This latest assertion by Clinton official Harold Ickes is quite disturbing. Chris Bowers (and others) have made the case that whoever wins the pledged delegate count will control the credentials committee at the Convention, and therefore control the disposition of Michigan and Florida's delegates. If true, that is good news because whoever wins the primaries will also win FL and MI, assuring that the fake beauty contest elections won't subvert the will of the voters. But now Ickes says:
Ickes repeated earlier contentions that there was no reason to "re do" the votes in Florida and Michigan and didn’t directly answer if they would participate in a re-vote in Michigan. Ickes also acknowledged that it would be possible for Clinton to lose pledged delegates but control a majority of the credentials committee, which ultimately decides if and how Florida’s and Michigan’s disputed delegations would be dealt with.
Is Ickes blowing smoke? If not, we could face the situation where Obama wins the pledged delegates, but Hillary then uses the credentials committee to ramrod Florida and Michigan's fake election delegates into the count, upsetting the popular will of the voters and the rules set down by the DNC. If that happens, it could be Florida 2000 all over again, except this time we will have done it to ourselves.
Should I be concerned here? Any DNC rule committee gurus care to set the record straight?
Update [2008-2-16 15:40:41 by pontificator]: In comments below, DHinMI clarifies the issues:
There are (iirc) 183 votes on the credentials committee. (185 people, but the people from the territories only get fractional votes.) Approx 150 are apportioned from the states in proportion of who recieved how many votes. The other 30 are appointed by the Chair.
. . .
[U]nless someone has a big lead in pledged delegates, nobody will have enough votes on the credentials committee to approve the seating of MI and FL without getting support from at least a few of the people appointed to the committee by the Chair. So it will be important, if we get in to this mess, that Dean take a position against seating those delegations in the absence of an approved contest, and then appoint people to the committee that will vote his position and be steadfast in their committment to voting as he wants them to.