McAuliffe Has Flip-Flopped On Counting Florida, Michigan

If you cast your mind back to the evening of the Pennsylvania primary, you'll remember that the Clinton campaign began to develop a pretext for the superdelegates to rubberstamp in support of her candidacy: namely, that she was winning in the popular vote. That case is not without a certain amount of speciousness (at the moment, it requires one to count Florida and Michigan, and accept the premise that NOBODY in Michigan would vote for Obama), but it's her best case to make, so she might as well give it a try.

That said, she might be well-served if some of her supporters refrained from doing the same. Perhaps you remember this moment from that evening, where former DNC Chair and Fox News Cheerleader Terry McAuliffe told Chris Matthews that he "always" counts the votes from Florida, and that Michigan counts among her big wins.

[WATCH.]

As it turns out, McAuliffe's definition of the word "always" is pretty unconventional, for it was not too long ago, he thought something entirely different. In fact, the entirely different thought he thought was something he thought so hard that he even put in a book of his other thoughts, entitled What A Party! And what a party it was! When Michigan Senator Carl Levin wanted to move up the Michigan primary in 2004, McAuliffe shot him down with swagger, belittlement, and the sorts of words he's not using these days, now that he finds himself on the other side of the fence. Via Mark Nickolas' well-chosen excerpt:

"I'm going outside the primary window," [Michigan Sen. Carl Levin] told me definitively.

"If I allow you to do that, the whole system collapses," I said. "We will have chaos. I let you make your case to the DNC, and we voted unanimously and you lost."

He kept insisting that they were going to move up Michigan on their own, even though if they did that, they would lose half their delegates. By that point Carl and I were leaning toward each other over a table in the middle of the room, shouting and dropping the occasional expletive.

"You won't deny us seats at the convention," he said.

"Carl, take it to the bank," I said. "They will not get a credential. The closest they'll get to Boston will be watching it on television. I will not let you break this entire nominating process for one state. The rules are the rules. If you want to call my bluff, Carl, you go ahead and do it."

We glared at each other some more, but there was nothing much left to say. I was holding all the cards and Levin knew it.

That's on page 325, by the way, so, if you want a refund, that's the page you want to tear out and send to McAuliffe.

Comments

[mesuki]

McAuliffe needs to be medicated.­He's too damn hyper....a­nd he needs to stop all that spinning he does for Hillary.Do­es he think we're all stupid?

[marc1antony]

so what else is new? Hillary's whole camp are a bunch of professional LIARS. It starts with her and it permeates throughout­... they lie and think it's nothing. There are no credible people in Hillary's campaign because it's all about them

[drzoon]

you see... the problem with supporting a liar? is that you have to become one to do so

[GBecker]

Ickes, too!

Feb 16, 5:06 PM (ET)

By HOPE YEN

WASHINGTON (AP) - Harold Ickes, a top adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign who voted for Democratic Party rules that stripped Michigan and Florida of their delegates, now is arguing against the very penalty he helped pass.

In a conference call Saturday, the longtime Democratic Party member contended the DNC should reconsider its tough sanctions on the two states, which held early contests in violation of party rules. He said millions of voters in Michigan and Florida would be otherwise disenfranchised - before acknowledging moments later that he had favored the sanctions.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080216/D8URLU1O0.html

[Rita1]

Terry is doing his best to grind sausage and for certain it's not pretty to watch. The hard part is watching the onlookers look. The super delegates know that unless they intend to overturn the people's vote, there is no believable excuse for them to remain un-declared. So, what do they intend to do? Prop her up? Is it even meaningful to them that Obama has already won, and Hillary lost weeks ago? It's hard not to resent the "supers" for snoozing while letting Obama carry their party water and exhaust himself against this Hillary person, when he could be gathering the troops for the general election opponent, you-know-who. The supers themselves may end up in the grinder come November.

[marthainaz]

This kind of mind changing is typical of the desperation of the Clinton camp and her followers. Do they really believe what they're saying? Hillary and her surrogates are all suffering from selective memory loss and to me it translates into a very scary try at any cost to give her the throne. This sometimes feels like it has been promised to her by many of her associates and now the fact that the American public is not so sold on her is considered betrayal.

I'd love to see McAuliffe and the Clinton camp respond to what he "used to think". Of course they'll only respond with a non-answer or an attack on Obama which is SOP for them.

[wolfi101]

Or to put the Clinton strategy another way ---

If the rules don't work for you... change them.

[DragonMama]

Hello, silly Goose. Gander calling. Was it good for you?

[luvthelaw]

Love it!!!