'Denver! Denver! Denver!' Clinton supporters chant

By M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published June 2, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Barack Obama campaigns Sunday in South Dakota, which holds its primary Tuesday. Obama could clinch the nomination with a split of delegates in remaining contests, plus a few superdelegates.

It was the storm before the calm, or so top Democrats hope.

Angry cries erupted like thunder Saturday inside a hotel ballroom in Washington, D.C.

"This is not the Democratic Party!" one man shouted, as the Democratic National Committee's rules and bylaws panel restored Florida and Michigan delegations to this summer's Democratic National Convention - but only at half voting strength.

The two states had been stripped of all delegates for violating party rules and moving up the dates of their primaries earlier this year.

The rules committee decision was billed as a compromise to put Democrats on a path to party unity following the prolonged presidential nominating contest between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

But since Clinton was denied the full-delegation seating she was seeking and Obama remains on the verge of clinching the contest, her supporters chanted a shorthand threat to fight all the way to the convention site in August.

"Denver! Denver! Denver!" they hollered from a balcony until committee members ordered security to step in.

Now, on the eve of the final primaries in South Dakota and Montana on Tuesday, the question is whether the blustery talk of street protests outside the Pepsi Center will linger or quickly dissipate if Obama secures the necessary 2,118 delegates this week, as his supporters predict.

The Democratic presidential nomination might be within Obama's grasp, but the tone of Denver's festivities remains largely in Clinton's hands.

Harold Ickes, her top delegate counter, expressed outrage over the Michigan decision Saturday, telling fellow rules committee members that Clinton reserves the right to fight to the credentials committee. He said her delegates were being "hijacked" and wrongfully given to Obama even though he voluntarily took his name off the Michigan ballot.

Another Clinton supporter, former Michigan Gov. Jim Blanchard, ominously reminded committee members that delegate votes were not set in stone.

"By August, some may be switching back and forth. You never know," Blanchard said, drawing "oohs" from the crowd.

At this stage, with many folks already looking ahead to an Obama matchup with Republican Sen. John McCain, rank-and-file supporters of Clinton are not ready to concede anything.

"Fight it all the way to the floor," pediatrician Jenny Doggett, of Boston, said outside the rules committee meeting at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel in Washington, D.C.

Schoolteacher Debra Foster, of Long Island, N.Y., said she's ready to protest on the streets of Denver after she was forcibly removed from the ballroom by security.

"I was chanting, 'Denver!' because that is the next place," she said. "We'll be chanting: 'Madam President, or else!' "

She showed off bruises on her arm she said were left by a security officer's grip.

"I've been voting Democratic for 40 years, and I end up with a bruise and a really sad heart that I don't recognize my party anymore," Foster said, crying.

Emotions were running high Saturday. But party leaders downplayed them, saying the decision to seat Florida and Michigan delegations now sets the stage for Democrats to wrap up the Obama-Clinton contest and begin pulling together.

Alexis Herman, co-chair of the rules and bylaws committee, was asked what she was thinking when the angry "Denver!" chants drowned out the end of the meeting.

"When I heard them saying, 'Denver! Denver! Denver!' I was thinking, 'Wow, that's one thing we can finally all agree on. We're going to Denver,' " Herman said.

"The reality is, this is what happens oftentimes in our meetings," she said. "We have protesters. We have people who feel passionately about these issues. I heard it. I wasn't surprised. I expected it. And it's something that we're going to have to continue to acknowledge and deal with as we move toward Denver, but ultimately on to victory in November."

On Sunday, when Clinton was on her way to an easy win over Obama in Puerto Rico, Ickes was noncommittal on NBC News' Meet the Press when asked how far Clinton might push the Michigan delegation dispute.

The Associated Press delegate count has Obama at 2,071 - just 47 away from clinching the contest.

He could get most of those with an equal split of delegates from the remaining contests, plus a handful of the 203 undeclared superdelegates who are expected to announce decisions this week.

Ickes said he still sees Clinton winning, but, he said, "It will be over when one candidate secures the number for the nomination."

"Could that happen Wednesday?" host Tim Russert asked.

"It could," Ickes replied. "Anything could happen."

• June 2, 2008

  1:16 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  notknowitall writes:

  It is so typical of the Clintons. If they are ahead, they chant "we voted for the rules", however, now that they are losing their tune changes to "change the rules" we really didn't understand what we were voting for in the beginning.
  By the way, who is it really the candidate that is actually running, Bill or Hillary? To me it all sounds like it's about Bill.
  As far as Harold Ickes goes, what rock did he crawl out from under?

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