Totally partial attention on my part, for which I submit my all-too-frequent humble apologies. Audio on the way. Scattered notes after the jump. Audio when/if I get it. UPDATE: 2008Central.net beats us to the audio punch.
There’s an Obama call at 11:30AM, EST.
Quote of the call:
PHIL SINGER: [Jumps in to respond to the suggestion that MI and Penn. and Florida aren’t likely to go Republican. Says that the people of MI, etc are unlikely to forget/forgive being disenfranchised.] I’m sure… I’m sure — and please note the sarcasm in my voice — that the Republicans…are way too [noble?] to exploit that… I’m sure that won’t happen…
UPDATE: Just to be clear (addressing a comment made after the jump): Singer did tell the reporter from BET that she could also email him for the transcript from yesterday’s conference call regarding the Bosnia “misspeaking.” I summarized as “we addressed that yesterday,” because, well, that seemed to be his main point. TURNING THE PAGE, as it were.
DISCLAIMER: These are contemporaneous notes, not a transcript. Dialog is as close as possible to actual words spoken, but please allow for human error and unintentional lacunae and/or elision. Editorial comments are perhaps regrettable but unavoidable, due to the excruciating nature of these calls.
HAROLD ICKES: [Apparently replying to a question from Andrea Mitchell — Hi, Andrea! — about whether the HRC campaign is courting pledged delegates] We are not asking any pledged delegates to switch… though that is within the rules.
[ANDREA MITCHELL CUT OFF! ACK! Phil Singer apologizes.]
[Q from someone in Michigan, asking if the tussle over “re-dos” is a form of grandstanding, notes that there is “little to no chance of MI going Republican in 2008. Also asks why Clinton campaign has not accepted the “offer” from Obama to seat 50-50.]
ICKES: Clinton has been calling for seating under existing rules or “do-overs”.. as for the “offer” of 50-50, that’s the first I’ve heard of it… [there’s just been] a lot of loose talk. [Something about how Obama team can’t make a pro-active offer anyway, any deal has to be negotiated with the DNC.]
PHIL SINGER: [Jumps in to respond to the suggestion that MI and Penn. and Florida aren’t likely to go Republican. Says that the people of MI, etc are unlikely to forget/forgive being disenfranchised.] I’m sure… I’m sure — and please note the sarcasm in my voice — that the Republicans…are way too [noble?] to exploit that… I’m sure that won’t happen… Republicans will stop at nothing to use the fact that Obama is standing in the way of new votes… He needs to be held accountable for standing in the way of the good people of Michigan.
[Q from someone from BET]: Bosnia… she misspoke… something started by a comedian named Sinbad… response?
SINGER: We addressed that yesterday.
ANNE KORNBLUT, WAPO: Why did Clinton float the idea [that pledged delegates could change their minds] if there’s no [courting] happening?
SINGER: Simply stating a fact is not a cause for hysteria…
ICKES: Our focus is on what you’d call superdelegates, what we call automatic delegates…
[Q about “operations on the ground” in Puerto Rico, notes that Ickes voted with the rest of the DNC rules committee to switch PR’s system from caucus to a primary.]
ICKES: Not going to reveal all of our operations… suffice to say that we think it’s an important jurisdiction.
[Q about Harry Reid’s “magical solution” to the impasse.. You say Obama has been working behind the scene to stop revotes, what do you mean by that, what are you accusing him of?]
ICKES: You’ll have to ask Harry Reid… [re: Obama]….It’s apparent to anyone… clear to the most casual observers that the Obama campaign is dragging its feet [nice proper use of singular pronoun!] … doing anything it can in legislatures to prevent that [re-votes] from happening.
[Q: Is this over?]
ICKES: I sure hope they don’t get their hands on the federal budget because they can’t count… we think both candidates will be within a hair of each other by the time the last states vote… if the pledged delegates stay as they are neither candidate will have enough to win the nomination.
SINGER: If they thought this race was over, they wouldn’t be engaged in this assault on Clinton’s character… [then he said something about how the attacks on Clinton were “wholly — I mean W-H-O-L-L-Y” something but I was so amused by him making the distinction that I lost the thread of the quote. Then I had to catch my train.]