As a member of the DNC Rules Committee, WA attorney David McDonald was pretty active yesterday questioning the various people testifying on behalf of restoring Florida and Michigan’s delegates in one form or another. So I asked him for his take on yesterday’s proceedings:
Long day. Where you end up depends on where you start. Clinton’s folks assume that a proceeding held in violation of our rules is a primary within our rules and argue from there. Others believe a proceeding outside our rules is a beauty contest that may inform but does not dictate an estimate of what voter preferences would be in a proceeding held inside the time calendar and according to our rules.
I think we did our best to be fair and I am glad I stayed uncommitted through this proceeding.
(Personally, I was satisfied with the Florida decision, but think the committee went too far in reallocating delegates in Michigan; they should have maintained the 73-55 split, but given the uncommitted to Obama, as imperfect as that might be. I’m just uncomfortable with attempting to divine the will of voters after the fact.)
As a DNC member, McDonald is also a superdelegate, and one of the few from the WA delegation who remains uncommitted. A couple weeks back he told me that he planned to endorse after the May 31 meeting. Yesterday, he still wasn’t ready to commit:
Because of the level of the rhetoric I want to decompress before I decide for whom I will vote. But I expect to reach a decision next week.
I don’t know which way McDonald is leaning, but I expect Obama to wrap this up over the next couple weeks as most of the remaining superdelegates announce their support.