We've written about what the Clinton campaign wants out of the RBC meeting tomorrow and written about what the Obama campaign wants to prevent, but what about the institutional prerogatives of the national party?
1. They want to end the nomination race, and quickly.
2. They want to save face with voters, activist and fundraisers in Florida and Michigan.
3. They want to preserve the legitimacy of the rules process.
4. They do not want the meeting to turn into a political circus.
These pressures may constrain the choices that the members of the committee will be asked to make.
Based on reporting and some guesswork, here is one possible scenario... and note, the numbers aren;t exact, but they're approximately correct: Florida's delegation is restored in full. Each delegate gets a half of a vote; in this scenario, Hillary Clinton would pick up 62 votes and Barack Obama would pick up about 43 for a net gain of 19.
Michigan's delegation would be restored in full; each delegate gets a half of a vote; the delegates are divided evenly between the two campaigns, giving them about 34 or 35 each. (Does the RBC round up from 34.5?)
The total number of delegate VOTES -- not delegates, but delegate VOTES -- needed to cross the nomination threshold would rise to about 2118 -- halfway between 2210 and 2026.
Obama grosses 81 delegates; Clinton nets about 19 (100 grossed).
Depending on the results of PR, MO and SD, to secure the nomination, Obama will need roughly 19 more delegates than he otherwise would have needed.
I'm pretty sure that Obama campaign would be willing to accept this scenario. And unfortunately for the Clinton campaign, the preferences of the presumed nominee will take precedence over the arguments of the challenger.
So what happens to the superdelegates? Unclear at this point.
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