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So Much for Healing

The first half of today’s RBC meeting was all about “unity” and healing. The second part, not so much.

After an extended lunch break, the panel returned with a set of resolutions. The first, presented by committee member Alice Huffman, proposed seating Florida’s entire delegation. Even before it was voted down, Clinton supporter Tina Flournoy mourned that the resolution had “no chance of passing this body.” “That saddens me,” she said. “It really does.” The motion failed, but it was closer than most people expected, 15-12. Instead, the committee unanimously passed a motion splitting the Florida delegation in half. When DNC Secretary Alice Germond tried to soften the mood by describing her experience hearing MLK speak in Washington, D.C., the Clinton-friendly crowd booed. Okay, you won, the boos said. Just don’t pretend it’s democratic.

Things turned even more sour during the Michigan discussion. The committee passed a motion adopting the Michigan Democratic Party’s 69-59 split, but giving each delegate only half a vote. The solution nets Clinton five delegates. (If you include Florida, she netted 24 delegates today.) Even before the vote, everyone knew how it would turn out. Clinton supporter Don Fowler voiced his disappointment with the resolution, but said he would vote for it anyway. He then addressed Harold Ickes. “This is my position. I respect and love you, but this is what I think we should do.”

Ickes, after a pause, leaned into his mic. “We find it inexplicable,” he said, speaking for himself and Clinton, “that this body that is supposedly devoted to rules is going to fly in the face of other than … the single most fundamental rule in the delegate selection process. That is fair reflection.” As far as he’s concerned, fair reflection—the notion that delegate allocation must reflect the true vote—is “analogous to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.” He went on: “The motion will hijack, remove four delegates from Hillary Clinton.” (In Michigan’s Jan. 15 vote, “Uncommitted” won 55 delegates; the solution gives him 59.) “There’s been a lot of talk about party unity,” he said. “I submit to you that hijacking four delegates is not a good way to start down the path of party unity.”

Committee member Ben Johnson tried to push back, denouncing the “propaganda” disseminated by “one of my colleagues that makes it sound like this motion will hijack” some delegates. But the damage was done. Clinton supporters chanted “Denver! Denver!” from the balcony. Every time a committee member said the word “vote,” someone from the audience would yell, “You mean half!”

If the goal of this meeting was to take a step toward party unity, its final moments don’t bode particularly well. At the end of his speech, Ickes left us with “one final word: Mrs. Clinton has instructed me to reserve her right to take this to the Credentials Committee.” An ominous warning for party healers everywhere.

Ickes Agonistes

This weekend’s meeting of the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee will be full of theater. Each campaign must publicly make its case for why Florida's and Michigan’s delegations should or should not be seated, and the committee’s 30 members must deliberate. Clinton supporters will be protesting. But the most intriguing performance will come from RBC member and Clinton delegate guru Harold Ickes, who voted last August to strip Florida of all its delegates but is now pushing to reinstate them.

That may sound like some tough logical gymnastics, but Ickes is a gold medalist when it comes to this stuff. Here’s a quick chronology of his past statements, starting with his justification for stripping the states of their delegations. (Pardon the long quotes—the man can talk.):

“I think this whole system [the primary calendar] is goofy. It's all out of kilter. I think we start way too early.”

—Aug. 26, 2007

“I was not acting as an agent of Mrs. Clinton. … I voted as a member of the Democratic National Committee. Those were our rules and I felt I had an obligation to enforce them.”

—Feb. 16 2008

“[W]e think that the Florida vote was fair and square. And the Obama campaign whining about the fact that it wasn't fair when they, in fact -- when he, in fact, broke the pledge that his campaign signed by actually campaigning in Florida, you know, rings high. I don't think any objective observer who looked at that result, in which a million more Democrats came out to vote in this presidential preference compared to 2004, can argue with even a semblance of a straight face that that was not a fair contest and that those results reflect the will of the Democrats who participated. Senator Obama just didn't like the results. I suggest that had the results been just the opposite, he would be rushing to the forefront to try to seat those delegations, and if not, arguing for a redo.”

—March 25, 2008

“We decided 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, there would be very severe consequences. We think that that signal was received, listened to, no other state broke the window, and it is it is now time as practical political people with very much at stake in deciding our nomination and in winning the general election and in winning the White House … we ought to now turn our attention to that. …

“These states have in fact been punished. They didn’t have primaries run in them. They didn’t have full fledged campaigns run in them. … Some people can disagree on that, but the fact is punishment was imposed by virtue of not running the primaries there. The lessons were learned and it’s now time for us to turn our attention to the general election and make sure that these states—that we do everything to make sure these states are in the Democratic column.

“One million more people participated in that state’s primary than in the prior 40 years. People came out in droves. People knew who they wanted to vote for, they knew why they were voting.”

—May 22, 2008

So first it was about fixing the calendar; then it was about enforcing the rules; then it was about record turnout, Obama breaking the rules (which is debatable), and winning the general election. Next it will be about the deliciousness of Tropicana orange juice.

Set your TiVos to C-SPAN.