The first three or four times I heard this, I discounted it because I couldn't believe the Obama campaign would be that clueless or that stupid. At the congressional district convention, and again at the state convention, the Obama campaign tried to draw out the proceedings thinking that the Hillary people would eventually get frustrated and go home.
At the congressional district convention, the Obama campaign kept wanting all the candidates for national delegate to be able to stand up and say their name to the whole gathered assembly. Since there were well over 300 candidates for national delegate, this would have taken awhile. The Hillary people, so their thinking went, would get tired and go home, and they could thereby collect another delegate. (A certain state party official who shall remain nameless, but who rather looks like Karl Rove, claimed he had "marching orders from Chicago.")
At the state convention, the main delay had to do with the seating of alternates. The credentials committee, dominated by Obama people, presumably with "marching orders from Chicago," kept stalling and stalling. The meeting had already been under way for three hours, and still, there was no provision for seating of alternates, even though it was clear that nearly all of them were entitled to be seated.
The credentials committee meeting was closed, by the way, but Josie Heath, former candidate for U.S. Senate, finally managed to get in. She was gracious and kept asking "how we could help," but, even at that, the meeting dragged on for another 45 minutes. Eventually, after even more wrangling, all the alternates were seated. They turned out to be about evenly split between Obama and Clinton.
Neither of these little ploys got anywhere, and I couldn't believe the Obama campaign even tried this in the first place. The Hillary people would never have left, but would have been enraged nonetheless. Plus, the rank-and-file Obama supporter, after sitting in both meetings with nothing to do for at least four hours, wouldn't have been too thrilled either.
Now, I'm more charitable on these things than most people. Campaigns can get rough, and I can appreciate the occasional creative Machiavellian machination. It had better work though, and this one never had a chance. In fact, considering that throughout the process, the Hillary people generally showed more grit and determination, it might have backfired. The way I heard it, Hillary is the one who picked up a delegate or two at the state level. The Obama campaign has been fairly smart over-all, but these little stunts were nothing but bush league.
The Obama campaign is supposed to be on a "charm offensive." Arianna promptly fell into line. Either Obama's Colorado operation didn't get the word, or the "marching orders from Chicago" got garbled along the way.
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