Hillary Clinton has suspended her presidential campaign, endorsed
Barack Obama, thrown her “full support” behind him, and called upon her
supporters all across the country to join her in doing “all we can to
help elect Barack Obama the next president of the United States.” But
here in Washington State, Clinton’s 28 pledged delegates to the
Democratic National Convention in Denver are, according to one of the
group’s leaders, still waiting for a clearer sign from on high.
Absent some further instructions from Clinton, these delegates all
plan to vote for her, not Obama, at the convention in late August.
“We’re waiting for our cues from her,” Paul Berendt, the former
state Democratic Party chair and current leader of the Clinton pledged
delegate group, told me.
What’s going on here? In part, it seems to be a tactical maneuver,
an attempt by a group of dedicated Clinton delegates to withhold their
convention votes from Obama, for now, in an effort to pressure Obama
into picking Clinton as his vice presidential nominee. “We’re hardcore
in our belief that Hillary should be on the ticket as the vice
president,” Berendt told me. Another member of the group, Linda
Mitchell, head of the National Women’s Political Caucus of Washington,
said: “I need to wait and see what happens. Is Hillary the vice
president?”
Another part of this, however, is lingering resentment among the
Clinton delegates over what they feel was gross mistreatment of their
candidate by the media and a lack of work by other Democrats to soothe
their hurt feelings. Mitchell complained that the Clinton supporters
felt “disrespected” and “invisible” at the Democrats’ state convention
in Spokane the weekend of June 14. And Berendt told me, “Hillary
Clinton was here and she stood for something… For people who are
committed to her for reasons that were important, they don’t feel
that’s been acknowledged. When that happens, I think you’ll see a
beautiful renaissance of support in the Democratic Party for Barack
Obama.”
The fact is that Clinton has already urged this type of renaissance,
telling her supporters to back Obama—at least in general. These
Washington State delegates, however, have looked closely at Clinton’s
campaign-ending speech from June 7, in which Clinton recognized Obama
as the victor in the Democratic primary, and found the speech lacking
in specific directions to national Clinton delegates such as
themselves. “I will do whatever she wants me to do,” Mitchell told me,
but quickly added that she is still, at the very least, waiting for an
official “release” from Clinton before she will consider voting for
Obama.
This notion of a losing candidate “releasing” delegates has a long
tradition in Democratic politics, even if the action is somewhat beside
the point; convention delegates can vote however they want in any case.
But the Clinton campaign, for its part, seems not to be pushing back
against the type of effort underway among the Washington delegates, nor
is it talking, yet, about “release.” The campaign did not respond to a
request for comment on the plans of the Washington State Clinton
delegation.
With Clinton having collected over 1,500 pledged delegates over the
course of her run for the nomination, a widespread application of the
Washington delegates’ plan at the Denver convention could prove
embarrassing for the Obama campaign—which also did not respond to
a request for comment.
Imagine more than 1,500 committed Democrats refusing to get behind
the nominee in Denver. It would certainly not be the televised image
that party leaders are hoping for heading into the general
election.
Dwight Pelz, the chair of the Washington State Democrats and an
Obama-backing superdelegate, told me that he thinks the maneuvering of
these Washington State Clinton delegates—who represent only about
one-fourth of Washington’s 97 Democratic delegates—is “sound and
fury which signifieth little.”
“I’m assuming this will all be amicably negotiated over the next two
months before we go to Denver,” Pelz told me.
And in the meantime, what of that highly prized notion of “party
unity”?
“It’s not a contradiction to party unity,” Pelz said. “I don’t see
this as an insurrection so much as a traditional show of respect to a
candidate who has gained a lot of delegates and still has not released
them yet.”
