Howard Dean: Dems' Supporter Squabbling Is Demoralizing Base

Posted by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review at 4:15 AM on March 28, 2008.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean says infighting between supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama threatens the party’s chances for winning the White House in November:

“You do not want to demoralize the base of the Democratic Party by having the Democrats attack each other,” he said Thursday during the interview in his office at Democratic National Committee headquarters. “Let the media and the Republicans and the talking heads on cable television attack and carry on, fulminate at the mouth. The supporters should keep their mouths shut about this stuff on both sides because that is harmful to the potential victory of a Democrat.”

Dean says he has a plan for resolving the superdelegate conundrum:

Dean wouldn’t talk in detail about what the plan is, but it likely involves encouraging superdelegates to pick a candidate shortly after the voting ends. He said he will not encourage any delegate to vote one way or another.

“I am going to stand up for the rules, and I know I’m doing the right thing most of the time because I’ve got both Clinton people and Obama people mad at me,” he said.

For instance, while Obama’s campaign has been encouraging superdelegates to support the candidate with the most pledged delegates -- which almost certainly will be Obama -- Dean says the rules don’t require that and superdelegates are free to chose who they want.

On the other side, Clinton has been arguing lately that even pledged delegates -- awarded to a candidate based on the outcome of state contests -- aren’t bound to vote for that candidate at the convention. Dean called that “a very technical argument.”

“You aren’t going to get pledged delegates to move unless something really shocking happens,” he said. And he thinks it unlikely the superdelegates would support a candidate who did not have the most pledged delegates.

And he commented on the Florida and Michigan controversies:

Florida and Michigan Democrats brazenly violated party rules by holding primaries ahead of schedule and lost their delegates to the convention as punishment. Both states are now demanding that they not be shut out of the decision-making process because of it…

Dean … said the Michigan and Florida delegates will be seated at the convention. But he won’t force a resolution because he said there’s nothing the Obama and Clinton campaigns can support at this point.

“You bring both sides together and say, `Don’t you think it’s time that the two campaigns made a deal on how we’re going to do this?’” Dean said. “Let me just say that the campaigns believe that kind of a deal is premature right now.”

In 2007, Dean and the DNC raised a record $51 million, but now only has a $4.5 million, compared with $25 million the Republican National Committee has in the bank.

Tagged as: clinton, obama, florida, democratic party, dnc, michigan, dean

Jon Ponder is regular blogger for the Pensito Review