Saturday, May 31, 2008

What A Party! And what a party it was!, by Terry McAuliffe

As the rules committee begins its deliberations, my thoughts go back to a wonderful book written by Hillary's campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe titled "What a Party!, and what a party it was! Those who are pondering his fight to seat all of the Florida and Michigan delegates with full votes should understand how he viewed that issue when he was the Chairman of the DNC. In 2004, he had a conversation with Carl Levin regarding Levin's plans to move up the Michigan primary. To that end, I give you an excerpt from page 325 of Mr. McAuliffe's Book.



"I'm going outside the primary window," [Michigan Sen. Carl Levin] told me
definitively.

"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.

It seems that it is a good thing for Clinton Campaign Chairman McAuliffe that he is not facing DNC Chairman McAuliffe on the this issue.

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