It was a meeting of the Rules Committee formed for the convention. The first part of the meeting apparently went smoothly, going over rules involving the convention.
Recapping Rules committee meeting today186 party leaders and elected officials from across the country, including four representatives from Georgia heard from DNC Chair Howard Dean and other national party leaders as they voted to send a series of measures to the convention floor next week when the 45th Democratic National Convention convenes in Denver's Pepsi Center.
The first half of the meeting was uneventful as the delegates assembled breezed through the votes on the convention rules, convention officers and convention agenda. However, there was a lot of discussion when the last item on the agenda came up; the Democratic Change Commission.
The resolution presented by former South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges and Craig Smith of Florida established a delegate selection reform committee that would examine all aspects of the way Democrats select their presidential nominee. According to Hodges, the Democratic Change Commission will focus on three items:
1.) Timing of the nominating contests;
2.) Reducing unpledged delegates; and
3.) Improving the planning and implementation of the caucuses.
Several articles I have read on the meeting make it sound like there won't be a question about the present smaller states going first. Doesn't sound like they will do much with caucuses except to clarify rules and methods of voting.
Apparently the commission to change the primaries will be appointed next year by the new chairman.
Then I ran across this blog called Radio Iowa. Sounds like there were some members of the Denver Group and Puma Alliance in the meeting. This is an odd exchange. I don't imagine the Iowa Democrat was very happy at the accusations about their caucus.
Democratic Change CommissionAfter the 10 minutes allotted for committee members to speak in favor of the commission's creation -- and it's preservation of early contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada -- no one rose to object or speak against the move. Before the meeting started, Jon Winkleman of New York -- a Hillary Clinton campaign worker in Ames just before the Caucues, approached three of the Iowa reporters to air his complaints about caucuses. He is now part of a group called
"I own my vote""I was on the ground in Iowa for Clinton and some of the friends I made in Iowa were at some of the rural caucuses.
They knew everyone in their small town and there was a lot of people who came in on a bus, faces they didn't recognize, who participated in the caucus and then left. Now, those people might be from town, but they suspect they might not be from the town, but since the Iowa state party doesn't release the list of who came and who didn't come, we don't know," he said.
He was asked where this happened, and he said Boone, Iowa. He had more to say.
He was asked if a complaint had been registered with the proper people.
I would have to talk to my friends who I was talking to after the thing to get you that information, but there's been a lot of complaints everywhere," Winkleman said. "My congressman, I guess I shouldn't give out his name since it isn't on the record, was at a caucus in Des Moines and people were just shouting out numbers and they weren't counting. People who were walking into a caucus in Iowa were being plastered with Obama buttons whether or not they were Obama voters."
Apparently the person who should have gotten the complaints was at the rules committee meeting. Interesting, no one had talked to him.
Mike Milligan, the executive director of the Iowa Democratic Party, was at the Rules Committee meeting and when asked by reporters if he and the party had received the complaints Winkleman raised, Milligan said: "Not at all."
"I think that everyone that we talked to after the Caucuses were very pleased with the Caucuses, whether that was Senator Obama or the next vice president -- Senator Biden," Milligan said. "Every one that we've heard had a good experience."
I knew this would play out hard this way when the primaries ended. The
seeds of doubt about the primaries had been sown early this year by leading Democrats, and I knew there would be no easy way for it to end.
They had the meeting to discuss organizing a commission to change the primaries. They set it in motion already, but many are still looking back.
If you get a chance read the Betty Cracker blog today called
Slap Happy. The discontent lingers loudly.
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