We were watching the news as we woke up on Saturday morning and happened to be reminded that the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee Meeting was that day and tuned into CSPAN for the unfiltered version.
Seriously, I spent the whole of my Saturday (other than the 3.5 hour break) watching the whole thing.
There were a lot of highlights, ugliness and real democracy at work. Anybody else see it?
Highlights for me included:
Howard Dean's opening remarks which really salved a still open wound for me from his run. He told of talking to Al Gore in the middle of the night. Demanding Gore tell him what he owed the Dem Party, Gore told him it wasn't about him but about the country. That was a real help for me because it always appeared to me that Dean had sort of become "just another politician" who was willing to sell out to further his career by supporting Kerry who had been such a horrible candidate. I never really felt Dean was pissed about the way he had been treated by the party and its elite.
Clearly, he had been really pissed and I felt better about the whole thing having found that out.
Secondly, obviously it was no secret that Harold Ickes was supporting Hillary Clinton but I found it very shocking the level of spin and politicking he was willing to do in the meeting which I felt should have been the height of objectivity (as much as it could be, of course, since several of the member were out for one or the other candidates).
Ickes was a real bastard, imo. And he only emboldened the Clinton supporters to act like jerks in the balconies.
The whole thing seemed right on the verge of anarchy at times. A couple of times, I thought they were about to riot. I felt really bad that the co-chairs had to call for the security to shut the doors and I suspect the security led that Harriet Christians out.
On the other hand, I remember how angry, disillusioned, whatever I was after the party elites undermined Howard Dean and I can sympathize with the Hillary supporters but when I try to post to them that I sympathize, I generally get a big F U! from them.
All in all, I think what the committee finally decided was the height of wisdom and justice. Ickes assertion that the committee had "stolen" delegates from Hillary was tenuous at best since the Michigan primary vote was seriously flawed. No doubt hundreds of voters, not seeing Edwards or Obama simply voted for Clinton to avoid voting for uncommitted. If the Michigan Dem Party came up with the number, then that was good enough for me.
Obama had the votes to make Michigan a 50/50 split if the delegates and was really nice about it. It could have gone much worse for Hillary.
I'm glad it ended without anyone throwing a chair.
Lastly, Ickes said that Hillary and her team reserve the right to take the whole thing to convention committee but the funny thing about that is this: Guess who the co-chairs of the Convention Committee are?
That's right, Harman and Roosevelt. The same two people who were the co-chairs were the co-chairs for the Rules and Bylaws Committee. How open do you think they are going to be to re-opening the whole thing at the convention? Not at all would be my guess.
