Alia iacta est – The Die is Cast for the Democratic Nomination

Yesterday’s Democratic National Committee Rules and Bylaws Committee “meeting”, I use that term loosely because it resembled more of a high school lunchroom out of control, produced the following results in regarded to the disputed Florida and Michigan delegates. In terms of Florida, the committee recognized the  primary results – Clinton 49.8% and 32.9% for Obama, They awarded each delegate a half-vote. King Solomon was nowhere to be found in this room of miscreants. Clinton gained19 delegates from Florida.  In Michigan, where Obama was not on the ballot, the delegates were split 69/59 between the candidates, and each delegate was awarded a half vote.  That’s a net gain of 5 delegates for Clinton. Before the results of today’s Puerto Rico primary are know, the delegate picture now looks like this Obama has a total of 2, 089 delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Hillary Clinton  has 1, 912.  Florida and Michigan were penalized because they moved their primaries to dates before the February 5 date allowed by the national committee. Heaven forbid someone should take the focus off New Hampshire and Iowa and their coveted first in the nation status.  I for one am fed up to the teeth with Iowa and New Hampshire and their fucking sense of entitlement. Let me preface the rest of my remarks by showing my cards.  I was a died in the wool, go to the wall John Edwards supporter, a fundraiser, a possible delegate candidate, a true believer. In many ways I still am.  I believe John had the right message and the right ideas that this country needs right now. My candidate needed to do well in Iowa and he did not, and he dropped out of the race shortly before Super Tuesday, which in my opinion, was a big mistake. Personal health reasons prohibit me from joining the front lines of the fight this year, which angers and sorrows me.  But I can and do contribute with my wallet, and both Hillary and Barack have been the beneficiaries of my donations. So now I am left with the choices of Obama and Clinton. I have met Hillary Clinton and basically like her. I was a volunteer on the Clinton 1992 staff. Hillary Clinton dared to go where no man went when she took up the mantle of Universal Healthcare and was not given any cover by Democratic members of congress, particularly one Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and that plan failed to get off the launching pad. Hillary Clinton dared to be a different type of first lady who took interest in things like children’s issues and human and women’s rights around the globe. She was chided for that. Hillary Clinton went where no first lady ever went – before Congressional Committees, Grand Juries, Special Prosecutors.  And when President Clinton’s infedility emerged as front page news and led to his impeachment, Hillary Clinton was there enduring both a public and private humiliation and pain that no one can imagine.  Hillary Clinton achieved a first – the first First Lady to be elected to office, becoming the Junior Senator from New York to replace the aforementioned Daniel Moynihan. While there were the usual cries of carpetbagger and opportunist, and she’s just using us as a launching pad to the White House, she beat Little “Ricky Lazio” by an overwhelming margin, and had she faced Rudy Giuliani in that election, I think the results would have been the same.

On Super Tuesday, I am afraid I voted with my heart and voted for Barack Obama. It was the most agonizing vote I ever cast. I got sucked in by all the Yes we can feel good rhetoric as I guess one can be when one does not feel good at the time. I bought his line of hope and change.  I was upset and disappointed that Hillary Clinton supported the war in Iraq and wanted a president who would go about bringing this war to an end.  Hillary just was not committed enough for me to do that. My vote for Obama was a vote for peace.  Do I think he would make a better president than Hillary Clinton? I have to be honest and say no, I do not. Despite Clinton’s tough talk on foreign policy, her grasp of domestic issues, particularly health care, is far superior than any candidate, Republican or Democrat.  Love her or hate her, the woman is smart and you would have to get up pretty early in the morning to get the best of her in a policy debate.

Hillary made some dire mistakes in this campaign, mistakes that may have cost her the nomination.  She or her handlers or consultants or whatever you want to call the people who surround her failed to take an accurate reading of the sea change occuring on the political front. The themes were Change and Hope, and upstart Obama snatched them away, while Hillary concentrated on fundraising with the Democratic Fat Cats and taking premature victory laps as the presumptive nominee. She also came on too soft in the debates when that little weasel Tim Russert was, for lack of a better word, picking on her. She allowed the press to use her husband’s record as President against her. She never claimed her own ground or defined herself on her own terms. Everybody loves Bill. But everybody also knows Hillary is a hell of a lot smarter. And she’s tough. But you would not have known that in the debates.

Hillary also needed a tough as nails campaign manager, and she should have begged Carville to come out of retirement to run this show. This is not a shot at Ann Lewis, Maggie Williams, or Patty Solis Doyle, who are all very competent and very loyal to the first lady. It’s just that Carville is a little long on drywall and a little short on nails.  He is unedited. He is the cornerman that Hillary needed and when she needed to score some knockout points, this is the guy that could tell her how to deliver.

I am not going to go into some of the gaffes, because they were not that big a deal.  The RFK assassination remark was completely blown out of proportion. Much like Whitewater. Much like anything anytime a Clinton does or says something.  Hillary’s man at the DNC Rules and Bylaws committee, Harold Ickes, someone who cannot count me as being a fan, remarked on yesterday’s ruling that he was stunned that “we (DNC Rules and Bylaws committee)  have the gall the chutzpah, to substitute our judgment for 600,000 voters.  Was the process flawed? You bet your ass it was flawed. Did a lot of people not vote? You bet your ass a lot of people didn’t vote – that is not an excuse and this is not a good way to start down the way to party unity” Ickes then angrily told the panel that Clinton “has instructed me to reserve her right to take this to the Credentials Committee” at the Democratic Convention in August. That could set the stage for a good old fashioned convention floor fight. Good. For the last 20 or so years, these nominating conventions have been little more than a bunch of people making winded speeches and wearing silly hats, dancing badly to the hip song of the day ( I am still having nightmares about the 1996 convention and having to watch the delegates attempt to do the Macarena. Oh the pain!).  Now at this convention, we can “go to the lick log” and have a real fight as to how delegates are proportioned. My feeling is the candidate with the most popular votes should get the most delegates and win the nomination. That could be Obama or that could be Clinton. My feeling is that the delegates to the convention should represent and if at all possible be chosen by the people in the primaries and caucuses. My feeling is that the if the superdelegates want a seat at the convention, then show some backbone, support a candidate early in the process, and put yourself up for election as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. No more saved seats for perogative. Just because you are a former President, Governor, or “party activist” (whatever that means), that should not automatically give you a seat at the convention. If this truly is a Democratic Party, then we need to act democratically, that is, follow the will of the people as expressed by votes cast. Whoever has the most votes, gets the most delegates, whoever has the most delegates, gets the nomination.

In the next week we will have two more primary contests, Montana and South Dakota.  We may have a presumed nominee. But that should not stop Hillary Clinton from going to Denver and placing her name in nomination. Party unity will come only when the party is united.  And judging from the behavior at yesterday’s Rules and By-laws committee, that unity is non-existent.  In any event, our party will make history by nominating the first African-American nominee or the first Woman nominee. That should not diminish this year’s campaign. If anything, it shows tremendous growth in our party and in our nation. Do we still have a lot of work to do on race and gender relations in this country? Yes.  But as a man, when I walked over to my voting booth this past Super Tuesday to vote in the New York Primary, my first thought was not should I vote for the black guy or the chick.  It was was a decision based on who I felt I wanted to be president.  Who can restore my country’s place in the world.  Who can give my country hope in what appears to be hopeless times. At the time, I thought Obama fit that bill, and  I voted for Obama. As you can tell from this article, I would not have been disappointed if Hillary won big that night either. The fact is the Democratic Party has the dream team this year, and the Republican Party has the bad news bears. In the end, our country will be better off with a Democrat at the helm. Party unity will come. Obama, if he is the nominee, will need to do some fence mending with the women and other constituencies that fell behind Senator Clinton. Senator Clinton’s role in history will not be diminished and I believe she will be a central figure in establishing a health care system that works for all in this country. Let these petty committees have their petty squablles. In the end, it is truly the people who decide, whether the party functionaries like it or not.