by Rick Pearson
Harold Ickes, a top aide to Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, is arguing that the full convention nominating delegations from Florida and Michigan should be seated even though he voted last August for the party rules that stripped them of delegates.
Critics have called Ickes' change of heart a flipflop or worse. But Ickes today maintained the vote to strip delegates from states that moved their primaries ahead of Feb. 5 achieved its desired purpose--to prevent other states from trying to rush to the front of the line in an ever-early national nominating battle. He also notes both states didn't get the rush of expensive TV advertising revenues because of the lack of active campaigning there.
Now, Ickes said, the Democratic National Committee needs to look ahead to the fall general election against presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain and the need to have Michigan and Florida in play for the Democratic nominee in fall.
For months, a Clinton campaign challenged by the uphill delegate math favoring Obama has tried to argue that she is the better nominee to challenge McCain and has maintained that she was the winner in Florida and Michigan, even though no candidates campaigned there and she was the only major contender to appear on Michigan's Democratic ballot.
Clinton has even claimed a popular vote lead over Obama among states that have held primaries--even though no official votes were cast for the Illinois senator in Michigan, where voters were largely left to a choice between Clinton and uncommitted.
Clinton, during a visit to Florida yesterday, maintained she would fight until the August convention in Denver to assure the disputed delegations were seated. The Clinton campaign also has backed challenges to the DNC rules and a hearing of its rules and bylaws committee, upon which Ickes sits, is set for the end of the month.
"We started to invoke a full stripping of the delegates from those two states to send a very strong signal to other states that if they broke the window (before Feb. 5), there would be very severe consequences," Ickes said of his vote.
Now, he said, "Lessons were learned and now it is time for us to turn our attention to the general election and to make sure that these states, that we do everything to try to assure that these states are in the Democratic column."
Howard Wolfson, Clinton's spokesman, said the campaign's "expectation is the DNC, in its wisdom, will on the 31st decide to seat these delegations at 100 percent."
"We will have a firm number established that either candidate will need to get the nomination--2,210 (delegates)," he said. "And whoever gets to the that number will be the nominee and if it is not Sen. Clinton, Sen. Clinton will support Sen. Obama should he get to that number. And so that is the goal. That is what we expect and hope will be accomplished."
The focus of virtually everyone else has been on the magic number of 2,026 delegates--the number needed to win the nomination excluding Florida and Michigan and a number that Obama is rapidly closing in upon.
• 
• 
• 
• 
Comments
Any Democrat who thinks that the elections in Michigan and Florida cannot be counted has rocks in their head. If they don't count, Republicans will carry those 2 states AND the election. Obama had every chance to compete and voluntarily took his name off the ballot in Michigan, which raises the fundamental question of his judgment. Here Obama just lost an election. As President he would lose our freedom. On the other hand, Hillary plays tough, wins the election and would be an "iron lady" defending the freedoms of Americans around the world.
Posted by: Kevin | May 22, 2008 2:03 PM
The supposed concern that Hillary Clinton has for those poor Michigan and Florida voters does not extend to all of he people in those states that did not vote because they and their favored candidate went by the rules that Harold Ickes and Hillary Clinton agreed to. Now they want to change the rules for no reason other than to get around the choice of a majority of primary participants.
Posted by: Sam Osborne | May 22, 2008 2:05 PM
The Clintons are giving the people of Florida, Michigan, the United States, and the World just what would go on in a government administered by these hucksters. To repeat the obvious, they should have argued long and hard back when the rules were made. They didn't. They gambled and they lost, and woe be it unto the Obama campaign if they yield one inch on this mess. What they should do is average out the percentage of victories in all of the primaries and caucuses and award the delegates of Fl and MI on the basis of the average margin of victory. Otherwise the Clintons should take this as a lesson learned and move on.
Posted by: GW | May 22, 2008 2:10 PM
Posted by: Kevin | May 22, 2008 2:03 PM
Or it could be looked at that no foreign leader would ever be dumb enough to make a diplomatic agreement with Hillary of any kind since her word means nothing. If she can't be trusted to uphold her pledge in the matter of a state primary, she cannot be trusted to honor a trade agreement, an environmental agreement, a peace deal, anything at all.
There's more to being a leader than "Playing tough". Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler all played tough, but they couldn't be trusted either.
Posted by: Hillary has no honor | May 22, 2008 2:26 PM
I quit believeing anything Hillary had to say a LONG time ago. It's one thing to be a woman and wish for a woman President, it's a completely different thing when that woman candidate has such a lack of integrity and is as shallow as Hillary is.
There are plenty of good honest female politicians out there who could possibly run for President (Kathleen Sebelius etc), I'll wait for one of them to run before I'll vote for Hillary.
Posted by: Nici | May 22, 2008 2:32 PM
Kevin,
All parties aggreed to not compete in Michigan and Flordia and that their delegates would not be seated. By taking his name off of the ballot in MI and not competing in Florida, Obama lived up to the aggreement. Clinton aggreed to this because she was cocky enough to believe that she was going to have the nomination wrapped up on Super Tuesday, and that those two states would not matter. That raises a fundamental question of HER judgment. Hillary isn't playing tough, she's playing like a 4th grader - whine whine whine until she gets her way. That is not tough, if she was an "iron lady" she would accept her defeat, shake Obama's hand and start rallying her supporters to the next President...OBAMA!
Posted by: Kyle | May 22, 2008 2:37 PM
It is absolutely disgusting and deflating how the DNC and 'the powers that be' have allowed Hillary Clinton to navigate this election process. Now they must meet because Hillary Clinton is crying that she is losing and wants to change the rules because they now don't fit her criteria. As Imus (in the morning) said today, you can;t tack on an extra 5 minutes of the football game because you're losing. The game is 60 minutes. It's over!!
Posted by: RuthieM | May 22, 2008 3:04 PM
The question is, how many delegates does Clinton think she should get from those two states? Florida was 50% Clinton versus 47% Obama/Edwards. It would be very easy just to count the vote as is and it isn't far off the 50/50 split that Obama's team proposed. That would give her 106 delegates versus 99 for Obama. The Michigan vote is more of a problem. Hillary got 55% of the vote when she was the only real candidate still on the ballot. 40% voted "uncommitted". What does Hillary or her supporters think is a fair way to split the Michigan delegates? 50/50? 55/40? 80/20? 100/0? I'd love to hear what they think the fair solution is.
Posted by: Tom O | May 22, 2008 5:56 PM
After this fiasco, I wonder if any foreign country will ever again ask America to come and judge their elections to insure that they are run honestly and allowing everyone to vote as they wish.
Posted by: Mary Holzer | May 22, 2008 6:03 PM
Only, if they ask, fair-minded, former President James Carter, Nobel Prize winner, to monitor their elections, as he should have done, down in Florida, in 2000. Of course, you have most Ridiculous Republicans chiming in that President Carter would be biased, as if, he is like them !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, Chicago | May 22, 2008 6:49 PM
The pledge the candidates signed with the DNC was not to CAMPAIGNE in MI and FL not COMPETE. Obama voluntarily took his name off the MI ballot, ostensibly because he knew he would loose because he was not well known at the time. Obama also broke the DNC pledge in Fl where he campaigned for several weeks via cable TV spots.
Posted by: annakarenina | May 22, 2008 7:40 PM
Here is a good read on what to do in Michigan and Florida: http://airitoutwithgeorge.blogspot.com/2008/05/what-to-do-with-michigan-and-florida.html
Posted by: GDW | May 22, 2008 9:21 PM
After Super Tuesday Mrs. Bosnia placed a crown on her head and stuck her nose firmly in the air.
NOW like a scene out the movie Trading Places - she and Bill are crying to the stock market to "turn the machines back on"!!!! And Obama and Axelrod look like Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd!!!
Clintons have manipulated this entire process! And Obama is STILL winning. Before this election even started - I remember blacks in Chicago saying they were not going to support Barack because they didn't think he was black enough. But today...the Clintons have cleared ALL of that up. This election is over. And if it were switched around ALL of the Superdelegates would have come out for Clinton. But Barack is getting the "Black Man's Treatment". And its fine, because he is black. And when the smoke clears we want to be able to hold our heads up high - knowing he more than EARNED it.
I agree with NICI above who said very well: "There are plenty of good honest female politicians out there who could possibly run for President (Kathleen Sebelius etc)"
Posted by: Keith Lifetime Southsider | May 23, 2008 9:54 AM