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...]

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?

By Big Tent Democrat

It is one of the most interesting phenomenas of this campaign and the Obama camp deserves great credit for this spin achievement - the turning of the pledged delegate count into the Holy Grail of this campaign. Many now pretend that the pledged delegate count was always treated as the ultimate metric for who would be the nominee. I know this to be false. How? Because ALL of us thought that if Barack Obama won the popular vote in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton's chances for winning the nomination would have been over. At that point, even if she had lost New Hampshire, Clinton would have held a lead in the total delegate count and would have been one delegate behind in the pledged delegate count. But she would have been defeated for the nomination. This campaign, indeed NO campaign, did not start with the pledged delegate count as the Holy Grail of this contest. On the flip, I will review some of the contemporaneous coverage so that we can see how the Obama camp succeeded in its spin.

I am completely unimpressed by Howard Dean's statement about seating the Florida delegates today.

Seating the delegates at the convention is not the same thing as allowing their votes to count in picking the party's nominee. Timing is everything. If the delegates aren't seated until the convention in August, it will be too late for them to have a role in choosing the nominee.

Dean isn't saying anything that wasn't said by the party initially -- the credentials or rules committee, at the request of the party nominee, can decide to to seat the delegates. As Florida Democratic Party Chair Karen Thurman said back in January, before the primary:

Florida's 210 delegates will be seated at the national convention in August. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, honorary chair of the convention; Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean; and former DNC Chairman Don Fowler of South Carolina have all said that, ultimately, the presidential nominee will decide who attends the convention.

Dean seems to be implying that absent an agreement between Hillary and Obama, the delegates won't get to vote because the decision will have to wait until we have a nominee who makes his or her desire known to the appropriate committee.

In order for Florida's 1.7 million votes to really count, the penalty needs to be lifted before the last primary in June. Otherwise, Floridians will have no say in choosing the Democratic nominee. The risk in not lifting the penalty in time for Floridians' votes to count is that they will desert the party in droves in November, either by not voting or by voting for McCain. Who could blame them?

Here's Hillary Clinton's statement about Dean's announcement today:

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

So sayeth Howard Dean:

It is our intention to do everything that we can and we believe we'll absolutely seat a delegation from Florida at the convention. That is absolutely in the best interest of all of us.

Guess Florida won't be learning that important lesson about NOT moving up its primary that some Obama supporters insist is important. After all, seating the delegations means the DNC penalties will be lifted. How they will be seated remains a mystery. But get this:

Dean called on Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to agree to a solution to the impasse with the delegation.

So who should give in Mr. Chairman? We need revotes. For Florida AND Michigan.

Update: Here' s a preliminary news report on the hearing.

***

Original Post

Former Enron CFO Jeff Skilling, serving a 24 year sentence in federal prison, has his day in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

By all accounts, he has a very good chance of getting a reversal on most of the counts he was convicted on. [More...]