This morning, the Post and the Examiner both got wise to the intrigue of the D.C. Democratic delegate count—or at least the question of Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr.’s presidential loyalties.

To recap: Thomas had been an avowed Hillary Clinton supporter for months. Last Thursday, he ran for one of two unpledged add-on delegate spots and won, leading to heightened questions about his commitment to Hillary.

Thomas told LL after the vote, “I haven’t changed. I’m consistent.” But earlier in the week, Thomas staffer Ayawna Chase had told Shadow Rep. Mike Panetta that her boss had “changed his mind after hearing from his constituents,” according to Panetta’s comments on a Daily Kos posting. Then, yesterday, the D.C. Democrats sent out a spreadsheet listing all of the D.C. delegates along with their presidential preferences. Thomas was marked as supporting Clinton. Then, on Monday evening, a revised spreadsheet was sent out, along with a note explaining that Thomas “was incorrectly listed as a supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton should read and tallied as ‘Unpledged’.”

Thomas said to LL this morning that he still hasn’t “changed officially.” He explained the spreadsheet change thusly: “What I wanted to do is honor the process of being an unpledged delegate.”

OK, whatever.

Here’s some interesting tidbits: According to Thomas spokesperson Vicky Leonard-Chambers, her boss is meeting with Clinton today and had mentioned potentially attending an Barack Obama event this evening. She also says Thomas hopes to meet with Obama himself soon.

“He’s doing what he said he would do, which is talk to both before he decides,” she says.

In a town where Barack Obama got better than 75 percent of the vote, this wasn’t supposed to happen. But it did anyway: Hillary Clinton picked up an extra District delegate to the Democratic National Convention last night. For that, Obama supporters have only their own to blame.

The D.C. Democratic State Committee met in the John A. Wilson Building for almost three hours to select a pair of unpledged add-on “superdelegates.” More than 20 signed up to run for the two slots, voted on by the 80-odd members of the committee. “Unpledged” in this case is a bit misleading; most delegate candidates’ presidential preferences were already widely known to voters.

The days and weeks before the vote saw furious lobbying of the 80-some committee members—especially on the Obama side—to sway votes to their presidential candidate. Obama organizers hoped to prevent a split vote by steering support to two delegate candidates: Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander, a longtime state committee member and favorite of the old guard, and lawyer Miriam Sapiro, a relative unknown favored by the grassroots types.

Though a number of the 25 candidates on the ballot withdrew before the vote, seven Obama supporters ended up running, while only two Clinton supporters only three Clinton supporters only two Clinton supporters stood: Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr., Ward 3 resident Mary Ann Miller, and lawyer and ex-council staffer Aimee Occhetti.

Clinton’s name never came up in Thomas’ brief remarks before the vote; he instead chose to talk up his own qualifications and big-picture issues. “The issue is what are we going to do when we get to Denver that best represents the District of Columbia,” he said. (Rumors had swirled that Thomas planned to switch to Obama, but Thomas knocked those down after the vote: “I haven’t changed,” he says. “I’m consistent.”)

The actual candidates’ names rarely came up, in fact. The division within the Obama camp was briefly aired when candidate Linda Nguyen rose to say, “I only have 2 minutes to convince you to vote for me…not someone you promised the mayor you’d vote for.” That earned her hearty boos from the crowd. (Line of the night, though, came from Occhetti: “If you call me at 3 a.m., I will definitely try to answer the phone.”)

In the end, Alexander cruised to victory, but Sapiro came up two votes short; she got 22 to Thomas’ 24. Check after the jump for a full tally of the results (i.e., which Obama folks didn’t get with the program).

Delegate Potpourri

• Unsurprisingly, Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray and At-Large Councilmember Kwame R. Brown took the two spots reserved for PLEOs—party leaders and elected officials. Shadow Rep. Mike Panetta appeared on the original ballot but withdrew before the vote. In remarks after the vote, Gray said, “My life’s aspiration has been to be a PLEO. I’ve finally arrived!” Panetta says he plans to run for an alternate pledged at-large spot set to be selected on May 3. Barring that, committee chair Anita Bonds announced to the crowd that Panetta would be serving as the delegation’s Official Blogger in Denver. Says Panetta: “One way or another, I’ll be there.”
• Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans showed early in the meeting to greet the crowd but quickly left. Since the decision came down that both PLEOs were to be Obama-pledged, Evans did not appear on the ballot. Gray announced after voting that Evans would be running at the May 3 meeting for a pledged at-large slot for Clinton; Gray lobbied the crowd on Evans’ behalf.

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Four years ago, Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans narrowly missed getting a trip to the Democratic National Convention as a delegate for Howard Dean. This time around, the rules changed and, since the primary, everyone thought Evans was in like Flynn.

Well, not so fast.

Two delegate spots are reserved for what are called PLEOs—party leaders and elected officials. This year, those spots are slotted according to a hierarchy; Council chairman gets first dibs, followed by chairman pro tempore, followed by at-large councilmembers, and so on. But you also have to be supporting the right candidate; the PLEO slots are allocated based on the results of the District’s primary. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray is a Barack Obama guy; Evans, the chair pro tempore, is a longtime Hillary Clinton guy.

Originally, the D.C. Democratic State Committee held that Obama and Clinton were entitled to one PLEO spot apiece. Well, a group of Obama activists—including D.C. for Obama’s Howard Park, Jordan Usdan of Young Lawyers for Obama, and D.C. for Democracy’s Keith Ivey—researched the rules and held that Obama supporters were entitled to both PLEO seats. Their interpretation, sources say, was upheld earlier this week through an appeal to the Democratic National Committee.

“It was a matter of math, not politics,” says Park.

LL is not going to get into the uber-complicated calculations here. (If you want a rundown, check the comments section of this blog post; “KCinDC” is Ivey.) Long story short: Jack Evans isn’t guaranteed a trip to Denver anymore.

That’s not to say it might not happen some other way. Evans could run for one of two unpledged add-on spots at the D.C. Democratic State Committee meeting tonight. No guarantees there: About two dozen party activists have already put their names forward for slots, and with a majority of committee members supporting Obama, getting a Clinton supporter elected is unlikely barring some odd vote-splitting.

Another scenario: Clinton is guaranteed one pledged at-large delegate, which is to be chosen by the state committee on May 3; Evans could still be named to that slot. The complicating factor is that those at-large spots are generally used for concerns of racial or gender balance—white males typically don’t rate.

Evans didn’t respond to a request for comment yesterday.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Hillary supporter goes way off message: This was just too funny not to link. Slate has the scoop. A Clinton loyalist confesses that Obama will be the next president!–Jason Cherkis

This morning’s story by the Washington Times‘ Christina Bellantoni appears to foretell doom for the Democratic Party.

Bellantoni hangs her story on a new Gallup poll showing that 28 percent of Hillary Rodham Clinton supporters would vote for McCain in November if their gal doesn’t get the nom; 19 percent of Barack Obama supporters would do the same thing if their guy loses the Dem fight.

Here’s the story’s most pivotal sentence: “The news benefits the Republican senator, who exchanged barbs with Mr. Obama yesterday about the economy.”

OK, well, show me. Sure, the numbers look big. But how do they compare with similar numbers from previous elections?

We never hear from Bellantoni on that front–just that there are some McCain supporters in the camps of both Dem prez contenders. That news?

Fresh from his mea culpa, BC was in my old stomping ground in PA recently (East High, Erie, to be exact), declaring that he:

a) “Loves this election” because
b) “I don’t have to be against anybody.” He also likes
c) “all the Democrats that ran.” Heck, he even
d) “likes the ones that aren’t running anymore.” (Yo, John Edwards, how about that endorsement, huh?)
e) Not to mention, the Dems in the race are “a crew of gifted people.”

Awwww. He’s sweet.

Small-time politicians, be nice to those small-time young reporters. So, what if their newspapers are twelve pages long, and part of some community chain? That won’t matter when they’re dissecting your character eight years later.If there’s a moral to this story in Houston alternative weekly, the Houston Press, it might be that. Much has been said about how Obama is getting the soft treatment from the media. But, as the fate of the Democratic nomination again hangs in a balance (for the seventh time? Or is it the tenth?), one journalist has written a detailed account of his experiences with Barack Obama back in Illinois, and it ain’t so pretty. Here’s a snippet:

“What’s interesting, and almost never discussed, is that [Obama] built his entire legislative record in Illinois in a single year.

Republicans controlled the Illinois General Assembly for six years of Obama’s seven-year tenure. Each session, Obama backed legislation that went nowhere; bill after bill died in committee. During those six years, Obama, too, would have had difficulty naming any legislative ­achievements.”

I interned at the Press for a year during college, so occasionally I check back on the website. The article, written by reporter Todd Spivak (who won a slightly ridiculous number of awards last year), has thus far received 211 comments, which may be more comments than were collectively posted over the entire time I was there. The best parts of the piece are when Spivak dishes about his exchanges with Obama.

Take this one, which occurred the morning after Spivak’s profile of Obama was published online:

“I arrived early at my new offices. I hadn’t taken my coat off when the phone rang. It was Obama.

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During every pre-debate punditathon, the talking heads all morph into Don King. Presidential debates aren’t debates–they’re fights. It’s an old criticism, sure. But one thing I noticed is that Chris Matthews and Co. clamor for a Where’s the beef-you’re-no-Jack-Kennedy-moment. They all remember these zingers as having a huge impact. They had a wow factor that stands out. I can see why. I mean who the hell remembers what Walter Mondale had to say on poverty or healthcare?

At last night’s debate in Austin, Texas, Hillary Clinton tried to pop off her own where’s-the-beef style classic. During a tussle over Barack Obama’s alleged plagiarism, she complained–according to a Post story–”I think that if your candidacy is going to be about words, then they should be your own words. That’s, I think, a very simple proposition. And, you know, lifting whole passages from someone else’s speeches is not change you can believe in, it’s change you can Xerox.” Zing!

But I don’t think these kinds of slams work anymore. The debate audience booed Clinton. The line felt canned. I think audiences are more savvy, more politically aware than to give these kinds of barbs any merit. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Obama is just teflon. Maybe Clinton just can’t fire off a putdown without coming off as mean spirited. Maybe the line would have worked if it actually drove home a real criticism of Obama. No matter how hard the Clinton campaign tries, voters just don’t think Obama is a fake.

You can watch the exchange and judge for yourself:

Funniest point made by a youtube commentor: Clinton showed her age by name dropping Xerox.