Deja AP All Over Again: Delegates NOT Released (UPDATE)

Several versions of rumors have been circulating about the conference calls which occurred last night, June 9. 2008 between Hillary Clinton, Harold Ickes and her delegates. Both TexasDarlin on No Quarter and commenter and elected delegate captsfufp at The Confluence, who was on the call, have posted ear-witness reports that Hillary has not released her delegates. captsfufp writes:

Ickes spoke about how the delegates would still be coordinated by the campaign (that may be the only part of the campaign that’ll probably have jobs until August, I guess!). And, I thought this was interesting…he stated that the reason that Hillary technically ’suspended” her campaign was so that she could still receive the superdelegates votes from the other primaries. I don’t know which ones he was referring to specifically, but he said that if she had conceded (I forget what word he used), those 190 delegates (don’t ask me where this number comes from) would have gone to … him. But by merely suspending her campaign, those Clinton votes would be reflected by those 190 delegates

But he reiterated that she would do whatever it takes to support … him. This was also interesting: He said in the coming weeks there would be discussions with … his campaign and her about how her issues would be reflected and how Denver would be treated. This is just me speaking, and I may be wrong, but what he seemed to be alluding to was making a decision about whether she would be a candidate for nomination or not. But there should be some talks and decision in a few weeks about how she “will come to Denver.” But she’ll (obviously!) be taking a break from such things for the next few weeks.

Former Maryland State Senator and pledged Clinton delegate, Mary Boergers sent an email to No Quarter’s SusanPC, in which she urges people to contact Howard Dean to protest his statement that he hopes there isn’t a roll call at the Democratic Convention. (I hope they’ll forgive me for lifting the whole thing, but getting the word out about this is IMPORTANT!)

I was on that conference call and there was nothing in Hillary’s comments to indicate that she was releasing her delegates and urging them to vote for Obama on the first vote in Denver. In fact what Harold Ikes said was that the campaign would like to keep Hillary’s delegates together so that she can more effectively fight for issues like universal health care to make sure it is included in the party platform. This seems like deliberate misinformation. (Sound familiar!)

One of the super delegates who was in London in fact complained about the strong arm pressure from the Obama campaign to immediately (last Friday before Hillary’s speech) switch their vote to Obama.

So to me the strategy is clear. The Obama folks want to try and prevent us from nominating Hillary at the convention and voting for her at the convention. We need to STOP this. Historically losing candidates always have their names put into nomination, give a great speech and then there is a roll call vote. The presumptive nominee gets the majority and then there may be a call to make it unanimous.

We need to make sure that people are aware of this procedure. Once again the Obama people are trying to change the rule of the game, pretending that they were always the rules in order to push Hillary aside. We must keep them from succeeding.

To me this is the most important thing that we can do right now. We need to attack Howard Dean for saying that he hopes there isn’t a role call vote at the convention.

This pressure, heavy handed tactics and “shot gun” marriage effort must end. This is the fight that we need to continue

To repeat Mary’s call to action: We need to attack Howard Dean for saying that he hopes there isn’t a role call at the convention.

Contact Howard Dean:
Phone: 202-863-8000
Fax: 202-863-8174
E-mail: HowardDean@dnc.org

This calls into question Taylor Marsh’s assertion that Clinton had indeed released them.

EXCLUSIVE UPDATE: Jay Jacobs, Nassau County, New York, Democratic Chairman, and Pledged Delegate says:

I am still a Hillary Delegate and will remain so until directed otherwise by her.

It seems possible that once again an AP-type rumor has reared its Trojan head similar to the one that surfaced one week ago today, on the final day of Democratic primaries about Hillary shutting down her campaign. The AP rumor was regarded by many as a deliberate attempt to suppress voter turnout, after Clinton’s 35 point trouncing of Obama in Puerto Rico the previous day.