State of the Race: May 31st

It all comes down to May 31st.

Okay - so I think there have been about 18 "It all comes down to ... [insert date here]" moments in the 2008 Democratic campaign for the presidential nomination, but ultimately, May 31st will hold some very important answers.

On this particular Saturday, the Democratic Rules and Bylaws committee will meet to decide what they will do with the votes in Michigan and Florida. Why not just count the votes? The problem is these two states broke the Democratic primary rules and moved their primaries ahead of super tuesday without permission from the DNC.

All the candidates pledged not to campaign in Florida, and all but Hillary took their name off the Michigan ballot. The states still held their votes, but the results arguably don't represent the will of the people.

In Michigan, Hillary got about 60% of the vote as the only democrat on the ticket - and "uncommitted" came in at about 40%. The argument Hillary is making is that those votes should be counted - and she should get 60% of the delegates in Michgan. The Obama people say "Wait a minute, we didn't even have our name on the ballot because the rules stated that if Michigan moved their primary - their delegates wouldn't count." So if Obama didn't run in Michigan, and the delegates are counted - it would be an unfair advantage to Hillary. So that's headache number 1.

In Florida, Hillary won as well. There seems to be less concern over what to do with these delegates - as both Hillary and Obama had their names on the ballot. Hillary won by about half a million votes, and would likely get a large portion of the Florida Delegates.

Either way - how the rules and by-law committee handles these two states and their delegates could be crucial in how the 2008 Deomcratic nomination ends up.