[A couple commenters suggested that I retitle this. They were right. There are two good stories here for unity]

I see a few diaries here and at Daily Kos decrying or applauding Hillary Clinton's campaign for "reserving its rights" on the Michigan decision.  Some on either side think this means that Senator Clinton will fight for the four delegtes all the way to Denver.  

There's a problem with that thinking. Reserving rights just does what it says.  It prevents the waiver of any rights pending a decision on what to do. But there has been no decision to continue to fight the Michigan issue.  It's possible, but in my view, unlikely that such a fight over 4 delegates will happen.  In any event, that decision has not been made and may never be made.  

Harold Ickes, a top adviser to Clinton, said on NBC's "Meet The Press" no decision had yet been made.

"I have not had a chance to talk with Senator Clinton at any length about it, and obviously this will be a big decision. But her rights are reserved," he said.

But one of her strongest supporters, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, sounded uninterested in a further challenge.

"I don't think we're going to fight this at the convention, because even were we to win it, unless it's going to change enough delegates for Senator Clinton to win the nomination, then it would be a fight that would have no purpose," Rendell said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080601/ap_o n_el_pr/primary_rdp

More after the fold.

There's more...

Was this organized or what? Hillary's most extreme supporters are not taking the Rules Committee's decision with any kind of good sportsmanship. For instance:

This must bring joy to Harold Ickes' heart as he and Hillary threaten a push toward the Credentials Committee.

Does Hillary have pride in this kind of support? Will she get anywhere with the "popular vote" argument? Obviously, as the Puerto Rican primary goes down today, she thinks she will, delegate totals or not.

It's interesting that hurricane season starts today... we're about to have a political hurricane which could blow over some media trees. But remember... after a hurricane life goes on. We patch things up here and there and go forward with our lives.

I don't think Obama is too worried.

Under The LobsterScope

There's more...

I am made to understand that I may be banned from this site for this diary. It is my first diary on MyDD and I hesitate to accept that diverse opinion are no longer welcome on the site but if the opinion that this diary expresses is unwelcome here, so be it.

I occasionally play soccer. That's the sport that I grew up with and the only one, perhaps, that I truly understand. Where I grew up we call it football. Soccer is a marathon sport that taxes both brain and brawn and, because of its almost chess-like nature, most enthusiasts relate it to mathematics. So much so that one of my favorite players as a youth was in fact nick-named "Mathematical".

There's more...

I was in an auto accident once that was pretty bad. The most awful part was not the physical trauma, but the emotional one. I saw it coming for a long, long time. It seemed in fact to take forever. And I was helpless to get out of the way. My sandal had gotten twisted under the gas pedal and I couldn't make the car move.

When the truck finally hit me it was almost a relief.

Why am I thinking about this today? It was seeing Harold Ickes on C-Span protest the way 30 people in a room far, far away  from Michigan took the votes of 600,000 people and divied them up like gumdrops to be swallowed whole by someone who wasn't there or even on the ballot.

So the woman who was on the ballot got 69 delegates. And the guy who wasn't on the ballot got 59.

There is no way any rational human being can defend this as right or fair or democratic.

But this is the way Barack Obama wins elections. Alice Palmer knows his fidelity to the rules quite well. He manipulated the rules in his very first state senatorial contest, and Palmer, his mentor, got screwed.

Alice Palmer campaigned for Clinton in Indiana.  

Harold Ickes said today he was "stunned." And as if it was significant a member of the DNC Rules Committee said he had never seen Harold stunned before. Nobody smiled.  A truth had been uttered, and it made people uncomfortable. The way the truth does when the fix is in, and you are about to steal the steak on the table.

But before long, after it was done, people saluted each other and gave each other pats on the back. It was one of the most sickening and self-serving displays of chicanery masquerading as plain dealing and fairness that I have ever seen. These people didn't even have the honesty to be humble about their wheeling and dealing and fixing.

It reminded me of a bumper sticker I saw on a car the other day. It read:

Be nice to America, if you aren't, we will bring democracy to your country.

An African American man had the unmitigated gaul to bring up Fannie Lou Hamer as he voted in favor of giving votes to someone who was not on the ballot. NOT on the Ballot!!!

Oh, yeah, the accident. Watching that vote I felt like I did watching that truck bearing down on me. You know it is bad, you know things are stuck, you know you have to get out of the way. And you can't! The unthinkable is going to unfold.

Only this time the truck is a clique of Obama backers within the Democratic Party who have fixed the rules in their favor and then clung to them as if the Democratic Party is the Party of Rules and not the Party of the  People.

And now the party  has crashed full tilt boogie  into  a wall of millions of outraged people, voters all,  who can find no justice in the party they have loved and fought for. If ever a group of  people were justified in walking away from the Democratic Party, that justification was handed to them today.

The leadership of the Democratic Party showed the entire county  that it will not function as  a democracy. And they believe, I guess after eight years of Bush, that we will take it lying down.

Denver, baby!! And the credentials committee.

There's more...

Barack Obama took the Demcoratic Party by surprise in Iowa, and the first firewall for the Clinton campaign was set up in New Hampshire. This was an obvious move and should have worked out well for the Clinton campaign. Unfortunately for their strategy, Obama took as many delegates in New Hampshire as Hillary did and maintained a one pledged delegate lead going into Nevada where he lost in the number of state delegates but won in the number of delegates to the national convention.

The firewall was then moved to Super Tuesday, which is where the Clinton campaign always expected to win the nomination. But a funny thing happened on the way to the nomination. Barack Obama took more pledged delegates on Super Tuesday than Hillary Clinton. The Clinton campaign panicked because their strategy went right out the window. Obama did this by staying close enough in the big states to keep Clinton's margin of pledged delegates down while winning huge in smaller states which allowed Obama to push further out. My gosh, in overall pledged delegate leads, Obama came out a single delegate ahead of where Hillary was in New Jersey from Idaho! The strategy was brilliant on the part of the Obama campaign and demonstrated an effective utilization of campaign resources.

Hillary burned through her cash at an alarming rate. This ineffective use of resources set the stage for the next several contests where Obama blew her out of the water and extended his lead in pledged delegates to a  point where nobody could claim he was not the front runner. Meanwhile, we've been treated with glimpses at how Hillary spent her money such as the Hillary and the Band video, or the pathetically bizarre combination of The Brady Bunch and Up with People called Hillary4U&Me.

There's more...