The Audacity Of Hillary Clinton… and Her Supporters

Washington D.C. – At an all day meeting Saturday the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee decided to seat all Florida and Michigan delegates granting them half-votes at the Democratic National Convention in August. This same committee had stripped Florida and Michigan of all their delegates in December as a penalty for moving their primaries to January and not abiding by the DNC’s primary schedule.

The 30 member committee, made up of DNC elites – many of whom have endorsed either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, met at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington D.C. Also attending the meeting (and the rally outside the hotel) were droves of Hillary Clinton supporters from all over the country. I spoke to supporters from California, Ohio, New York, Florida and South Carolina – all who had journeyed to the nation’s capitol just to show their support for their candidate and to make the case that every vote should count.

Senator Hillary Clinton won a decisive victory in both Florida and Michigan but those victories came with asterisks since no candidates campaigned in Florida and Senator Barack Obama had taken his name off the Michigan ballot. In order to save her campaign, Hillary Clinton needed the committee to decide on what supporters were calling “the just” allocation of delegates – full voting ability for all delegates and allocations based on the results of the primaries that were held. This meant that in Michigan, with Barack Obama not on the ballot, 73 delegates would be allocated to Clinton with 55 remaining “uncommitted.” The Clinton campaign was grossly disappointed when they were allotted 69 delegates and Barack Obama 59. Clinton campaign advisor and committee member Harold Ickes accused the committee of “hijacking four delegates.”

Once Michigan was decided, Clinton supporters in the room shouted “Denver! Denver! Denver!” and Harold Ickes announced that “Mrs. Clinton has told me to reserve her right to take this to the Credentials Committee” at the convention. Later, in an interview with me outside the hotel, when asked how their argument to the credentialing committee will be Harold Ickes said, “Basically the argument is that [the Rules and Bylaws Committee] have violated the rules, they don’t have the power… our committee does not have the power or the authority to do what we did. We don’t have it. It’s illegal. What we did is blatantly illegal and prohibited by our charter.”

CLINTON SUPPORTERS AND THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

Regardless of the Clinton campaign’s next step, there is a lot to be worried about in the Democratic party. Inside the meeting there was a lot of talk about the need for party unity; outside Clinton supporters made it clear there would be no party unity without their candidate.

Clinton supporter Cynthia Ulbado, who prides herself on being four of Clinton’s top demographics (female, middle-aged, Catholic, and Latino), came in from Columbus, OH to attend the meeting. Ulbaldo has worked vigorously for her candidate – traveling to five states, making hundreds of phone calls, and leading fundraising efforts for Team Hillary in Columbus. She made it clear that Obama is not her candidate but said that in eight years she’d consider voting for him. “Hillary is now an open book,” Ulbaldo said “Probably everybody even knows where she’s got a mole… Everybody knows everything about her, there is really nothing left. Nobody knows anything about Obama, that’s whats so scary.” Ulbaldo believes that African American voters are not going to abstain come November if Clinton is on the top of the ticket however she warns that “if you’re going to alienate one group don’t alienate the women” which make up 51% of the Democratic electorate. If Clinton was not on the ballot in November Ulbaldo said she “would do either one of two things: I would either write in Hillary’s name or I will put in John McCain sign out in my yard and I have never in my life voted for a republican.” Ulbaldo said she would vote for a joint ticket with Clinton as VP “if [Hillary Clinton] agreed to it, and I’d want to know why she agreed to it. Afterall she’s a politician, she needs to look at her best interest.”

Rose Storaska from Stafford, VA believes wholeheartedly in Hillary Clinton and sees the Clintons as “the benchmark for the Democratic party.” Storaska said she is “old enough to understand that in order to go forward you need to go backwards. History is the best teacher in the world… You have to take the lessons of history to know how to handle the problems of today.” If Hillary Clinton isn’t the Democratic nominee Rose Storaska said “I am going to do more than vote for John McCain, I’m going to work for John McCain. I’m going to work for him because intellectually… I need to make a choice between an inexperienced man who is not what he says he is” and a “man of integrity.” Storaska added, “McCain is no Bush. And if I have to give up a little bit of health care and a little bit of everything else for the sake of an honorable man who can actually do something because he has experience, I’ll do that.”

(THIS POST IS NOT COMPLETE – IT WILL BE SHOWN IN IT’S ENTIRETY TOMORROW EVENING)