THE NIT-PICKY MR. ICKES

On Sunday, 1 June 2008 in an interview broadcast on NPR's Weekend Edition, Harold Ickes, the son of former Roosevelt Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, sought to rationalize the discontent still present within Clinton circles after the decision handed down Saturday by the DNC Rules committee. Using the words fair and square to describe delegates Mrs. Clinton "won" in Michigan and claiming that it was unfair to take away some of those delegates and award them to Mr. Obama, Mr. Ickes continued the Clinton campaign's obfuscation of issues. In addition, Mr. Ickes questioned the motives of both Edwards and Obama as each had his name removed from the Michigan ballot after the DNC ruled that the 15 January primary violated Democratic party rules. None of his arguments was persuasivei n the least and the net effect of his comments was to sully further his own fast receding reputation within the Democratic party.

The failure to be treated fairly and squarely by the DNC rules committee is a not a charge to be taken lightly, especially not in light of the Democratic party's ongoing efforts to broaden voter participation in candidate selection. Though the strange mish-mash of caucuses and primary elections only partly meets the demands of participatory democracy, the Democratic party stands light years ahead of its Republican revival which allocates too many delegates via winner-take-all elections. Still, perhaps the rules - and specifically their interpretation Saturday - failed to honor the choice of voters. That's the argument Mr. Ickes was making.

That assumes, however, that the results of an election conducted contrary to the demands of the Democratic party carries with it any legitimacy in the first place. To the extent that voters went to the polls in both Florida and Michigan, the two states with problem primaries, their votes should count for something and their preferences be reflected in the convention delegation. Since both Mr. Obama's and Ms. Clinton's names appeared on the Florida ballot, it can be argued that the outcome in that election should be reflected in the composition of the delegation. And, that's roughly what happened. The composition was not changed; the delegation's voting strength was diluted by half.

Michigan, on the other hand, posed a larger problem. Since neither Obama nor Edwards appeared on the Michigan ballot, there is no practical way to determine what percentage of the delegation should be awarded to Obama. To nit pick, as Mr. Ickes did, and argue that uncommitted is a category of long-standing recognition within DNC rules and that, therefore, Mr. Obama should receive zero delegates, seems absurd. To then blame the victim, Mr. Obama, by arguing that his withdrawal of his name from the ballot, not required by the DNC ruling about the impropriety of the Michigan primary, was self-serving and designed to impress the caucus voters of Iowa is ludricous on its face.

At the time of Mr. Obama's and Mr. Edward's withdrawal of their names from the Michigan ballot, it was by no means certain that Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards would finish one and two in the Iowa caucuses. Indeed, Mr. Edwards had hoped that four years of organizational efforts in Iowa might be enough to allow him to win the Iowa caucuses. In fact, his campaign was predicated on an Iowa win. Finishing second there and losing in South Carolina essentially ended the Edwards campaign. Mr. Obama, on the other hand, was an unknown quantity whose first place finish was quite a shocker.

As a lawyer, Mr. Ickes should at least know that prior facts cannot be explained based on subsequent results simply by mere juxtaposition. The fact that Obama and Edwards did as well as they did in Iowa says nothing about their motives for withdrawal from the Michigan ballot. For all we know, these two gentlemen truly believed that their names should not appear on the ballot since the primary was unlikely to be valid under DNC rules. In short, these two gentlement chose the reputable route, a path that Mr. Ickes seems unable to discern in light of the Clinton campaign's ever changing goal posts that can recognize only one score, a victory by the Clintons.

Despite Mr. Ickes best efforts to cast the Michigan ballot as a fair test of strength among the candidates, the results of that election can never be viewed as representative. The absence of both Edwards and Obama from the ballot is but one of the problems. The second, and perhaps more important, objection, raised with respect to both the Florida and Michigan elections is that many voters were kept from going to the polls because the DNC had ruled that the elections were meaningless. It is estimated that half of the potential voters in Florida remained at home rather than participate in a sham primary. Similar estimates are probably correct for Michigan, too. Finally, none of the candidates, including Ms. Clinton, campaigned in either of these states. Unless the argument is made that campaigns contribute nothing to the outcome of elections, then it is hard to argue that the results are an accurate reflection of what might have occurred had the Michigan primary been held in February after a vigorous period of campaigning. Indeed, the presence of Ms. Clinton's name on the ballot lent a false sense of validity to the primary proceedings and made it virtually impossible that any new primary in May or June be held in Michigan.

In short, once again the Clintons want to have the results fall as they require them. A "new" Michigan primary might have diluted the Clinton margin of victory and required the spending of campaign monies it sorely lacks. Second, the results as they are gave Ms. Clinton a tremendous advantage, and even more so, if uncommitted votes were not awarded to Obama. Alas, it is easy to understand Mr. Ickes's dismay. Assigning additional delegates beyond the uncommitted votes did dilute Ms. Clinton's margin of victory and did "reward" Mr. Obama for doing the right thing and withdrawing his name.

For all his pointless nit-picking, Mr. Ickes wants to preserve the option of the Clinton campaign to challenge the Michigan delegation as now constituted before the credentials committee. That alone would prolong the controvery until August and prevent the party from uniting behind Mr. Obama. He leads in the delegate totals and surely will command a majority even without the "questionable" Michigan delegation. All that Mr. Ickes has done is to damage his own reputation within Democratic party circles. What neither he nor the Clintons apparently understand is that legal niceties, even if stretched beyond recognition, cannot undo a campaign built on a false premise and paid for by over-reliance on big donors. As a result, the Clintons haven't enough delegates nor do they have enough money. It's time to end this now.