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.”
Ickes comes by his temperament and his passion for politics naturally. He is the son and namesake of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famously irascible Interior secretary. And he has played the role of party maverick for decades. He worked in Sen. Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 campaign to unseat President Lyndon B. Johnson. He joined Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) in trying to deny President Carter renomination in 1980. He worked for Jesse Jackson’s presidential bids in 1984 and 1988.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-ickes31mar31,1,6042048.story
Tags: hillary, ickes, superdelegates
April 2, 2008 at 6:22 am |
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-ickes31mar31,1,6042048.story
Ickes is Clinton’s not-so-secret weapon: The veteran political operative is relentless in his drive for Democratic superdelegates.
By Peter Nicholas
March 31, 2008
ARLINGTON, VA. — Harold M. Ickes never forgets a favor, especially if he’s the one who did the favor. So the veteran political operative made sure that, when the time was right, he alone would call Garry Shay, former chairman of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. As Ickes saw it, he had helped Shay; now he was looking for Shay to help him.
And once Ickes started calling, he didn’t stop until Shay said the words Ickes wanted to hear — that he would support Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August.
Shay, as a member of the Democratic National Committee, is a superdelegate, one of nearly 800 elected officials, party leaders and activists who — with the state primaries and caucuses now expected to end in stalemate — may effectively end up picking the 2008 Democratic candidate for president. 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. “It depends on how heated the circumstances are,” he says. …
Temperament and eccentricities aside, with the importance of the superdelegates increasing Ickes now carries a burden that may be second only to the candidate’s own. Clinton is ahead among superdelegates, but the margin has been slipping. In December, she led Obama by 106 superdelegates. In early February, the number was down to 87. Today it is 36, according to Associated Press surveys.
Ickes runs the superdelegate operation from a third-floor war room in this suburb across the Potomac River from the capital. About 20 aides are divided into teams. One woos the uncommitted; another works to prevent defections. The intensity of the struggle was reflected in a recent note on Ickes’ office door happily declaring that three Democratic congressmen were sticking with Clinton — Bill Pascrell Jr. of New Jersey, Gregory W. Meeks of New York and Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri: “Pascrell and Meeks said they were ‘100 percent’ for Clinton through the convention, and Cleaver said he would vote for her unless he died first,” the note read.
In courting the uncommitted, “the first order of business” is finding out “Who is this person?” Ickes said recently over an omelet of egg white, onion and tomato. “What is his or her political history? Who does that person associate with or rely on for information they take into account when making political decisions?” To get answers, aides sit at computers ranged along a windowless hallway outside Ickes’ office.
They sift websites; do Google searches; talk to friends, lobbyists, campaign donors — tapping into what Ickes calls the sprawling network of “Clinton alumni.”
“You establish a relationship and keep going back, and people become friendlier and let down their guard,” Ickes said, describing the campaign’s methods. “And before you know it, you can pick up useful information. None of this is insidious information; it’s information about what makes a person tick politically.”
In the case of Shay, Ickes remembered that Shay had wanted to increase the representation of gays and lesbians within the national party. Ickes helped him over the years, speaking out in favor of Shay’s project at DNC meetings. Initially, Shay committed to former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, so Ickes issued a standing order to his staff: Make sure that when Edwards dropped out, Ickes — and only Ickes — called Shay. As Edwards’ fortunes sagged, Ickes began calling to chat up Shay every couple of weeks. And on Jan. 30, just before Edwards publicly quit the race, Ickes pounced.
“Look, personal relationships, especially when you’re dealing with this at the individual level, are sometimes very helpful,” Ickes said later. “I have no reservations about calling in a chit. I don’t know if I had a chit with him to call in, but I do think that our prior relationship and the fact that I was helpful may have been helpful in persuading him to be for Hillary.”
Shay, for his part, says several factors played into his decision, including the fact that he liked Clinton’s performance in the Los Angeles debate and that Barack Obama never called him. But he credits Ickes with keeping Clinton “within the forefront” of his mind, and in fact he committed to her very soon after Ickes placed the critical call.
“In politics, you try to move and close the deal quickly,” Ickes said.
Only months ago, most people gave little thought to the superdelegates. Clinton seemed invincible. And for Democrats at least, the idea of uncommitted delegates picking the nominee evoked images of political bosses in smoke-filled rooms. Returning to that era was inconceivable. But 2008 may be the year of the inconceivable — not just the year a woman or an African American might be elected president, but the year the Democratic nominee was chosen by delegates unconstrained by the popular vote.
Ickes recognized early on how important those delegates might be. And, in assigning him responsibility for them, Clinton chose a veteran whose loyalty was proven — and whose iron focus on the goal at hand matched her own. Both the loyalty and the focus were on display in February 1999, when the Senate voted not to remove Bill Clinton from office. In the White House residence, Ickes and the first lady were poring over New York state maps in preparation for her Senate bid. A call came in informing the first lady that her husband had been acquitted, Ickes recalled. “She puts down the phone and says, ‘Harold, we were talking about Buffalo.’ ” With that, they went back to work. What mere superdelegate could withstand determination like that?
peter.nicholas@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-ickes31mar31,1,6042048.story
April 2, 2008 at 6:38 am |
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/04/clintons-strike.html
“I want to take a moment to say that this has been a very hard fought race. Each of us is drawing enormous support we clearly need to do something so our party and people can make the right decision,” Clinton began. “So I have a proposal today. I am challenging Senator Obama to a bowl-off. A bowling night. Right here in Pennsylvania. Winner take all. I’ll even spot him two frames. It’s time for his campaign to get out of the gutter and allow all of the pins to be counted.”
“I am prepared to play this game all the way until the 10th frame. When this game is over the American people will know when that phone rings at 3am they will have a president who is ready to bowl on day one.”
“So lets strike a deal and go bowling for delegates. We don’t have a moment to spare because it’s already April fools day – so happy April fools day!” April 1, 2008
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/433071/27664134
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/04/clintons-strike.html
April 2, 2008 at 6:39 am |
When my family back in Pennsylvania turns on the TV these days, they may see this Barack Obama TV ad where he’s standing in a gas station saying the following:
“Since the gas lines of the ’70s, Democrats and Republicans have talked about energy independence, but nothing’s changed — except now Exxon’s making $40 billion a year, and we’re paying $3.50 for gas.
I’m Barack Obama. I don’t take money from oil companies or Washington lobbyists, and I won’t let them block change anymore. They’ll pay a penalty on windfall profits. We’ll invest in alternative energy, create jobs and free ourselves from foreign oil. I approve this message because it’s time that Washington worked for you. Not them.”
Factcheck.org today takes a look at Obama’s claim to not take money from oil companies and concludes that the statement’s “misleading” since according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics Obama has taken more than $213,000 from individuals (and their spouses) who work for companies in the oil and gas industry — not to mention that two of Obama’s top fundraisers are top executives at oil companies”
It is literally true that Obama doesn’t take money from oil companies. No federal candidate does — corporations have been banned from direct contributions since 1907.
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/433071/27656462
April 2, 2008 at 6:43 am |
The money that Clinton and Obama have contributed to the superdelegates who may now determine their fate has come from three sources: the candidates’ campaign accounts for president and, before that, Senate, and from their leadership PACs. These PACs exist precisely to support other politicians in their elections—and, thus, to make friends and collect chits. Leadership PACs are supposed to go dormant after a presidential candidate officially enters the race.
Contributions to candidates for federal office are relatively easy to track, but money given to state and local officials is harder to spot. Campaign finance reports from Senate candidate committees are still filed on paper, making it difficult to know who is receiving money from them. For that reason it’s possible that Obama and Clinton have given superdelegates even more than the $904,200 the Center for Responsive Politics has identified. While Obama has received the support of numerous state governors, state legislators and local officials, it does not appear that his leadership PAC or presidential candidate committee has contributed to any of them. His PAC did make one interesting contribution in 2006: for her Senate re-election, Hillary Clinton received a $4,200 contribution from Obama.
Another senator running for office in 2006, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, collected $10,000 from both Clinton and Obama. As a superdelegate, Whitehouse is backing Clinton for the White House. “His decision was based on his relationship with the Clintons. President Clinton nominated him to be United States attorney in 1994, in Rhode Island, and he believes Sen. Clinton is the strongest candidate,” said spokeswoman Alex Swartsel, adding that money wasn’t a factor in Whitehouse’s decision. “We were a top targeted Senate race in 2006 and we received a number of contributions, including those from Clinton and Obama.”
Though it might seem undemocratic to allow elected officials who have received money from the candidates to have such power in picking their party’s nominee, the process was not meant to be democratic, Arizona State’s Herrera said. “If anything, it was meant to take it out of the democratic process. In 1982 [the party] said they needed to have some professionals making decisions here to blunt the potential effects of what they perceived as amateur delegates making decisions—those who vote with their heart and not their head.”
CRP Researchers Douglas Weber and Luke Rosiak contributed to this report. http://www.capitaleye.org/inside.asp?ID=336