here's what's happening. Remember the Ausman challenge? Well, there are actually two Ausman challenges -- one regarding Florida's superdelegates, and one regarding the ability of the party's rules and bylaws committee to penalize an entire delegation.

Sources close to the DNC's rules and bylaws committee say that the Ausman challenges WILL be heard -- and that if the votes are there, some Florida delegates could be seated -- temporarily -- by the end of April. (The seating would likely be appealed to the credentials committee, but we'll cross that suspension bridge when we pay the toll for it.)

More...

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

MYDD writes:

Dean seems to be moving; his earlier "they didn't follow the rules, tough luck" posture has been sliding off its pedestal a bit now that the word is out on the machinations by Donna Brazile to increase the penalty from half the delegates to all the delegates- that position seems to no longer be defensible. . . . FL Senator Bill Nelson is on record as supporting going with the original penalty from the DNC rules before Donna Brazile bumped it up to the death penalty - half the delegates. . .

(Emphasis supplied.) Was this whole fiasco all Donna Brazile's doing? Does anyone have more information on this? I always suspected she was behind it but since she shamelessly has continued to pontificate on the subject, I assumed she had some cover. Has someone come forward with information about Donna Brazile's role in this?

People for the American Way warns that Republicans are bringing pressure on Senators to confirm President Bush's remaining judicial nominees. It has written this letter(pdf) to Sen. Patrick Leahy, Chair of the Judiciary Committee, suggesting the "Thurmond Rule" be invoked. From the letter:

There is no justification for the Judiciary Committee to accede to demands that it speed up the processing of controversial nominees, particularly at this point in a presidential election year. To the contrary, we believe the time has come for the Committee to invoke the Senate’s longstanding practice, popularly known as “the Thurmond Rule,” of processing only non-controversial judicial nominees during a significant portion of the year leading up to a presidential election. While there has never been a precise date upon which the Thurmond Rule is deemed to take effect, there is ample basis for the Committee to invoke that Rule now.

During much of President Clinton’s Administration, Republican leaders in the Senate blocked the President’s efforts to fill judicial vacancies, particularly on the Courts of Appeals, stranding 60 judicial nominees at the end of the Clinton presidency.2 Through such tactics as secret holds and refusals to schedule hearings or votes, Senate Republicans held judicial vacancies open literally for years in the hope that a Republican would be elected President.

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