Bill Manzi.com

Senator Hillary Clinton won the primary in Puerto Rico today by a large margin. With about 78% of the precincts in the results.

Clinton 68%

Obama 32%

Another win for Hillary, but to achieve what? Maybe Hillary and Bill are so very much smarter than everyone else that mere mortals cannot divine what the strategy here is. I know I can’t figure it out. Maybe after next week when Obama goes over the delegate count needed to secure the nomination will we begin to understand.

The Rules Committee of the Democratic Party, in a contentious day long meeting, reached agreement on the issue of seating the FLA and Michigan delegations and apportioning the delegates between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The Committee determined that both delegations would be seated, but with each delegate having only a half vote. On the key issue of apportioning the delegates the Committee determined that for Florida the delegate split would reflect the primary result, giving Hillary Clinton a net gain of nineteen delegates. In Michigan the apportioning issue caused some real controversy, with a detrmination made to award based on a recommendation of the Michigan Democratic Party. The formula used was some sort of mish-mash that took into account several variables. On Michigan, from the Washington Post:

But it was the Michigan plan, approved by a 19 to 8 vote, that drew sharper opposition because of the way that state’s delegates will be awarded. Under the plan, Clinton will be given 34.5 delegate votes in Denver to Obama’s 29.5 delegate votes, a percentage distribution recommended by leaders of the Michigan Democratic Party but opposed by the Clinton campaign officials, who said it violates the results of Michigan’s Jan. 15 primary.

The Post has given the new math that has come from the Rules Committee determinations.

The net result was a gain of 87 delegate votes for Clinton and 63 for Obama. Until yesterday’s action, the magic number for winning the nomination was 2,026 delegates. Now the winner will need 2,118. According to a count by the Associated Press, as of last night, Obama controlled 2,052 delegates to Clinton’s 1,877.

The Committee sought to make the best determination possible under difficult circumstances, but the Clinton camp was not happy with the Michigan outcome. They had Harold Ickes there to fight the Clinton fight. And nobody is better than Ickes when it comes to street brawling.

This motion will hijack — hijack — remove four delegates won by Hillary Clinton,” said Harold Ickes, who oversees delegate operations for the Clinton campaign and is also a member of the Rules and Bylaws Committee. “This body of 30 individuals has decided that they’re going to substitute their judgment for 600,000 voters.”

Arguing that the Michigan compromise “is not a good way to start down the path of party unity,” Ickes warned that Clinton had authorized him to note that she will “reserve her rights to take it to the credentials committee” later. Campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson later affirmed that Clinton will reserve her right to challenge the outcome.

And now Clinton will have to determine her best way forward. A floor fight over Michigan? The Convention is coming upon us pretty quickly. Will it be unity, or a fight to the death?

In a new memoir Scott McClellan, the former press secretary to President Bush, writes that Bush sold the war in Iraq with political propaganda and misdirection. From the Washington Post:

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated “political propaganda campaign” led by President Bush and aimed at “manipulating sources of public opinion” and “downplaying the major reason for going to war.”

McClellan defended the war policies of the Bush Administration from the press podium, but has reached a different conclusion now.

McClellan, once a staunch defender of the war from the podium, comes to a stark conclusion, writing, “What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.”

McClellan ranges over a wide swarth of topics, including Karl Rove, Condi Rice, and “the decider” himself.

The book, coming from a man who was a tight-lipped defender of administration aides and policy, is certain to give fuel to critics of the administration, and McClellan has harsh words for many of his past colleagues. He accuses former White House adviser Karl Rove of misleading him about his role in the CIA case. He describes Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as being deft at deflecting blame, and he calls Vice President Cheney “the magic man” who steered policy behind the scenes while leaving no fingerprints.

And President Bush:

Bush is depicted as an out-of-touch leader, operating in a political bubble, who has stubbornly refused to admit mistakes. McClellan defends the president’s intellect — “Bush is plenty smart enough to be president,” he writes — but casts him as unwilling or unable to be reflective about his job.

McClellan deals with many of the subjects that are always fascinating, such as the Bush response to Katrina.

McClellan charges that the campaign-style focus affected Bush’s entire presidency. The ill-fated Air Force One flyover of New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina struck the city, was conceived of by Rove, who was “thinking about the political perceptions” but ended up making Bush look “out of touch,” he writes.

He says the White House’s reaction to Katrina was more than just a public relations disaster, calling it “a failure of imagination and initiative” and the result of an administration that “let events control us.” He adds: “It was a costly blunder.”

McClellan took some real heat from the press over the Valerie Plame affair, and now believes that he was deceived by Rove and Libby.

McClellan admits to letting himself be deceived about the unmasking of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, which resulted in his relentless pounding by the White House press corps over the activities of Rove and of Cheney aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in the matter.

Likely to be an interesting read, and a book that the Bush White House cannot be happy about. Read the Washington Post story here.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=billmanzicom-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=1586485563&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

With discussion of a potential Democratic Vice Presidential candidate somewhat muted with Hillary still in the race Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas is being talked about with some frequency as a potential V.P. for Barack Obama. Sebelius was the subject of a huge hit piece by conservative columnist Robert Novak, and the political blog of the Washington Post featured Sebelius and the Novak piece prominently. Read “The Fix” here. Sebelius is a “centrist” Democratic governor of a red state, and the Novak piece hits her hard on her connection to a major abortion provider in Kansas, and her accepting funds from pro-choice groups. Novak goes as far as to accuse her of “laundering” political money donated by pro-choice groups. As the Fix points out Sebelius may be helped in some quarters by the Novak hit. She responded to Novak in a statement: From “The Fix”

Sebelius spokeswoman Nicole Corcoran condemned the Novak piece as forwarding his “personal agendas and hyperbole.” She pointed out that Novak’s column failed to mention the 8.5 percent decline in the Kansas abortion rate since Sebeliushas been in office and added: “Clearly, the people of Kansas don’t share Mr. Novak’s narrow view of Governor Sebelius, having overwhelmingly voted to re-elect her in 2006 in an endorsement of Governor Sebelius’s centrist, mainstream approach.”

Should be some great political jockeying for that spot on the ticket, and it is already heating up. Read the Novak piece here.