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McAuliffe '04: Michigan "will not get seated" if they break rules

Markos Moulitsas has just put up a killer quote from Terry McCauliffe's book "What a Party!"   Besides the shocking revelation that someone may have read at least parts of that book -- although it evidently took a long time --  the book contains a rather awkward passage:

"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.

[Source: McAuliffe, Terry. What A Party!, p. 325.]

http://www.dailykos.com/

 


Comments (15)

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Oh dear... time someone dropped that A-bomb on Camp Hillary (aka "Pork Chop" Hill).

and to think Levin was so stupid as to try it again in 2008.

Yep. This is fantastic news for Hillary!

That is a very interesting find indeed.

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woah. rules, huh? the dnc holding all the cards?

Terry McAwful is a lying sack of feces.

I agree with the sentiment generally, but I wish you could find a more productive way of communicating it.

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Male or female, black or white, Republican or Democrat, doesn't matter. The Clintons are simply establishment scum who will manipulate to get what they want. And they are masters. What's good for the Democrats, or America, means nothing to them. They're in it for their own gain. Then again, that is the American Way. Let's go a different way. Say no to four more years of the Clintons.

Thanks for the post. Not exactly being covered in the media is it?
If it doesn't involve race, not a headline.

I should point out that Kos got the McAuliffe excerpt from Mark Nicholas's blog, Political Base, which posted it yesterday:

http://www.politicalbase.com/profile/Mark%20Nickolas/blog/&blogId=1950

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Excellent. Now someone get Russert and Stephanopolis to cover it on their shows tomorrow when some Clintonista is whining about Michigan and Florida.

Now drifting toward the mainstream:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Carl_take_it_to_the_bank.html#comments

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Actually, this was brought up weeks ago (March 15 to be exact) by Mark Shields.
http://www.creators.com/opinion/mark-shields/one-solution-to-the-florida-michigan-dilemma.html

Duly noted. But I still hear numerous HRC voices, including McAuliffe's just days ago, spouting their MI/FL outrage rhetoric without being confronted with these words -- which are pretty authoritative, pretty definitive.

Though I sympathize with the voters in Michigan and Florida, I agree that they should not be seated at the convention.

The DNC warned the politicians, whether Democratic or Republican, that there would be repercussions if they were to move up their state's primaries.

If anyone disenfranchised the votes from these two states, it was their own politicians and not the national leadership.

This needs to be turned into a campaign add!

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