The Dean Scream Back Again?

Howard Dean was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night and it was... hoo ho, it was grand.

Not a minute into the interview, the first question out of the box, Dean promises to seat the Florida and Michigan delegates at the D's national convention this year.

Wow... Awesome.

I suppose, as usual it doesn't matter what Howie D. is saying. He seems to have never had any control over his own party, it would be odd to believe that this was any different. It's especially empty given the election results of tonights primaries. It stands to reason that Hillary may be all but a nasty memory.

But...

From the full seating of these two delegations Hillary stands to gain between 65 and 100 more delegates than Obama, who currently has a 150 delegate lead (including pledged super-delegates). That means that if the undecideds and Edwards delegates in these two crowds fall even mildly in her favor she sits in a 50 to 75 delegate race. With 267 un-pledged, party elite super-delegates it's not as sewn up as some might imagine.

There are some primaries left as well, Oregon has 52 delegates to assign, as well as West Virginia with 28, Montana with 16, South Dakota with 15 and Kentucky with 51. Factor in the 55 delegates from Puerto Rico and the numbers get even mushier. 188 of these remaining delegates are in closed primaries which in states with less than 100 delegates have trended pretty strongly towards Obama. 99 of them are in open primaries which will likely be heavily attended by R crossovers and have trended towards Hillary, thanks in no small part to Rush Limbaugh.

If we hypothetically assume a greater margin of victory in the open primaries left to run falling for Hillary than the margin of those in closed primaries falling to Obama then we could imagine a 15 to 20 delegate swing for Hillary. Again hypothetically speaking. That puts her within 30 delegates in her wettest of dreams and again we don't know what those super-delegates are going to do.

Also we need to remember that in the delegate counting convention world all Hillary really has to do is keep Obama under 2025 delegates and she can force a second vote, and in a second vote previously committed delegates are free to move(and open to bribery and manipulation) . For her to pull this off she would need a compromise that kept the Fla and Mi delegations out of the first vote (as they stand to deliver at least 126 of the remaining 183 needed by Obama). Also she has to have something like 200 to 250 of the remaining super-delegates in her pocket. But that's not really unimaginable is it? I mean why would anybody stay in the race with these numbers if she didn't have an ace up her sleeve?

Watch for this obviously ridiculous scenario in the coming days. If you see a deal brokered that keeps the Fla and Mi delegations at the convention but unable to vote in the first round or unable to vote in full numbers, remember you read about this odd electoral farce here first.

One thing to note of course is that every minute of this preposterous series of events makes the D candidate (whom ever he or she may be) look more and more like the leader of a three ring circus than a viable candidate. The worst possible thing for the D's is a four day floor fight in prime time with ship jumping delegates deciding the party's candidate. Most especially bad for the party that presents itself as the populist choice.

Perhaps Howie D. has screamed again and sent the D's down the losing track.. We'll all just have to wait and see.


The Dean Machine