The Clinton dynasty

Ickes Returns to Democratic Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Panel

By JONATHAN MARTIN

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The Democratic National Committee’s summer meeting here late last week was starkly different from the gathering of its Republican counterparts earlier in the month. There were no surefire news-making speakers like Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey or former Speaker Newt Gingrich, nor was there consideration of any made-for-cable-news resolutions, like one that tried to bar a pair of television networks from sponsoring future presidential debates.

Rather, it was a sedate gathering where routine party business was conducted routinely by national and state Democratic officials in a suburban Phoenix resort.

But when Harold M. Ickes walked into the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting on Thursday afternoon and rejoined the panel, at least one longtime Democratic strategist raised her eyebrows.

“He predated the Clinton era, but when I saw Harold reappointed to the D.N.C., he surely, in my judgment, symbolizes the return of the Clintons,” said Donna Brazile, a fellow member of the rules committee.

Mr. Ickes said he was put back on the committee by Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the national committee and herself an ardent advocate for Mrs. Clinton in 2008, but he also acknowledged that he “actively sought” the seat.

“It is in my view the most important committee at the D.N.C. because of its role in shaping the nomination process,” he said, adding a bit mischievously, “The goal is to design rules to nominate the strongest candidate for the general election.”

That, he added, would be up to the voters but there is no question who he believes that candidate is.

Mr. Ickes, 73, is a fixture in the Clinton’s world. He ran Bill Clinton’s New York campaign in the 1992 Democratic primary and served as a deputy chief of staff in Mr. Clinton’s White House. He was a top adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign, and Mrs. Clinton’s chief liaison at the D.N.C. during her primary battle against Barack Obama. From his perch on the rules committee he memorably railed against a compromise on disputed delegates in the waning days of the Democratic primary.

At a notably less sedate national committee meeting in late May 2008, Mr. Ickes argued in vain against what he called the “hijacking” of Mrs. Clinton’s delegate share from two disputed state primaries. “I am stunned that we have the gall and the chutzpah to substitute our judgment for 600,000 voters,” Mr. Ickes said at the time.

A few weeks later, Mrs. Clinton conceded the race to Mr. Obama. The following year, with Mr. Obama as party leader, Mr. Ickes left his rules committee post. According to party records, he had served on the rules panel since at least 1992.

“I was not reappointed after the 2008 election for some pretty obvious reasons,” Mr. Ickes said.

Now, five years later — with Mr. Obama a lame duck and speculation soaring about whether Mrs. Clinton will seek the White House again — her procedural maven is back in his old position at the national party. The rules committee is tasked with setting the guidelines governing the presidential nominating process.

Mrs. Clinton does not lack for support among national committee members — that much was obvious by the rate in which unofficial campaign buttons promoting her for 2016 were sold in the hallway outside the conference room here.

But with Mr. Ickes, a canny tactician with decades of presidential campaign experience, again on the rules committee, she has a strategist on a key committee who could advocate for her interest.

As one party official put it, Mr. Ickes not only knows how the party works but effectively “wrote the rules” for the national committee over the years, at least until he was thwarted by Mr. Obama.

Mr. Ickes said he did not rejoin the committee at the behest of either Mr. or Mrs. Clinton but conceded that he understood the meaning of his reappearance as Democrats begin to consider life after Mr. Obama.

“I was on the rules committee for years and years, but, yes, I can understand people reading it that way,” he said.