Harold Ickes Just Accused the DNC of Hijacking Democracy!

I'm watching this live, so I don't have a link.

Harold Ickes, Clinton's campaign manager, just hammered the DNC with a very biting commentary on their attempt to hijack the Democratic process.

He reserved the right for Clinton to take the fight on to the credentials committee in Denver. He then said that taking 4 delegates away from Clinton is a poor way to start if the party wants unity.

He was pissed!

There isn't going to be unity anytime soon.

This is fun to watch!

MOD edit:
here's a link to a story
news.yahoo.com...
or two
news.bbc.co.uk...

[edit on 31-5-2008 by DontTreadOnMe]

Elizabeth Smith just interrupted to say she isn't going to throw 600,000 Michigan voters under the bus in the name of party unity. Smith is a Clinton supporter.

The Committee chairs are getting nervous and the crowd in the gallery is interrupting with chants of Denver.

There now voting on giving Obama 50+ delegates from Michigan even though he wasn't on the ballot!! Ickes is about to spit he's so pissed. How can 30 people take 50+ delegates and give them to Obama he's asking? Obama wasn't even on the ballot!

They just passed the motion to give the delegates 1/2 a vote, and split them about 60/40 for Clinton. They're banging the gavel to get protestors to quite down. Alexis Herman is now calling for security.

This is getting really cool...

I accuse them too and I'm pissed!

Half a delegate? What the hell is that? That's like your wife has a baby and when it comes out they cut it in half and say "well at least here's a compromise!!"

I am 25 years old and I'm afraid I just witnessed the most disgraceful thing in the history of the United States of America democracy.

Who ever is head of the Florida and Michigan Democratic Parties should be jailed for life for moving their primaries up.

If I lived in Florida and my vote wasn't counted I would be sueing the sh*t out of someone right now.

That botched everything!

And like morons, the DNC waited until now to do anything about it!

reply to post by jamie83

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Hiyah Jamie...

I was watching too, and yeah he sure was P.O.'d l..but I can't say I blame him, the crowd was restless and fired up too, I was ready to yell HAR-old HAR-old HAR-old.

Yes, like you said, so much for unity!! LOL. I'd have paid money to be there the night before when the wine was flowing and so were the tempers

reply to post by ufo reality

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Yes, it's RIDICULOUS, if you're mad think how mad the people in Florida and Michigan are! If they think voter turnout was low before, wait until they see it after this whole fiasco.

And I'm an independent. I don't like McCain, Obama, or Clinton.

I'm just pissed that some voters were sh*t on.

This is a disgrace to Democracy.

Don't let anyone tell you any different.

Those FL and MI primaries should have never been allowed to have been moved up.

All this really does is allow the state's to just do whatever they feel like in 4 years and to heck with any of the rules set by the national committees. Expect to see primaries even earlier than this years, with a much longer champaign season.

The states knew there would be penalties for having a convention too early, and Florida and Michigan went ahead and held their's knowing full well the outcome. Their votes shouldn't be counted and no delegates should be seated at all. It's called rules.

Obama's name wasn't even on Michigan's ballot, how is that fair to him. He followed the rules. Clinton is just.... never mind TOS comes to mind and there may be minors reading this message.

Don't agree to them and then disagree after you figure out the other team can score also. That's not how you play, and that isn't how a real leader is elected.

I agree with you 100%!!! I'm an independent too, and I don't like any of them either.

But this was about raping the democratic process. Holy cow, I still can't believe what they did. How can you *legally* assign delegates to Obama when he got ZERO votes in Michigan? How can you REMOVE delegates from Clinton that she was awarded based on real people who voted for her???

I agree this is the most disgraceful thing I've ever seen in terms of party politics. Heck, these same Democrats are still bitching and moaning about not getting to RECOUNT the votes in 2000. F***, they didn't bother even COUNTING the votes in 2008. They just gave them to Obama? WTF???

No, you should really do some research before spouting off from an ill-informed position.

The DNC reached an agreement with Michigan before they held the primaries. Part of the agreement was that New Hampshire had to play be the rules too. Problem was, New Hampshire moved up their primary, but the DNC awarded New Hampshire a waiver from obeying the rules!

So then Michigan went ahead and moved up their primary because the agreement was broken by New Hampshire. The DNC penalized Michigan, but not New Hampshire.



Are you serious???? You can't be serious. Are you really serious????

Obama took his name off the ballot in Michigan to PANDER to the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire because of the controversy over New Hampshire and Iowa keeping their standing as the only states allowed to hold early primaries. Obama VOLUNTARILY removed his name from the Michigan ballot so he could benefit in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries, which he did!

There was NO RULE that had anything to do with Obama keeping his name on the ballot or not. There was no rule that Clinton broke keeping her name on the ballot. Obama gamed the system. 600,000 people voted in Michigan and their votes were just thrown under the bus. 55 delegates were awarded to Obama without him receiving a SINGLE vote in Michigan. How can you assign delegates based on what you THINK would have happened?



No, that's not what happened at all. That's how the Obama camp spun the story, and people who don't pay attention believed it without doing any research.

New Hampshire broke the rules! And New Hampshire was rewarded by allowing to have the first primary in the country. It's total bs and stinks to high heaven. You can't seriously characterize this bastardization of democracy with any reference to RULES. This election was manipulated, far worse than anything that was alleged in 2000.

Party rules are one thing. Voter rights are another.

For all the whining over the years about voter disenfranchisement, especially from the DNC itself, this is the most blatant, appalling display of hypocrisy I've ever seen.

You're right, but it goes FAR worse than that.

New Hampshire is the state that caused the entire problem. New Hampshire violated the rules first, and were given a waiver! Michigan and Florida had their primaries ruled invalid!

Read This Story About New Hampshire Violating The DNC Rules and Getting a Waiver

reply to post by jamie83

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Okay, you from Florida or Michigan.... Halfling!

The only B.S. of the whole situation is

1)Michigan developing a superiority complex and demanding that they be the FIRST to decide who runs for president.

A simple solution would be to hold a NATIONWIDE primary... 1 day... same as the Election...

2) Michigan not having Obama on the ballot leaving 200,000 plus michiganders with no option but Hillary or undecided.

Simple solution, Don't count the votes from Michigan as they felt it necessary to create their own rules for this election cycle.

If Florida rushed their vote the same decision should be made.

If people don't want to be equals they don't have to... but forcing superiority when their is none does have a tendency to have a reactionary punishment (i.e. not having votes counted, as they were cast before the determined date of the vote)

My democratic $.02.

Coven

This may be true, but why just hand over those 55 delegates of Michigan's to Obama?? Should he even be qualified to receive these delegates because he wasn't on their ballot? Call me logical, but shouldn't your name be at least on that state's ballot as a nominee before receiving any votes and delegates?

Did Obama fear, that because Michigan is has the most Muslims than any other US state, that he'd actually win the votes if on the ballot, but not the delegates? It is the delegates that count, and the Michigan delegates don't necessarily reflect the predominately Muslim views (i.e. Dearborne especially).

You do realize this is the argument every parent has with sheep like teenagers...

If your friends jumped off a bridge would you do it too?

Just because New Hampshire was in the wrong, doesn't mean it automatically gave permission to Michigan to also act in the wrong.

If this was allowed to continue we wouldn't even know when the hell to vote because the states would all be competing to be first.

All the DNC did was follow the rules. The first mistake normally gets a pass...
those who repeat this mistake are supposed to learn a lesson from this one time pass...

The children in charge in Michigan and Florida have obviously not matured enough to realize this... Hopefully they will before they hand ANOTHER republican the Presidency.

Coven

No, you have it backwards. The problem comes from New Hampshire and Iowa demanding that they maintain their status as being the first states to hold a caucus and primary respectively.

Michigan never demanded they be the first to decide. Iowa was Jan. 3, New Hampshire Jan. 8, and Michigan Jan. 15.

The real story about way they had to punish Michigan was because it was SOUTH CAROLINA who complained and was allowed to move up their primary to before Feb. 5, and then Michigan jumped in front of South Carolina. The real issue here involved race. South Carolina was chosen to move up their primary because they argued that a "black" state should go early, When Michigan jumped South Carolina, the DNC had to punish them.




Um, it wasn't Michigan's fault that Obama wasn't on the ballot. Obama took his name off the ballot to show support for those in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada because those states complained enough to be given special treatment. By taking his name off in Michigan, he pandered to the voters in other states, and benefited from the pandering.



That might make sense if Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada weren't given special treatment.

The bottom line is this. The DNC did NOT enforce their own rules, and instead gave Obama delegates from Michigan when he wasn't even on the ballot. That's not in accordance with any legal principal. It's certainly not what the "Rules" Committee should have done. They should have enforced the rules, right?

reply to post by jetxnet

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Good point.

I personally think no one should be awarded delegates and the DNC should be forthright enough with the people of michigan and florida to inform they need to elect NEW party heads, and leadership, until these states are willing to work with the rest of the nation... After all that is the entire purpose of this process.

I do agree it's a bit skevy that the DNC went ahead and gave him the delegates... BUT I believe it was done because even without any awarded it was IMPOSSIBLE for Obama to lose the nomination. I believe the conspiracy here is that the DNC saw a chance to legitimize a process that has been flawed for years. That process being the division and requirements on delegate numbers.

Until we return to a "one vote for" equals an "actual vote" (as opposed to an electoral majority) I have a feeling this is going to occur in every presidential election.

Coven

Whoa there... firstly... I would chill out... I'm not from any of the states that even get consideration from the DNC... I'm Neutral... and I'm telling you what I am seeing...

Drop the defensive thing. I makes you look childish.


Oh... and before you claim something you should watch the video of your Senator this morning... Paraphrasing his statement "Michigan Deserves the RIGHT and RESPECT to be FIRST"

Not every State... MICHIGAN...

Personally I don't want Detroit and Flint deciding who is the best president for the rest of the nation.





Coven


edit to add the Detroit and Flint references have nothing to do with race, but more the violence in Detroit, and the Uncontrollable poverty in flint.



[edit on 5/31/2008 by coven]

Thanks for the suggestion. It means a lot coming from somebody who calls themselves coven and who is a secret black ops agent for the U.S revolution.




What are you talking about? Michigan wasn't first, and I have no idea who you think my Senator is.

The bottom line is 600,000 people voted in Michigan, and there votes didn't count as much as the 100,000 who voted in Washington D.C. Obama picked up a net gain of 7 delegates for winning Washington D.C., and Clinton gets a net gain of 5 delegates for Michigan.

Yeah, that makes total sense to me.

It's been obviously engineered for Obama to win. Hillary still had a chance with Florida and Michigan (in combination with the others remaining).

The DNC took that away from her early. They must have sensed these states were pro-Hillary and Obama would lose these delagates in both. By not allowing them to hold primaries, it took any advantages Hillary had in those states.

Remember too, Obama met with the Muslim leader in Deerborne Michigan not even a month ago.