Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell (whose HOUND attempt to counteract the burgeoning Puma Movement flopped at the end of June) has instructed Hillary Clinton’s pledged delegates NOT to sign a petition circulating among some delegates to place Clinton’s name in nomination for a roll call vote in Denver. In an email we obtained yesterday, Mary Isenhour, executive director of the state Democratic Party in Pennsylvania, makes it clear that the message from the top is unequivocal: Shut up and don’t make a move until the big shots tell you what to do.
TO: All Clinton Delegates
FROM: Mary Isenhour
Executive Director
DATE: August 11, 2008
RE: Nomination
If anyone approaches you about
signing a petition to place Senator Clinton’s name in nomination at the Democratic National Convention, the Governor has asked me to ask you to refrain from signing such a petition until we know what Senator Clinton and Senator Obama have worked out. As always, please feel free to let me know if you have any questions.
The 300 Petition, as it has come to be known, is a delegate-led effort to follow provisions in the nominating rule book of the DNC that make it possible for delegates themselves, rather than the Party or Convention Chair, to nominate a candidate for President at the party’s national convention in Denver. Rumors have been flying since Clinton suspended on June 7th that Howard Dean and Barack Obama were trying behind the scenes to script a Unity Show in Denver in which Obama received the unanimous support of the delegates. Because of Dean and Obama’s vague allusions to “negotiations” around a Clinton roll call vote, it has become increasingly clear that the DNC and the Obama campaign would much prefer Clinton to efface herself again by conceding her right as the runner-up in the delegate race to ask the that her name be put in nomination by the Chair. If Clinton were to make such a request, it would be politically unpleasant for Obama or Dean to deny her the same privilege given to past candidates, like Shirley Chisolm, Jesse Jackson, and Ted Kennedy. The fact that Clinton received vastly more delegates than any of those past candidates would make the snub even more outrageous.
For close watchers of this quiet drama being played out by a battered Obama campaign and a flat broke DNC, it appears that Clinton’s hands are tied. Her future role in the party and the inclusion of her universal health care plan in the official party platform are likely being used to stay her hand in requesting a roll call vote. The maneuverings of late July, in which Clinton pledged delegates began to feel the pressure to fall in line silently behind Obama, led several of them to begin circulating the 300 Petition as a way to work around the loggerhead at the top.
DNC rules state that a petition to place a candidate in nomination at the Convention, signed by no fewer than 300 delegates, must be accepted by the Chair. Our contacts in the 300 Petition effort tell us they are quite confident they will meet and easily exceed the 300 signatures, all of which are notarized, in the likely event that the Obama campaign, following the lead of Barack Obama himself in his discrediting campaign against Alice Palmer in Chicago, will attempt to challenge the validity of the elected delegates’ signatures.
“We know how Obama operates. We’ve seen it in Chicago for years, and we’re not taking any chances,” says one of the delegates I spoke with who is organizing the 300 Petition.
Contact Ed Rendell
Governor Edward G. Rendell
225 Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17120
Phone: (717) 787-2500
Fax: (717) 772-8284
E-mail the Governor's Office
Mary Isenhour's contact information
phone: 717-920-8470
e-mail: maryp1016@aol.com
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