Below the fold is a video clip (from Fox) on MSNBC earlier this morning. The following exchange caught my just-waking-up attention:
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN: How?
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, you know, you can always go to the convention. That is what credential fights are for. You know, let's have the Democratic Party go on record against seating the Michigan and Florida delegations three months before the general election? I don't think that will happen. I think they will be seated. So that is where we are headed if we don't get this worked out.
Yup. Hillary announced her intention to pursue a credentials fight. On Fox News. Sort of the nominating process equivalent of the ol' "nuclear option". And as what's his face at Powerline calls it - and rightly so - "Every Republican's dream." Lovely.
But one thing is certain. If the Democrats don’t get the problem behind them, they will have to pay the piper at the convention with a credentials-fight Armageddon.
The YouTube has been posted. The part quoted above is just over 2 minutes in. Meanwhile, she says just after 3 minutes, that the "pledged" delegates needn't pay attention to the will of the voters who sent them to the convention:
I have been involved in a credentials fight on the local level. Trust me: It is not a place where you want to go. Some obscure place in procedural minutae that can decide the outcome through what amounts to back room jijitsu:
There are 186 people in this country who ultimately could select the Democratic presidential nominee. Most of them do not know they'll soon wield such power. They will be picked by their state parties or by the party's national chairman to be on the Credentials Committee to the Democratic National Convention. It's normally a political reward, but this year the job could seem more like punishment. Four Georgians will be among the chosen.
That's a pretty small band of people to make the choices. They're gonna be getting more 3am phone calls than the next President's likely to get. Plus are gonna be wined and dined to within an inch of their lives!
"Any time you have a credentials fight, it weighs heavily on the members who have to sit in judgment," said Georgia state Rep. Calvin Smyre (D-Columbus), who has been a delegate to every Democratic Convention since 1980 and was on the Credentials Committee at the 1988 convention in Atlanta. "When you have these, it doesn't set a good tone for your convention; it clouds the environment. That's what we don't need, is anything that will cloud the convention."
If When Florida and Michigan challenge to have their delegates seated, it will be heard by the Credentials Committee in July. Who will these 186 people be? And how are they chosen?
In comes the Credentials Committee. The 186 Democrats that will form the committee will be chosen during the next several months. DNC Chairman Howard Dean appoints 25 of them, which he has already done.
The others are elected by the state parties, based on population. While Georgia gets four, California gets 17. Georgia's four will be chosen by the members of the convention delegation, which won't be finalized until the state convention in May.
That said, I'm assuming the Obama campaign is paying attention to who gets on credentials. Everyone here, like the ones preparing for the upcoming Texas events this Saturday? Please, pay attention to who gets on credentials. It matters!
Meanwhile, superdelegates, wherever you are? Please announce enough support to make this a moot point. This is not someplace we want to go. Not if we want to win in November.
UPDATE: Meanwhile, more developments in Michigan, which sound like another setback for Camp Clinton, and making their chances of prevailing in this latest tactic even more remote. From CBS news:
A federal judge today ruled that the Michigan law establishing the state's Jan. 15 presidential primary is unconstitutional. The reason? The law unfairly prevents minor parties from access to voter lists.
UPDATE #2: Why not take a chance and go read/rec edscan's Lightbulb ! diary?