It's all over but the pouting.
We hope.
The DNC Rules and By-laws Committee has spoken. Both Florida and Michigan delegations will be seated, with half-votes. Clinton gets the bulk of votes and delegates, winning both renegade primaries. It is not enough. Florida, maybe. But Michigan? No way. She wants 'em all.
Candidate Clinton seems to have found her voice. Again. Harold "you bet your ass" Ickes served as Hillary's cussin' mad mouthpiece after the vote on Saturday. Ickes, his tongue dipped in equal parts hemlock and horse manure, carried on like a vulgar, pimply adolescent whose hot date just said "I love ya, babe-- but no, I won't go that far." He ranted. The vote--and the party--have been hijacked. Democracy, as we know it, is over. And if you think this is the end of it...just you wait!
According to committee member Donna Brazile, Obama had enough votes to have asked for fully half of the Michigan votes/delegates and gotten them. In the spirit of conciliation and harmony, he chose not to do so. What we saw was another exercise in that old naïve negotiate, be willing to talk, listen and compromise hoo-haw he's always yammering about. Unity and stuff. It's enough to make you puke. The last thing we need in the Oval Office is one of those reasonable types who plays by the rules and is willing to give a little when it serves a larger purpose. We've had 16 years of my way or the highway politics and some of us like it.
So. In light of Ickes' threat (with HRC's blessing), what's next?
In a Sunday op-ed, Adam Boulton, political editor with Sky News, says he knows.
To my certain knowledge the Clinton campaign is drawing up a legal case to challenge the legitimacy of the entire 2008 Nomination Process...At the core is a furious attack on the caucus system...
Well dadgum. Hillary thinks caucuses are undemocratic. They're run by "activists" (Heaven help us--we sure don't need a bunch of Democratic activists running around loose!). Caucuses are exclusionary. Those activists scare real people away. Active duty military folks, blue collar folks, poor folks, elderly folks and folks with kids are left out. Caucus states are just awful and if it weren't for them Barack Obama's lead in delegate votes would be less than 0.1%. Someone has to give voice to the Democratic downtrodden. Candidate Clinton wants to offer hers. But which one?
Hillary's first voice -- before she was "Victim of the Boys' Debate Club," "Vulnerable Woman," "Victim of Reverse Racism," "Victim of Sexism" or "Victim of the Democratic Party" -- was "Inevitable Due to Vast Experience." She was the one, she declared, with thirty-five years of experience. She was the one who knew what to do and how to get it done. Eight years of that thirty-five were spent in on-the-job training in the White House and as many have been spent in the U.S. Senate. She knew her stuff and she was ready to lead from Day One.
Which begs the question: Why, with all that experience, all that expertise, has she never made undemocratic caucuses and their victims an issue?
Why has she never led an intra-party movement to change the Democratic primary system, to defend all those disenfranchised folks who suffer activist-abuse and exclusion in caucus states? Why was an unfair, undemocratic nominating system fine with her until so late in the game--and only after she was losing the race?
The experienced "ready to lead from Day One" candidate would have known what to do and how to do it. And when. She'd have "gotten the job done" long before now.
Hillary's new voice? "Play By the DNC Rules? Make Me!"
How about we move the finish line every 50 laps or so? Only count some laps? Complain that the boy drivers are ganging up on the lone female contestant? This contest has been about skill. The real leader rose to the top and his name is Barack Obama (D-IL).
The funny thing about the whole boys club argument, is that the Clintons are members of the biggest boys club in the democratic party: wolfson, penn, ickes, etc.