From the AP:

WASHINGTON - 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.

Ickes explained that his different position essentially is due to the different hats he wears as both a DNC member and a Clinton adviser in charge of delegate counting. Clinton won the primary vote in Michigan and Florida, and now she wants those votes to count.

“There’s been no change,” Ickes said. “I was not acting as an agent of Mrs. Clinton. We had promulgated rules and those rules said the timing provision … provides for certain sanctions, automatic sanctions as a matter of fact, if a state such as Michigan or Florida violates those timing provisions.”

“With respect to the stripping, I voted as a member of the Democratic National Committee. Those were our rules and I felt I had an obligation to enforce them,” he said.

Clinton won after all the Democratic candidates agreed not to campaign in either state because they violated the party rules. Clinton, who flew into Florida on primary eve but did not hold a public rally, tried to argue that Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois had violated the pledge by airing a national ad campaign that also showed on Florida television stations. [Emphasis added.]

In the end, the Democratic presidential nomination is going to come down to two things: A) the shit fight over these Florida and Michigan primary delegates, and B) which Dem candidate has the most money to bribe the so-called “superdelegates”.

Holy cow. The Democratic Party might as well abandon all other pretenses and rename itself the Tammany Hall Party.

It’s bad enough that the radical left (George Soros, Code Pink, the MoveOn.org mafia et al) are exercising so much sway over the Dem Donkeys. Now it looks like the nomination may come down to the personal preference of a (potentially) corrupt few.

Here’s a case in point. On yesterday’s Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace interviewed two Democratic Governors: Ted Strickland of Ohio and Jim Doyle of Cheese Land. Strickland supports Hillary Clinton and Doyle supports Barack Obama. Let’s move right to the part of the interview when Wallace broaches the topic of the superdelegates:

There’s a lot of concern within the Democratic Party right now about whether or not you could be headed for a train wreck this summer over the issue of superdelegates. Those are the elected officials, like the two of you, or big party bigwigs who get to go to the convention without being elected by delegates.

Now, Clinton strategist Harold Ickes says that he will no longer call them superdelegates but, rather, automatic delegates.

And he says that if neither candidate has clinched the nomination by the time the voting ends in June, that these superdelegates should vote their best judgment regardless of which candidate has the most elected delegates or the most popular vote.

Governor Doyle, what do you think about that? [Emphasis added to the part that made me want to harf.]

Doyle:

I think that’s wrongheaded. To me, we have a very elaborate and very democratic process in the Democratic Party, and you’re watching it from little states and caucuses to big open primaries in Wisconsin and others. And that’s the way the delegates are chosen.

And I think it would be an absolute disaster for the Democratic Party for the superdelegates to undo the will of the people who have been selected in the primaries and in the caucuses and by the rules that were set out.

[Skip Doyle’s worshipful and nauseating blathering about candidate Obama here.]

I just think it would be a disaster for the Democratic Party to thwart what has happened out in the caucuses and in the primaries. And so I really hope that the party is — that the superdelegates are going to honor the choice of the people who have been selected through the primaries and caucuses.

[…]

[I] do think that the idea of a Democratic Party moving forward with a nominee who is someone other than who the majority of the people of the country, through the Democratic primaries and caucuses, have chosen would be very, very harmful to the party.

Chris Wallace to Strickland:

Let me bring in Governor Strickland at this point.

And let me put up first, as I ask you this question, Governor Strickland, the state of the delegates. And you can see that at this moment Barack Obama not only has a lead in the number of delegates who have been elected by the voters, he also has a lead, a sizable lead, in the number of total votes.

After the 2000 election and Al Gore talking about every vote counting, would the Democratic Party really go against the will of millions of voters?

And what do you think, Governor Strickland, the reaction would be in the African American community if the superdelegates, who are overwhelmingly white, were to go — to put Hillary Clinton in over Barack Obama? [Emphasis added.]

Strickland:

Well, I would like to make a couple of observations. First of all, I think it’s regretful that words like party bosses would be used here. We have a system of electing delegates, and it varies, quite frankly.

Caucuses elect some delegates. And you know, in caucuses, many people are totally shut out. Anyone serving in the active military can’t participate in a caucus. People who are sick and confined to their homes, older people who can’t get out at night, can’t participate in caucuses. But that’s part of the process.

Some delegates are elected through the primary system, which I hugely prefer, a primary system like we’re having here in Ohio, where everyone has a chance to participate.

And then the rules allow for these superdelegates. And so those are the rules. I don’t think we should change the rules in the middle of a contest.

If we want to get rid of superdelegates or if we want to get rid of caucuses, then we ought to do that in the next election but not change the rules in the midst of this election.

And to imply that somehow party bosses are going to thwart the will of the people, I think, is a distortion of the process that we have in place, that we have created as a Democratic Party.

I’m a superdelegate. I think my responsibility is to vote my conscience, and I intend to do that. And I would hope that all the superdelegates would do the same. [Emphasis added.]

Wallace:

Let me ask you a follow-up, if I may, Governor Strickland. You say we shouldn’t change the rules in the middle of a game.

The rules were that the Democratic National Committee said that Michigan and Florida did not get any delegates—were stripped of their delegates because they moved up in the process, and all the candidates agreed to those rules.

Do you agree that those rules shouldn’t also be changed? [Emphasis added.]

Go Mr. Wallace!

Here’s Strickland’s attempt to sidestep the question:

Well, I don’t know what the candidates may have agreed to. But I think that the Democratic Party, through the rules committee, will be charged with resolving that issue. It’s a very, very difficult issue and it has no easy answer.

But Wallace doggedly tries to pin him down:

But why should that rule be changed in the middle of the game when you said that the superdelegates shouldn’t be?

Strickland:

Well, because the rules allow the credentials committee to make those decisions. That’s a part of the current rulemaking process of the Democratic Party.

That’s not changing the rules at all. It’s giving the authority to determine who is a valid delegate to the credentials committee, and that will be done. [WTF?]

So the Michigan/Florida controversy and the superdelegate issue seem to the two cruxes of the Democratic biscuit, as it were. (Thanks, FZ!) ‘Tis something of a sticky-wicket, I’d say, although I do tend to come down on the side of letting the people’s vote decide who becomes the nominee. And let the superdelegates be damned….

As Joel Monka said in his blog CUUMBAYA Sunday before last:

When they decided to introduce some democracy into the democratic [Democratic Party nomination] process, rather than having candidates pick[ed] in back rooms at conventions, they were afraid it might get too democratic-the people might pick the wrong candidate. So the party created Superdelegates, older and wiser heads that could throw the nomination back to the right choice.

They’ve never had to overrule the electorate before, but we’ve never had dueling candidates like this before. Which will the party think is more electable in the fall? [Emphasis added emphatically by Effluent.]

Older and wiser heads that could throw the nomination back to the “right” choice?

The people might pick the “wrong” candidate?

Wiser and older heads, eh? Sounds like the Politburo….

Jeez.

I don’t know if this Joel Monka fellow is a registered Democrat or not, but he sure said a mouthful when he wrote “when they decided to introduce some democracy into the democratic process….”

This Democratic Party nomination process is going to be interesting, funny, sad and scary all at the same time.

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