{"id":48946,"date":"2016-09-13T07:14:03","date_gmt":"2016-09-13T11:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=48946"},"modified":"2016-09-13T07:16:58","modified_gmt":"2016-09-13T11:16:58","slug":"ex-dnc-chair-calls-for-clinton-contingency-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=48946","title":{"rendered":"Former DNC Chairman Calls For Clinton Contingency Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--more-->By Kyle Cheney<br \/>\nPOLITICO<\/p>\n<p>A former Democratic National Committee chairman says President Barack Obama and the party\u2019s congressional leaders should immediately come up with a process to identify a potential successor candidate for Hillary Clinton for the off-chance a health emergency forces her out of the race.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow is the time for all good political leaders to come to the aid of their party,\u201d said Don Fowler, who helmed the DNC from 1995 to 1997, during Bill Clinton\u2019s presidency, and has backed Hillary Clinton since her 2008 presidential bid. \u201cI think the plan should be developed by 6 o\u2019clock this afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fowler said he expects Clinton to fully recover from her bout with pneumonia, which forced her to leave a Sept. 11 memorial event early and cancel an early-week fundraising swing. But he said the Democratic Party would be mistaken to proceed without a contingency plan. The party&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads.democrats.org\/Downloads\/DNC_Charter__Bylaws_9.17.15.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">existing rules<\/a> empower the DNC to name a replacement candidate but include few guidelines or parameters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s something you would be a fool not to prepare for,\u201d he said in an interview on Monday. He added a note of caution, should Clinton attempt an expeditious return to the campaign trail.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe better get well before she gets back out there because if she gets back out there too soon, it might happen again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Fowler noted that at one of his first-ever DNC meetings, in 1972, he supported a decision to nominate Sargent Shriver \u2014 a member of the Kennedy clan \u2014 to replace Thomas Eagleton as George McGovern\u2019s vice presidential nominee, the only time either major party has replaced one of its two national nominees.<\/p>\n<p>Though that transition was relatively seamless, he said, replacing Clinton would be much more acrimonious and could lead to intense lobbying by loyalists to Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. That\u2019s why, he argued, the party should be prepared.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a different time, with a lot more people who like to express themselves and perhaps wrest control,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m sure some of the Sanders people would want to get into play and some of the Biden people. I think you\u2019re likely to have at least discussions and perhaps controversy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Clinton campaign and DNC did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Interim DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile said Sunday that she\u2019s glad Clinton appeared to be feeling better and looks forward to \u201cseeing her back out on the campaign trail and continuing on the path to victory.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"story-related\">\n<article class=\"story-frag format-sm\">\n<figure class=\"thumb\">\n<div class=\"fig-graphic\"><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<div class=\"summary\"><\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who served as general chairman of the DNC during the 2000 election, agreed that the party\u2019s vacancy rules should be modernized, but he said that discussion should wait until after the election.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is absolutely no chance Hillary Clinton will withdraw from running for the presidency,\u201d he said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n<p>Rendell, a Clinton surrogate, said he\u2019d battled through three bouts of walking pneumonia in his gubernatorial campaigns and called it a common ailment during grueling bids for office. He added that Clinton is likely to put to rest any concerns about her health when she appears alongside Trump at the debates.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen Hillary Clinton participates in three debates, stands on her feet for 90 minutes in all of those debates \u2026 it will dispel any remaining doubts that any Americans have about her physical fitness to serve,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Rendell noted that Ronald Reagan appeared unsteady in his first debate against Walter Mondale in 1984, and some speculated about his health at the time. But by the second debate, he had bounced back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe performed 100 percent, was at the top of his game,\u201d Rendell recalled, suggesting the second debate erased all memory of his first performance. Reagan went on to win that year in a landslide.<\/p>\n<p>There are still plenty of unknowns about Clinton\u2019s bout with pneumonia, following her near-collapse after leaving Sunday\u2019s Sept. 11 memorial service in New York City. But if her ailment were to persist and prevent Clinton from continuing as a candidate, it would trigger an obscure Democratic Party mechanism that would plunge the presidential race into turmoil.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s an extremely unlikely scenario; Clinton\u2019s team says she\u2019ll continue her march toward Election Day later this week. In addition, the campaign plans to make more detailed medical records available soon, a spokesman announced Monday morning.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"story-related\">\n<article class=\"story-frag format-sm\">\n<figure class=\"thumb\">\n<div class=\"fig-graphic\"><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<div class=\"summary\"><\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/aside>\n<p>But just as Trump\u2019s late-summer swoon <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2016\/08\/insiders-to-trump-drop-out-226689\" target=\"_blank\">had Republicans wondering<\/a> about his ability to continue his campaign, Clinton\u2019s sudden health care scare has skittish Democrats contemplating contingencies as well.<\/p>\n<p>If Clinton could not physically continue her candidacy, she would have to voluntarily cede her nomination, creating a vacancy at the top of the national ticket. If she did, <a href=\"http:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads.democrats.org\/Downloads\/DNC_Charter__Bylaws_9.17.15.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">party procedures<\/a> give the chair of the DNC authority to call a \u201cspecial meeting\u201d to vote on a replacement nominee. In this case, because chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned in July, her successor, Brazile, has that authority.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe locus of activity for all of those political questions would then move to the 447 members of the Democratic National Committee,\u201d said Elaine Kamarck, a two-decade veteran of the DNC Rules Committee. \u201cAnd it\u2019s wide open, and all of the political concern would work out in the context of discussions among the members of the DNC.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fowler argued that the party would be wise to immediately set up an even more detailed process for those who might seek to be Clinton\u2019s successor \u2014 from a signature-gathering requirement to a process for receiving nominations during the DNC meeting. All of which, he said, would help ensure confidence in the process and lead toward a broad coalescing around a successor candidate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere should be a concerted, unified effort on behalf of the president and the Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate and from the officials of the DNC as well \u2014 I think unanimity would be absolutely critical,\u201d he said. \u201cThe quicker that unanimity develops, the easier and better the process.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kamarck noted that the process hasn\u2019t changed in the decades since Eagleton was replaced over mental health concerns. But Fowler said the politics surrounding the top of the ticket would be more intense \u2014 and he noted that any change would occur a few weeks later in the campaign season than the switch in 1972. It would likely take two to three weeks to convene the DNC for a special meeting, he said, and intense wrangling could be paralyzing.<\/p>\n<p>Though typically DNC rules permit members to appoint proxies to vote for them if they can\u2019t appear in person, it\u2019s prohibited when voting \u201cto fill a vacancy on the National ticket,\u201d per the party\u2019s bylaws.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"story-related\">\n<article class=\"story-frag format-sm\">\n<figure class=\"thumb\">\n<div class=\"fig-graphic\"><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<div class=\"summary\"><\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Similarly, though only 40 percent of DNC members are typically required to be present at meetings \u2014 with another 10 percent voting by proxy \u2014 a vote to replace a national nominee requires a majority of the full committee present.<\/p>\n<p>Another challenge: Most states have passed the deadline to change the names of candidates on their ballots, meaning Clinton\u2019s name would likely be required to appear, short of court-ordered solutions or changes in state laws.<\/p>\n<p>Kamarck argues that this issue will be moot because it\u2019s up to members of the Electoral College \u2014 typically loyal partisans \u2014 to cast formal ballots for president. If a replacement for Clinton were offered, those electors in states won by Democrats would almost certainly cast ballots for the party\u2019s preferred nominee.<\/p>\n<p>Still, Clinton\u2019s campaign is going to great lengths to quash any talk that she won\u2019t fully bounce back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think by the middle of the week she\u2019ll be out there campaigning as aggressively as ever,\u201d Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said on Monday.<\/p>\n<div class=\"story-interrupt pos-alpha format-m\"><\/div>\n<p><i>CLARIFICATION: The first sentence has been clarified to reflect that Fowler is calling for a process to identify a potential successor, not that he is calling for that potential successor to be immediately identified.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2016\/09\/hillary-clinton-health-replace-contingency-228037#ixzz4K8Kfe9pJ\">http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2016\/09\/hillary-clinton-health-replace-contingency-228037#ixzz4K8Kfe9pJ<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48946\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}