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Ickes' Rabid (Literally?) Drive for Superdelegates
Since I haven't seen this posted (maybe I just missed it) the LA Times has a profile of Harold Ickes and his attempts to "sway" superdelegates to endorse Hillary. Among the more interesting (and scary) parts:
Aggressive, profane, openly scornful of rivals, Ickes rules Clinton's superdelegate operation with an intimidating style and a mythic persona. He is "advisor, consigliere, enforcer and strategist" all rolled into one, says Dick Harpootlian, a former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party who backs Obama.
What's more, Harpootlian says: "He's like a shadow. You hear he's here, you hear he's there, but you never actually see him."
In a Clinton campaign that can seem machinelike, Ickes is conspicuous for his idiosyncrasies. A female aide said that when she noticed his dress shirt unbuttoned practically to the navel, it was like glimpsing an unzipped fly.
"I thought someone should have pulled him aside to tell him. I later came to realize that's how he wears his shirts."
And the man in charge of Clinton's feverish effort to lock up superdelegates is Ickes, whose enthusiasm for no-holds-barred politics sometimes rattles friends and foes alike. Ickes once got so carried away that he bit another political operative on the leg. Now, some 35 years later, at age 68, he has mellowed so little that it could happen again.
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Comments (3)
I really had to restrain myself on that last one, fortunately, I had already completely swallowed that last gulp of coffee.
March 31, 2008 10:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eeewwwwww-uh.
Sounds like the man lives up to his surname.
March 31, 2008 10:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
It doesn't look like those tactics are working too well lately.
March 31, 2008 11:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
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