First it was Clinton’s Pollster Mark Penn telling the American people the states that Obama won in the Democratic primary are not very significant, expect Illinois. Now, we have Superdelegate and Clinton operative Harold Ickes telling us what swing states are significant.
I'm on a conference call with Clinton operative Harold Ickes, in which he's floating a new-ish argument about why Hillary would be the stronger Democratic noimnee (this was in the context of the decision facing superdelegates): Hillary has won key general-election swing states like Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, and Arkansas, while Obama's won a lot of states Democrats will have zero chance of carrying in November, like Nebraska, Kansas, and Idaho.
The politics of parsing at is best.
Harold Ickes failed to mention the key swings states of Colorado, Virginia, Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri.
Hmmm. If we're now talking about potential general-election swing states, it seems pretty clear that Obama's won as many as, if not more than, Hillary: Colorado, Virginia, Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri all come to mind. Moreover, with the exception of Missouri, Obama's winning these states by large--in many cases overwhelming--margins. Finally, does anyone really think Arizona's going to be a swing state in a race involving John McCain? This seems hard to believe.
I want a reporter to ask one of these high paid Clinton operatives, if the Democratic Party should have primaries in Nebraska, Utah, Kansas, North Dakota and Idaho or only have primaries in Blue states and states that Clinton has won?
On a related note, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe:
The Clinton campaign just said they have two options for trying to win the nomination -- attempting to have superdelegates overturn the will of the Democratic voters or change the rules they agreed to at the eleventh hour in order to seat non-existent delegates from Florida and Michigan. The Clinton campaign should focus on winning pledged delegates as a result of elections, not these say or do anything to win tactics that could undermine Democrats’ ability to win the general election.
As a sitting member of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Commission, Harold Ickes voted to strip Florida and Michigan of their delegates.