As much as Joel Ferguson - prominent Hillary Clinton supporter - might want them to, the circumstances governing Michigan's role in the Democratic National Convention have not changed.
The state chose to challenge national rules. The party's national leaders chose to punish the state by stripping it of delegates. The state held a meaningless primary that didn't even include all the major candidates still in play at the time.
Michigan gambled and lost. Changing the rules, as Ferguson now argues, wouldn't be to benefit the state, but to benefit his chosen candidate.
For once, the state actually was right on principle. It shouldn't throw away that one small benefit by injecting preferential politics into the mix.
Ferguson is proposing a two-tier system of handling of the state's delegates. He wants national party leaders to give greater prominence to political insiders than regular delegates.
The "in crowd" - superdelegates such as Ferguson - would get full votes at the Democratic convention in Denver. Regular joes - the pledged delegates chosen through the party process - would settle for half-votes.
And since Sen. Clinton was the only major candidate on the Michigan ballot on Jan. 15 and "won" the vote, she would stand to land a chunk of delegates she doesn't have now.
Michigan taxpayers, who footed the bill for the Jan. 15 primary, might ask what they get out of this idea.
Let's see. They didn't get a fully contested, proper primary. They wouldn't get to have a full "voice" at the convention via pledged delegates. Nor would they even get their millions of dollars back to bolster a shaky state treasury.
SOURCE: LANSING STATE JOURNAL
http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008804300332
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