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Fair-Weather WolverineHillary Clinton wants to seat Michigan and Florida delegates. She sang a different tune last year.

By S.V. Dáte
Posted Monday, April 14, 2008, at 3:33 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

In October, after Obama and some of the other candidates withdrew their names from the Michigan ballot, Clinton declined to do the same. Her stated reason, however, was not to dissent from the DNC's decision to disenfranchise wronged Michigan, but rather to mend fences with Michigan voters come November. Besides, Hillary said, there was no reason to remove her name if the results weren't going to count anyway. "I personally did not think it made any difference," she said. At the Dec. 1 meeting of the DNC rules committee, Ickes urged Michigan DNC member Debbie Dingell to put off Michigan's primary to the DNC-sanctioned date of Feb. 5. Dingell refused, arguing that the DNC shouldn't antagonize large states that would be important in the general election just to soothe egos in the early primary states. "It is an example of the message that is sent when Iowa and New Hampshire put guns at the heads of candidates to say that they will not campaign in this state," Dingell complained. Ickes and Clinton's other supporters on the rules committee ignored Dingell's plea and voted to strip Michigan of its delegates.

What a difference four months make. "We all had a choice as to whether or not to participate in what was going to be a primary," Clinton told NPR last month. "Most people took their names off the ballot, but I didn't." In other words, her refusal constituted a selfless pledge of solidarity with the Wolverine State rather than a tactical decision to seize what in October seemed the minor advantage of a momentum-enhancing likely victory in a Midwestern beauty contest.

Like every candidate except former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, Clinton stayed away from the Florida state convention in October. Irate Democrats stalked Walt Disney World wearing buttons that said, "Size DOES matter," a reference to Florida's large population compared with that of Iowa or New Hampshire. When Michigan subsequently received its penalty, Clinton agreed with the other candidates that she wouldn't visit there, either. It was a decision she had cause to regret as early as Jan. 3, when she lost the Iowa caucus to Obama, coming in third, just behind John Edwards. After ignoring Florida and Michigan for months, the Clinton campaign soon couldn't say enough nice things about them. "Tonight Michigan Democrats spoke loudly for a new beginning," then-campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle exulted over Clinton's victory there on Jan. 15. "Your voices matter. And as president, Hillary Clinton will not only keep listening, but will make sure your voice is always heard."

This was an absurdly celebratory statement given that Clinton's name had been the only one of the major Democratic contenders' that appeared on the Michigan ballot. (Even so, Clinton received only 55 percent of the vote against 40 percent for "uncommitted.") Two weeks later, Clinton herself appeared in South Florida after polls closed on her victory there (50 percent to Obama's 33 percent). "I could not come here to ask in person for your votes," she told the crowd. "I am thrilled to have had this vote of confidence."

Now Clinton feels that a failure to seat the Michigan and Florida delegates would besmirch the democratic process. With Obama ahead on pledged delegates and drawing growing numbers of superdelegates, Clinton will have only a limited ability to affect whether the DNC backs off from its decisions to penalize the two states. Last summer and fall, when the DNC made these decisions, she had a lot more clout. She exercised none of it.

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S.V. Dáte is a political journalist in Tallahassee. His most recent book is Jeb: America's Next Bush.
Photograph of Hillary Clinton by Doug Benc/Getty Images.
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