Playing by the Rules

01 June 2008 |permalink | email article

The Democratic Party’s Rules Committee agreed late yesterday to end a long festering dispute over seating the rogue Florida and Michigan delegations by awarding each state half-votes at the August convention. But it was not a happy ending for the prospect of a Clinton Restoration.

The vote, with her irate and boisterous supporters in the audience, dealt Hillary Clinton probably her last best hope of derailing Barack Obama’s grip on winning the nomination – perhaps within days.

Last August, when the Rules Committee voted to strip both states of their delegates if they persisted in clinging to their election dates, Clinton’s delegates on the committee backed sanctions as did every other member.

Harold Ickes Jr., a committee member and Clinton’s chief delegate counter, said then that the rules “ought to be enforced.” But when Michigan broke the rules only her name appeared on the ballot.

An angry Ickes, the son of Harold L. Ickes, a FDR cabinet member and a legendary curmudgeon, pushed for full votes despite the rules, and said Clinton instructed him to reserve her right to appeal the Democrats’ credentials committee in July, which could drag the issue out to the convention.

Party leaders, notably Speaker Nancy Pelosi, concerned about unity before the general election campaign will move quickly to calm the storm as the 16-year Clintonian grip on the DNC fades away.

Ironically, while the Clinton campaign has publicly insisted until the DNC meeting that each delegate be restored in full, a prescient Bill Clinton had a different take at a private fundraiser in North Carolina in April.

In discussing the delegate deadlock, Huffington Post reported a video surfaced on YouTube with the former president discussing the issue and concludes by saying, “probably the only option is to seat them under our rules, as half delegates.”

Quote of the Day

“My momma taught me to play by those rules. My mother taught me, and I’m sure your mother taught you, that when you decide to change the rules, middle of the game, end of the game, that is referred to as cheatin’” – Donna Brazile, a DNC Rules committee member and Al Gore’s 2004 campaign manager.

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