A Good Old Fashioned Roll Call Really Has the Obama People Spooked

The Obama campaign appears to be desperately afraid of allowing an actual old fashioned 50 state roll call during the convention on Wednesday night. We gone from no roll call vote, to a partial roll call that would only include a couple of states, to a possible "hotel" roll call taken at breakfast when the media isn't watching:

Supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton are furiously circulating petitions on the floor of the Democratic National Convention tonight, hoping to stave off a plan to hold the convention's roll call at breakfast Wednesday — out of the public eye — sources inside the delegations say.

The move being worked out between the Obama campaign and officials behind Clinton's suspended bid, would work in two parts: Delegates would cast votes at their hotels Wednesday morning; that night, at the Pepsi Center convention site, the roll-call process would rely on the votes cast that morning, the delegates said.

Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette, a former state co-chair for Clinton said she knows the camps are in negotiations about what to do.

"My view is we need to come together as a party," DeGette said. "I admire Hillary Clinton greatly, but I think it would be divisive to have a vote on the floor. We need to have a unanimous vote."

The evening event would call on the delegation from Illinois, which Obama serves as the junior senator, and then move to New York, which Clinton represents.

After New York delegates applaud Clinton's long-fought and historic candidacy, a motion would be made to accept the votes cast at breakfast.

The move is being resisted by some Clinton delegates, who are busy tonight circulating a petition among delegates as the opening night of the convention, titled "One Nation," gets underway.

"We just want a roll call like you're supposed to have," said one of the delegates collecting signatures for the petition, who asked not to be named because of concern about friction within the party.

The Obama campaign denied that there would be a change.

I don't know whether the Obama people are afraid the roll call will point out the obvious divisions within the party, or if they're afraid he might lose. All these backroom machinations serve to spotlight a very divided party and one that cannot be brought together just because Michelle Obama plays "June Cleaver" one night and mentions Hillary's name. There are some very deep feelings among Hillary delegates and if they are denied the right to voice their support, Obama will lose a sizeable chunk of Democrats in November.