In 2004, MacAuliffe Warned Michigan Not to Move Primary
Four years ago, Terry McAuliffe, top Clinton campaign aide, was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee -- the position now held by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. And he had a problem with Michigan. How do we know this? He wrote about it in his book "What a Party!: My Life Among Democrats: Presidents, Candidates, Donors, Activists, Alligators and Other Wild Animals"
As Mark Nickolas note in his blog "Political Base," Sen. Carl Levin told McAuliffe that he was going to take Michigan "outside the primary window." McAuliffe told Levin that ""I will not let you break this entire nominating process for one state. The rules are the rules." The story continues on page 325.
"If I allow you to do that, the whole system collapses," I said. "We will have chaos. I let you make your case to the DNC, and we voted unanimously and you lost."He kept insisting that they were going to move up Michigan on their own, even though if they did that, they would lose half their delegates. By that point Carl and I were leaning toward each other over a table in the middle of the room, shouting and dropping the occasional expletive.
"You won't deny us seats at the convention," he said.
"Carl, take it to the bank," I said. "They will not get a credential. The closest they'll get to Boston will be watching it on television. I will not let you break this entire nominating process for one state. The rules are the rules. If you want to call my bluff, Carl, you go ahead and do it."
We glared at each other some more, but there was nothing much left to say. I was holding all the cards and Levin knew it.
MacAuliff'e position has changed. He's now in the position of Levin, arguing that despite breaking the rules, delegates from Michigan (and Florida) should be seated at the Democratic National Convention.
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UPDATE: The current DNC chairman, Howard Dean told "Meet the Press" on Sunday that the Florida and Michigan delegates should be seated, but he "signaled no intention to intervene in the dispute."
"They're very important states, but that doesn't mean they're more important than everybody else," Dean said.Dean signaled that he will not try to influence the deliberations of the party's Rules & Bylaws Committee, which has scheduled a meeting for May 31 to discuss Michigan and Florida. Under consideration will be challenges from the two states, seeking reinstatement of half their elected delegates and full slates of superdelegates.
"I don't know what the solution is going to be. The rules committee is going to start working on that now," Dean said. "Nobody will be satisfied with the outcome because nobody is going to get everything they want."
2:53 PM ET | 04-27-2008 | permalink
