Sebastian Holsclaw: Is the Clinton Campaign Crazy?

Obsidian Wings: Is the Clinton Campaign Crazy?: The associated press quite a story on the Michigan/Florida delgates here. "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.... "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....

This story ought to cast doubt on the Clinton campaign's savvy. It can't do any good whatsoever to raise the issue like this now. You can fight like crazy to seat them when the time comes if you need them. Until then you ought to fight like crazy for other delegates so you don't need them. Mentioning it like this now makes it more likely that you are going to piss off enough remaining voters that you'll lose by big enough margins that nothing will matter.... And how stupid is Ickes to admit to the different hats thing? If stripping the delegates is so gosh darned undemocratic, why couldn't he vote that way as a member of the DNC? This statement looks like pure opportunism--which of course it is, but campaign strategists ought to be a bit better at making opportunism look like something else.

But this is the worst (though I wish the AP had provided a quote instead of an explanation): "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."

Florida is tainted, because it is obvious even in states where Clinton got big wins that Obama's campaign can dramatically narrow the margins when he contests a state. But to claim that Clinton won in Michigan is ridiculous. She won in precisely the same way that Communist leaders used to win--by being the only person on the ballot. Trying to seat the Michigan delegates under the "Clinton won" theory is crazy.

Does she just think we are stupid?