The Rules and Bylaws Committee Hearing should begin momentarily. Here's a thread for readers to live-blog or post reactions.

We'll be joining you shortly.

Comments now closed, new threads open.

Hillary Clinton is back in Puerto Rico where she will remain all weekend. 1,000 showed up to greet her tonight. (In Spanish.)

500,000 are expected to vote out of the more than 2 million registered voters. Recent polls had Hillary up by more than 10 points.

Prison inmates, by the way, are allowed to vote in Puerto Rico, even in the presidential primary. They vote at the prison. (article is in Spanish.)

Here's the translation of the article on Hillary's event tonight prepared from one of our new correspondents, a criminal defense attorney on scene in Puerto Rico: [More...]

For once, a primary result is a good indicator for the general election as Barack Obama wins white voters in Wisconsin and defeats McCain by 6 points, according to SUSA. Obama won white Wisconsin voters against Hillary Clinton by 9 and he wins them by 5 over McCain.

Wisconsin will not be a problem for Barack Obama in my view. Now Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida? Well, that could be another story.

By Big Tent Democrat

McClatchy reports:

Party officials and challengers will make presentations first Saturday, and the campaigns will then make their cases. Former Michigan Gov. Jim Blanchard and Arthenia Joyner, a Tampa, Fla., civil rights activist, will present Clinton's case, while Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., and former Rep. David Bonior, D-Mich., will argue Obama's side. Levin is also expected to speak.

Mark Bubriski, a spokesman for the Florida party, said that while Democrats there want all delegates seated, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who will present the state's case, is expected to use a conciliatory tone. According to Bubriski, Nelson is likely to argue, "We want this to be over. Our goal is that this is the day to end it, to move on, to put this entire dark chapter behind us."

After hearing the arguments, the committee plans to break for a private lunch, followed by an afternoon of deliberations.

Legal arguments are not likely to hold sway tomorrow. Why? [More....]

Here's Richard E. Berg-Andersson of Green Papers who says he has no dog in this fight on the correct solution to seating Michigan and Florida:

On Michigan

[W]hat is fair is that 73 pledged delegates be seated for Mrs. Clinton and 55 be free to vote for whomever they might wish (after all, they are 'Uncommitted'!)-- for Michigan constitutionally set its Presidential Primary date as 15 January 2008 under State law, held said election- again, under State law. The voters who wished to do so, thereby, voted on that date and the results, if the rules set for all jurisdictions under Democratic Party national rules be applied, would be 73 Clinton/55 Uncommitted... period!

....To my mind, the Michigan Democratic Party has done both their Party and their State a disservice by being so willing to advance a 69/59 split (that, and they are also ignoring the fact that, in the end, it is not really their "call" anyway...

On Florida: [More...]

When discussing the Florida and Michigan situations, I believe the Clinton campaign had viable arguments based on fairness, self interest and the rules for fully seating the Florida and Michigan delegations based on the results of their respective primaries. Today, I believe the Clinton camp damages the viability of its rules-based argument for Florida. I also believe they damaged the fairness-based argument for Michigan. They are now left solely with a self interest argument for the Democratic Party.

As I explained earlier, by conceding that Florida and Michigan Democrats broke the DNC rules, I believe that the Clinton camp has lost its rules argument for full seating of the delegates based on the existing primary results. The Clinton camp's invocation of Rule20(c)(7) ignores the fact that that rule requires that Florida and Michigan Democrats had taken prompt positive steps to prevent the passage of legislation that would violate the DNC primary schedule. On August 25, 2007, the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee ruled that neither Florida nor Michigan had done that. That was one of the bases for stripping of the Florida and Michigan delegations. By conceding that the August 25 RBC determination was correct, I believe the Clinton camp has already lost the argument that the RBC can reinstate the full Florida and Michigan delegations. MORE . .

Update: FL State Senator Arthenia Joyner will argue for Hillary. Bill Nelson is arguing only for the Fla. Democratic Party. Katherine Seelye of the NY Times was mistaken.

Update: Florida Democratic Party Chair Karen Thurman sent out an email saying Bill Nelson will be arguing for the Florida Democratic Party. Is he arguing for both Hillary and the Florida Party? She says she expects the Committee will "restore at least half of our delegates." From the e-mail, which was forwarded to me:

The Party has not made any specific recommendations to the DNC since we submitted our delegate selection plan, but we have consistently noted that a record-breaking 1.75 million Florida Democrats voted in the state-run January 29th primary, which had all the candidates on the ballot.

Tomorrow, the Rules & Bylaws Committee will hear an appeal written by Florida DNC Member Jon Ausman. I have asked our senior U.S. Senator, Bill Nelson, to present on behalf of Florida Democrats

. [More...]

Hillary is not conceding seating Florida and Michigan by any stretch of the imagination. She is fighting as hard as ever. Here is the letter her campaign sent out today.

• The Rules and Bylaws Committee has the authority to seat all of the delegates from Florida and Michigan with full votes.
• Actual election results must control the allocation of Michigan's delegates.
• Although they oppose any 50% solution, seating all the delegates with 1/2 vote is less harmful than seating 50% of the delegates and giving those 50% a full vote.

The campaign asks the committee to rule promptly rather than waiting for the Credentials committee to act.

Comments closed

Via Politico, the Pew Research Center has a new report, available here, finding 49% of white women and 35% of Democratic white women now have a negative perception of Obama. Politico summarizes:

Forty-nine percent of white women view Obama unfavorably, while only 43 percent hold a favorable opinion. In February, 36 percent of these women viewed Obama unfavorably, while 56 percent had a positive perception of the likely Democratic nominee.

Over the same period, Democratic white women’s negative view of Obama increased from 21 percent to 35 percent, while their positive view decreased from 72 percent to 60 percent — roughly the same rate as white women overall.

For men,

In today's conference call, the Clinton campaign conceded any rules-based or fairness-based argument for the full seating of the Florida and Michigan delegations. The Clinton campaign declared that, unlike Iowa, NH and South Carolina, Florida and Michigan did indeed break the DNC rules and without justification. The Clinton campaign expressly disagreed with the Michigan Democratic Party's contention that the DNC had selectively enforced its rules by allowing New Hampshire and South Carolina to break the sanctioned primary schedule, that Florida was not entitled to a safe harbor or waiver, and that the DNC had acted properly and within the rules when it stripped Florida and Michigan of its delegates.

The Clinton campaign's only argument now seems to be that yes, rules were broken, but to help us in November, the RBC should seat the delegates anyway. It seems to me that the obvious response by the RBC is to rely on its staff memo which says it can only restore half of the delegates, and that to honor the voters of Florida and Michigan, it will magnaminously do so. [More...]

The South Dakota Argus Leader has endorsed Hillary Clinton in the state's June 3 primary. Its reasons:

Clinton is the strongest Democratic candidate for South Dakota. Her mastery of complex policy detail is broad and deep, and her experience as a senator and former first lady matches that.

Measured against her opponent, Clinton is philosophically more moderate. That is likely a good thing for South Dakota.

....Clinton has demonstrated a real commitment to Native American issues and will have visited several South Dakota reservations before the race is over. Clinton is precisely correct when she says that people outside the region have a poor understanding of the troubling trends on our reservations. Federal attention could help. That includes but is not limited to higher-ranking posts in the federal bureaucracy.

[More...]

A heads up. At Noon EST, I will be live blogging the Clinton conference call on the May 31 DNC Rules and Bylaw Committee hearing on the Florida/Michigan Fiasco.

Let me tell you the question I hope to ask

In reading the DNC Staff Memo on the FL/MI situation, I noticed it did not discuss some critical issues. First, it did not address Florida's argument that it was entitled to a "waiver" or "safe harbor" pursuant to Rule 21. Second, it did not discuss the validity of the RBC's granting of "waivers" or "safe harbors" to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina for violating Rule 11, the primary schedule rule. At the same time the memo stated that a 50% penalty was the automatic and mandatory penalty for violating Rule 11. Can you explain to me the Clinton campaign view on this seeming contradictions in the treatment of Florida and Michigan as compared to Iowa, NH and South Carolina? As you know, Michigan has submitted a letter which emphasizes its objections to this unequal treatment. If the DNC Staff argument is that the RBC does not have unfettered power to reinstate the Florida and Michigan delegations, isn't the logical conclusion then that the RBC did not have the power to grant waivers to Iowa, NH and South Carolina, and thus their delegations must also suffer the 50% penalty?

The live blog will be below the fold.

By Big Tent Democrat