by Glenn Thrush
It’s no secret that Hillary Clinton’s tactical commando Harold Ickes isn’t crazy about the campaign’s top strategist Mark Penn, and a little of that contempt peeked through during this morning’s Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington.
“Many people and many pollsters – including our chief strategist—I daresay, [thought] we we had no chance of winning in New Hampshire,” Ickes, who is working to head off the loss of Clinton super delegates, told reporters. Penn’s internal polling, insiders say, showed Clinton losing by double digits.
When he was asked a question about Clinton’s broader strategy, he demurred, quipping, “I’m not the chief strategist — I’m the assistant sanitation commissioner… I’m not in the high realms.”
Ickes message was for observers to stop their “rush to judgment” about the state of Clinton’s candidacy and her overall chances pending the make-or-break March 4th showdown in Texas and Ohio. Echoing Bill Clinton’s recent comments, Ickes hinted the former first lady might drop out if she loses either.
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“If we lose in Texas and Ohio, Mrs. Clinton will have to make her decision as to whether she moves forward,” he said.
Ickes also called upon DNC Chairman Howard Dean to broker a compromise to seat some or all of the delegates from Florida and Michigan, states which were stripped of their delegates.
He dismissed criticism he had voted to deprive the states of their representation at a DNC meeting in 2007, saying, “As we all know in this city I have a very short memory.”
Ickes traded barbs with PBS commentator Mark Shields, who worked with him on Ed Muskie’s disastrous 1972 campaign. “Together we took him from 72 to seven percent,” Ickes said.