by P. G. Abeles
Despite what they considered willful cheating and attempts at misdirection, the McCracken supporters doggedly held to the belief that there was still a chance. Largely unreported by the mainstream media (who kept insisting that McCracken wanted to “change the rules”)—many of her supporters knew that the DNC had quietly broken its own rules—in favor of Okono. Five states had broken the proscriptions on timing and changed their primary dates: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, and Michigan. As Floridians pointed out, they were the least culpable; the date of their primary had been willfully changed by the Republican-controlled Florida legislature to create exactly this kind of chaos.
The Okono campaign kept to their careful script. The Rules and By-laws Committee’s by-laws, they said, set out with great specificity what punishments would be accorded. They were exactly right. The problem arose, because the punishments specified under the rules, were not the ones that the DNC had applied. Under the RBC by-laws, every state that moved the date of its primary, without prior permission, should have lost half of their delegates—and that was what the McCracken and Okono campaigns had agreed to in January.
However, for some reason never publicly explained, the DNC decided that Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina would be accorded all of their delegates, and Florida and Michigan, none. As a McCracken supporter it was hard to ignore the fact that the states that were not punished under the rules were states where Okono had won (New Hampshire, although technically a McCracken win, accorded each the same number of delegates). And the states that McCracken had won, were stripped of all their delegates. The fact that this would now be publicly debated for the first time, by both sides, gave the McCracken supporters hope that the DNC would be forced to stop playing fast and loose with the rules.
Complicating the issue was the fact that Okono had voluntarily withdrawn his name from the Michigan ballot. McCracken supporters pointed out that there was no requirement for him to do so. Instead, they argued, it was nothing less than a calculated choice made by his campaign not to have his name appear on a ballot in a state where all the polls indicated he wouldn’t win.
If his goal was to honor a commitment to the DNC not to campaign in order to punish states that had moved their primaries forward without permission, they pointed out, then why hadn’t Okono removed his name in Florida where he was considered to have a chance? And why did his campaign run television ads in the Florida market prior to the January 29th primary?
In response to criticism for this double-dealing by the McCracken campaign, the Okono campaign acknowledged the ads, but contended they were overflow from their ads targeted for the South Carolina primary on the 26th. However, there were two problems with this claim that should have been immediately apparent to anyone in the media. Television coverage in South Carolina was the Atlanta market, not the Florida markets. And the South Carolina primary took place on January 26th; the ads were still running in Florida on January 29th. Curiously, her supporters pointed out somewhat acidly, there was no bleeding of McCracken’s South Carolina ads into the Florida market.
The McCracken supporters were livid, not only about the DNC’s chicanery, and the Okono campaign’s willful mis-representation, but the obtuseness and persistent misstatements of the press. Personally, Lacey was filled with guilt. Without knowing the date, she had promised to be the Maryland coordinator for the rally planned in support of recognizing the McCracken delegates (and victories) in Michigan and Florida. Now scheduled, as luck would have it, for the same date as her son’s sixth birthday.
With great trepidation, Lacey had asked her son if he’d consider postponing his party. This was not something she took lightly: Lacey considered her children’s birthdays sacrosanct. In past years, she’d spent many a night pre-party up until the wee-est hours—decorating and cooking and filling super-hero-themed goodie bags. And she knew her son had spent weeks trying to decide on a theme (Power Rangers? Bakugan? Pokemon?); deliberating with enormous care among the kid birthday themes that dominated an entire aisle amid the tiki torches and the silver- anniversary paraphernalia in the party superstore. The crayon- colored moon bounce had been ordered a month ago.
Her sons had been troopers for Claire McCracken. At first, before Lacey became active, she’d brought them to a rally for the candidate most Democrats then believed would be the first woman president of the United States. They’d patiently stood in an interminable line, and then clapped and cheered at all the right places.
Then when Lacey had volunteered to help the campaign before the Maryland primary, the children accompanied her a few times to the Metro station to wave signs, bundled against the freezing cold in every red and blue piece of outerwear they owned. But soon, Lacey discovered she couldn’t bring them anymore. As she stood there one day with her children and another woman at the Rockville Metro—a well-dressed young white male had walked by them and said loudly “Cunts for McCracken.” Another young man said loudly, “There’ll never be a woman president in my America.” Lacey was too astounded to speak. This was Rockville, Maryland! Progressive! Educated! Really DEMOCRATIC! Who on earth were these people? The other Metro riders, who clearly heard the exchange, rushed by the McCracken volunteers, eyes averted, and said nothing.
Lacey worried about exposing her sons to that kind of hostility. Despite their protests, when she next went to wave signs of support at the Metro station, she left them home. It was just as well. As the primary date drew near, Okono supporters became aggressive, repeatedly crossing the sidewalk outside the station to stand in front of the McCracken supporters, purposely stepping backward to block them from distributing buttons, pins, or literature. When the McCracken supporters, trying to avoid a confrontation, re-crossed to the opposite side—the Okono supporters moved in front of them again, over and over. The grandmotherly woman partnered with Lacey gave up and went home. She profusely apologized to Lacey with tears in her eyes—she just couldn’t handle the stress of confrontation with the Okono people, she said.
So Lacey hesitated to ask either of her children to do more. She was surprised when her little guy acquiesced without complaint. He had become as invested as she was. In fact, he wanted to come to the rally!
The moon-bounce guy was irritated when she called to reschedule, but they both knew he still had plenty of time to rent it out. With all the end-of-school-year activities, it was doubtful a moon bounce in the shape of a Hot Wheels racecar would languish in the warehouse. Lacey ordered the cake, picked up and addressed the invitations, sent an email reminder to all the parents, and the birthday was set for the following week.
With the birthday emergency resolved, she turned her attention to the logistics for the event. Connor Murphy was flying in from Portland, and she was looking forward to meeting him face-to-face for the first time. Connor had been one of the most conscientious and active bloggers in the network, and they’d struck up a long-distance friendship. Connor was staying in D.C. with friends. Lacey was incredibly grateful when he’d volunteered to help with the Maryland delegation. Because of their proximity to D.C., the group from Maryland was expected to be one of the largest.
Lacey had booked a hotel room for her friend Jackie and herself in the city. It was going to be a long day: Lacey and her helpers needed to be up at 5:00 a.m. to distribute the state signs, coordinate the donations of water from volunteers in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia, and hand out noisemakers to the Marylanders.
Lacey was meeting both Jackie and Connor at the state coordinators’ meeting that night. Lacey was a few minutes late, but easily found Jackie and Connor in the crowded hotel suite. The state reps were given clear instructions. The organizers were very definite: they didn’t want any problem with the hotel or D.C. police. Only ticket holders and hotel guests were to be on hotel property. As the meeting broke up, many of the coordinators crowded around the small hotel TV as one of the organizers, a professor at American University, was interviewed about the upcoming rally on local television.
Afte
rward, there was a dinner organized at the hotel—and that’s when all the trouble started.
McCracken supporters had come from all 50 states. Lacey knew this first-hand since she and Connor and Jackie were painting the signs for all 50 state delegations. The hotel dining room, rented for the dinner, was filled with McCracken activists from all around the country. The room was buzzing with excitement—protesting was not something these professionally dressed, middle-aged women did. If they had done, it had been 20 years before and in somewhat different attire. But here they all were, introducing themselves to each other. In some cases they’d already met online—others—especially those active in the primaries and caucuses—warmly exchanged hugs and greetings with ‘old friends’ they’d canvassed or volunteered with in other states.
After dinner, the organizers gave last-minute instructions to the large group. The strategy they had decided to adopt was to emphasize that they were protesting not the rulers, but the rules. Or, more particularly, how those rules had been selectively applied. Some insisted the participants refer to it as a rally, not even a protest—so concerned were they that the event not appear coercive or critical of the Democratic establishment. Certainly, no one should criticize the fellow Democratic candidate Okono, they insisted. They would impress the Democratic Party elders with how law-abiding they were, how respectful of the process—how mutually committed they were to Big D democratic ideals.
But history is littered with examples of a naïve and respectful yeomanry petitioning a perfidious king or lord for redress—only to be tortured or executed as it became clear the authority whose intervention they were seeking was in league with their persecutors.
It was a large group of mostly women, and as is often the case, there was a lot of discussion. Finally, a tall woman in a black pantsuit stood up in the back of the room. In a lanyard around her neck she wore RBC credentials. She was visibly angry.
“You don’t get it!” she yelled at the organizers standing in the front. Everyone strained to see what was going on.
“You don’t get it!” she yelled again, more loudly this time. There was no microphone, but her voice carried, even in the large room.
“They’re laughing at us!” she yelled, her voice pulsing with anger.
Everyone looked at each other perplexed. Who? Who was laughing?—the room started to hum as everyone asked their neighbor. The organizers made repeated calls for quiet, which the audience, being mostly women, respectfully listened to, and completely ignored.
“I just came from a meeting of the committee,” the woman said.
“They’re laughing at us with our little peaceful…rally.” She spat out the words. The room was agog. A number of people rose to shout her down; unsuccessfully. They were promptly quashed. The McCracken supporters wanted to hear this. The room resonated with cries of: “Let her speak.”
An area around the woman had cleared.
“You want to make a difference? Forget being nice! You need to break the doors down!” There were shouts of “No!” from the audience—but she held the floor and their attention.
“You don’t understand,” she said, more softly now.
“It’s all decided,” she said her voice laced with sarcasm. “Whether you carefully stay off hotel property (she motioned to one of the organizers, who minutes before had presented a painstakingly produced color-coded map of the hotel grounds to show which areas were off-limits)—“and follow all the rules. It doesn’t matter—because tomorrow they’re going to give this thing to Okono. They’re even giving him some of McCracken’s delegates.”
This was, apparently, too much. The room erupted. All of the McCracken supporters sitting carefully at the white-clothed tables looked at each other in horror. Could it be true? How did the woman know? Who was she? What was going on?”
The organizers moved quickly to calm the group. The woman, obviously upset, left the room with some friends, and the meeting gradually returned to order. But the dining room was full of urgent whispers. How could it all be decided? Who was she? Where did she get her information? No. No. No. She couldn’t be right. What was going on? The news was too disturbing to absorb. The one thing all the McCracken supporters agreed on was that it couldn’t be true. The campaign had twelve sure votes on the committee, didn’t they? Didn’t they? They had twelve votes…they had twelve votes. McCracken supporters were walking around the various groups breathlessly muttering the vote tally—Twelve votes. Twelve votes. Like an incantation that could ward off evil.
In the end, it didn’t matter that McCracken had twelve votes. In retrospect, McCracken’s supporters should have focused on how many votes Okono had. Okono had eighteen, and thanks to the duplicity of the DNC in allocating tickets—he owned the room. McCracken supporters who became unruly (people who, in other situations, the media might describe as “little old ladies”) were unceremoniously manhandled like professional criminals by the cyclopean ‘security’ men—while carefully coordinated outbursts from Okono supporters were studiously ignored.
The question of whether or not South Carolina and Iowa should be punished was not revisited by the Committee. The settlement on Florida came fairly swiftly. The McCracken campaign argued that under the RBC’s own rules, Florida should have been penalized by 50%, not 100%, as was done. This time everybody was watching. The Okono campaign had no room to maneuver.
However, Michigan was another matter entirely. Okono had voluntarily removed his name from the ballot. Correspondingly, he had received only a few write-in votes. In any contest, if a participant voluntarily abstains from competing, the game is automatically considered forfeit. According to the RBC’s rules, Michigan’s delegates, like Florida’s, should have been reduced by half, netting Claire McCracken 33 delegates and Okono none.
However, added to her nineteen “halved-votes” from Florida, McCracken would end the day with 52 additional delegates. For all the Okono supporters and pundits who claimed the numbers for McCracken “didn’t add up;” they added up just fine—within 55 points of Okono. Too close. Therefore, the 30 unelected members of the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and By-Laws Committee decided to award all the delegates elected by voters who had pulled the presidential lever for ‘undecided’ in Michigan to Okono—plus all the votes from the other three Democratic candidates who had since dropped out. Then, for good measure—they gave Okono four of McCracken’s delegates, as well. When asked by confused reporters for the scientific method the Rules and By-laws Committee had used to reapportion the delegates—the RBC chair admitted there was none.
“It just felt right,” he said, shrugging.
Chapter Thirty-Four
June 2008
Rockville, Maryland
IN THE AFTERMATH of the DNC’s Rules and By-Laws Committee meeting, it would be hard to overestimate how angry the McCracken supporters felt. Certainly, there was a curious psychology at work. Many of her supporters self-identified as “good girls.” So, it was easy to understand their affinity to Claire McCracken, who was, after all, the ultimate good girl, the apogee of correct womanliness to a whole generation raised on the premise that working hard and being “nice” was more important than being anything else.
Certainly, being smart or beautiful, or rich or powerful might be praiseworthy in the abstract. It might be well to be any one of those things (or if you dared brave your sisters’ envy, a few of them all at once)—but you better be a card-carrying member of Nice, or you could expect not just the full opprobrium of the male establishment, but the strident disapproval of most women, as well.
But it wasn’t just female psychology that was affected. Phylogeny, or perhaps a less abstract form of Darwinism, had long since determined that super-competent woman like Claire McCracken were ipso facto ball breakers, and a society that valued survival could not be in the business of busting balls. Whether that accounted for the blistering and unremitting philippics she received was hard to say. What one could be sure of is that they didn’t have th
at much to do with Claire McCracken. After all, she was no “bra burner,” no “libber.”
The honest, irrefutable truth was that Claire McCracken had made remarkably traditional choices in life. When it had been a question of following her own career prospects or supporting her husband—she’d supported her husband. When her involvement in touchy social or political issues became a sticking point for her husband’s political enemies—she’d quietly stepped aside. Everything she’d done for most of her career spoke powerfully to the fact that she considered her husband’s career, her husband’s life—more important than her own.
Traditionally, people who are powerless in a society and want more are exhorted to improve their chances in life through education. So she had. At a time when a girl from a lower-middle-class family might have reasonably skipped college, she’d attended one of the best. And when her fellow students and professors, animated by her prodigious talents, had encouraged her, she’d gone to one of the best law schools, as well.
But as it turned out, for women, education was only half the answer. Did it improve their socio-economic prospects? Absolutely. But did it raise them proportionally to their professional accomplishments? Not hardly. Skeptics of a gender wage gap liked to point out that women chose traditionally less well-paid professions and more often worked part-time to care for children. All true. But comparing men and women with the same credentials working the same hours, women still earned less than their male counterparts—and they didn’t just earn less than white men—but black men and Asian men, as well.
Many women of Claire McCracken’s generation were the first women in their family to work outside the home. They had experienced discrimination first-hand, watching as a less- qualified, perhaps younger man was promoted above them. They had had years to internalize its meaning. Promoting a man was the safe choice. The women who were passed over could be depended on to smooth his path (it wasn’t his fault!). In contrast, men who were passed over became querulous and disruptive.