Reply #11: Ickes.."I could possibly" vote against her interests, he said, "but it's highly unlikely." [View All]

From the WSJ

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121211454989231687.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

"Mr. Ickes said he and other committee members voted last year to strip Florida and Michigan of their convention delegates because "we wanted to send a definitely unambiguous signal" to other states against jumping the primary queue.

Florida and Michigan, he said, have "suffered" for their early votes: The campaigns passed them by, their primaries weren't in the national spotlight and local printers, radio stations and others who would have raked in campaign dollars lost out.

"If you say they should be sanctioned -- they were sanctioned," he said. No other state moved up its primary, so "now it's time to turn our attention to winning a general election," he said.

Florida and Michigan are seen as swing states this fall, with 44 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Excluding them from the nominating process is "an open invitation to the Republicans" to turn those voters against the Democrats, Mr. Ickes said."

About a dozen of the rules committee's 30 members publicly support Sen. Clinton while perhaps eight have endorsed Sen. Obama. They deny that voting on a decision that affects their candidates creates a conflict of interest. "We're a political organization," says Mr. Ickes, and besides, "you'd have to scour America to find 30 people" who haven't participated in this year's campaign.

No other committee member has such deep ties to a candidate, though. Mr. Ickes, 68 years old, was President Bill Clinton's deputy chief of staff and ran Sen. Clinton's 2000 Senate race.

At this weekend's meeting, "I could possibly" vote against her interests, he said, "but it's highly unlikely."