Dean: ‘Decide now’

Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has put pressure on his party’s superdelegates to say now which of the two nominees – Clinton and Obama – they want to put up against the Republicans’ John McCain in the presidential election. In an interview with CNN, Dean said they should begin the decision-making process now rather than waiting for the party convention at the end of August. “We cannot give up two or three months of active campaigning and healing time,” Dean told Wolf Blitzer. “We’ve got to know who our nominee is.”

Dean has remained neutral throughout the contest and said he would not tell a candidate to end their campaign. However he said that the majority of superdelegates had already made up their minds privately and it was time to make a public decision.

Meanwhile Politico magazine has profiled the 25 individuals who will decide whether Clinton gets her wish to redeem the “lost” primaries of Florida and Michigan. The two states broke Democratic party rules by making their primary dates too early in the year, thereby forfeiting their delegates. Clinton won both contests (although Barack Obama’s name was not on the ballot in Michigan and he did not campaign in Florida), and her campaign team is pushing hard for the results of the contests to be considered in the final delegate tally.

The 25 politicians, all of whom were appointed to the Credentials Committee by Howard Dean, are meant to be politically neutral, but Politico says this is far from the case. Out of the “Dean 25”, 10 have professed support or donated heavily to Obama, seven for Clinton, while eight have not expressed a bias.

FIRST POSTED APRIL 18, 2008