More election news, this time from a Clinton interview in the WaPo:
In her most definitive comments to date on the subject, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton sought Saturday to put to rest any notion that she will drop out of the presidential race, pledging in an interview to not only compete in all the remaining primaries but also continue until there is a resolution of the disqualified results in Florida and Michigan.
A day after Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean urged the candidates to end the race by July 1, Clinton defied that call by declaring that she will take her campaign all the way to the Aug. 25-28 convention if necessary, potentially setting up the prolonged and divisive contest that party leaders are increasingly anxious to avoid.
“I know there are some people who want to shut this down and I think they are wrong,” Clinton said in an interview during a campaign stop here Saturday. “I have no intention of stopping until we finish what we started and until we see what happens in the next 10 contests and until we resolve Florida and Michigan. And if we don’t resolve it, we’ll resolve it at the convention — that’s what credentials committees are for.
How she will continue to fund her run is in question, though. As the Politico reports:
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s cash-strapped presidential campaign has been putting off paying hundreds of bills for months — freeing up cash for critical media buys but also earning the campaign a reputation as something of a deadbeat in some small-business circles.
A pair of Ohio companies owed more than $25,000 by Clinton for staging events for her campaign are warning others in the tight-knit event production community — and anyone else who will listen — to get their cash upfront when doing business with her. Her campaign, say representatives of the two companies, has stopped returning phone calls and e-mails seeking payment of outstanding invoices. One even got no response from a certified letter.
Their cautionary tales, combined with published reports about similar difficulties faced by a New Hampshire landlord, an Iowa office cleaner and a New York caterer, highlight a less-obvious impact of Clinton’s inability to keep up with the staggering fundraising pace set by her opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
If the Wolfson/Ickes/Penn axis of evil remains true to form, expect a mailer to be released on Monday listing ten times Obama has been late paying things, leading off with the time in 1987 when he was two weeks late returning a movie to Blockbuster. As we all kow, the thing adults do when confronted with their own failings is to attempt to minimize them by pointing out the failings in others.
Finally, Clinton is getting some rave reviews:
Does all this mean I’m ready to come out and recommend that our Democrat readers choose Sen. Clinton in Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary?
No — not yet, anyway. In fairness, we at the Trib want to hear Sen. Barack Obama’s answers to some of the same questions and to others before we make that decision.
But it does mean that I have a very different impression of Hillary Clinton today than before last Tuesday’s meeting — and it’s a very favorable one indeed.
Call it a “counterintuitive” impression.
Richard M. Scaife is the owner of the Tribune-Review.
Nice company to have, I guess, and the Clinton campaign seems comfortable with their new relationship with Scaife.
And that is where we are right now, it seems. An increasingly unpopular leader, convinced of her own infallibility and swayed by a messianic complex guiding her to believe that she alone can win, vows to fight on with no end in sight. Advised by a coterie of morally crippled degenerates and buoyed by the support of a rabid but diminishing core of die-hard loyalists, the campaign will continue on, attempting to re-write the rules and re-write history all the while branding those who refuse to remain loyal as treasonous or traitors to the cause. Certain states don’t count we are told, certain voters are irrelevant, and we must pay no attention to the losses and only look at the scant few successes and latch on to the future firewalls. When those firewalls come and go, new ones are immediately erected. The spin is uncritically swallowed, regurgitated, and those who reject it are told they are wrong or just aren’t seeing things right or just want to lose and have Clinton Derangement Syndrome.
It is so painfully clear what is happening here, and the analogy writes itself. But Hillary has vowed to fight on to the convention, no matter what, giving us all six more months of blood and treasure lost. One more Friedman Unit and everything will magically turn Hillary’s way. Just you wait. You will see.
rob!
if the Dems has a Tom Delay-like guy running things, this would all be over. the SD’s balls would be in vices until they picked a candidate to end this thing to insure they beat the opposite side.
i can’t believe it, but i’m starting to perversely admire that kind of hard-nosed discipline, something the Dems just don’t have.
HRC is telling the Democratic Party to f**k off, and they’re letting her do it.
redterror
Well, if she is as broke as it appears she will disappear anyway. All you vendors out there who are Hillary creditors, start demanding payment. Loudly and repeatedly!
Dug Jay
On the other hand, both the WaPo and HuffPo are reporting the following:
Punchy
Fixed for Clinton’s style.
Mary
Great analogy, but her support is still above the Crazification Factor cutoff point of 27%. She’s still polling in the 40s nation wide, and has more support than that in PA. As I already said at Steve Benen’s place, I think Clinton should stay in at least until the end of the primaries in June.
I support Obama and think he’s a much better choice than Clinton, who has made some really bad decisions in the Senate and who has run an arrogant and slipshod campaign, right down to being so short of money that she has to be harassed in the media to pay some of her small creditors.
But a hell of a lot of voters think she should stay in, and many of them, especially women (including a lot of women on a pop culture board I read) would be furious if she was seen to be pressured out by the supers, Obama or the party itself. Never mind the details that we political junkies have absorbed: medium and low information voters, as well as many high information voters, think that pressuring Clinton to leave is horribly unfair, not just to her, but to the people who haven’t voted yet.
And as much as I like to follow reasonable and consistent rules, the common perception that FL and MI voters are being screwed has to be dealt with. MI and FL should have 50% of their delegates seated, with Obama assigned all delegates associated with the uncommitted votes in MI. The states will have received a punishment for holding primaries early, but the voters will be represented. (The DNC should have gone for this level of punishment in the first place, not a total lockout.)
I think Obama will still have enough of a popular vote and delegates lead by the convention that he will win the nomination as the majority of the remaining supers swing to him. But there is a chance that something could happen to swing things to Clinton. She may even try some nefarious shit that will infuriate me.
But we don’t know that for sure yet. The voters seem to want to let things play out. To shut things down now on the expectation — not shared by many people — that Clinton will get up to some dirty tricks will be profoundly counterproductive. It will piss off many Dems, and independents can be swayed by “straight-talking” St. McCain making hay off this mess.
As much as I prefer seeing Obama get in, I’d take Clinton over McCain any time. If there’s anything the supers can do right now to make it more likely that either of them get the presidency over McCain, it would be to encourage them to focus on beating back McCain throughout the primary process. It’s the kitchen sink and all the associated shit that’s been flung that’s hurting them now.
Anticorium
It’s true. Scaife now thinks Hillary only grazed Vince Foster.
Mary
(Whoops — I meant that she may choose to stay in until June, but if she gracefully bows out after NC and IN, that’s cool, too. She just can’t look as if she’s being pressured by outside forces. Of course, her funding is so weak that she may have to make that face saving move sooner rather than later.)
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
The end is in now in sight. The Obama campaign wouldn’t be putting out this message if they didn’t know the HRC campaign is spiralling down the drain already. Superdelegates are shifting behind the scenes but they won’t come out in the open until after NC to avoid making it look like they foreclosed on the voters, and the money supply is drying up.
This is Grant and Lee at Appomattox. A victor can afford to be gracious.
Califlander
“Blood and treasure lost?”
This primary process is tougher than I’d realized.
John Cole
There was no common perception that they were being screwed until our lady of the moment decided it was in her best interest to do a 180 and pretend they were being screwed. And to the extent that perception exists, I would argue it is limited to Clinton diehards and Charlie Crist, who both have their own self interests at heart.
The rest of us recognize precisely what is going on in FL and MI.
Yeah, that was over the top. Oh well. Artistic license and all that.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Another factor that isn’t making the news is fatigue on the part of the campaign staffs. Hillary’s more top-down campaign was not constructed to take the grinding level of work needed to run a war of attrition all the way to the convention. Her people have got to be exhausted, and the thought of 3 more months of this must be almost more than they can bear.
Obama’s people can draw on replenishments from the ranks of recent converts and grass-roots activists in each new state, but Hillary is more dependant on the same staff moving from place to place. One of these campaigns planned for a long contest and the other did not.
vwcat
I sometimes wonder if Bill is the one who is fueling Hillary’s delusion.
Afterall, it is Bill who is obsessed with righting his legacy and craves the spotlight like a drug addiction.
I think he also cannot understand or accept that the democrats, who he feels should be grateful Hillary is running and that they are wanting to be back, are rejecting them in favor of this ‘unknown nobody’
And as Peggy Noonan wrote last week, Hillary simply cannot figure how Obama – this nobody who dared to challenge her- beat her.
For 20 years the republicans have done everything and anything to try to beat the Clintons and never could. They thought themselves invincible. Then, along comes Obama and he did what the republicans failed to do. Beat the Clintons.
I’m sure they are not just livid but, so shocked and fuddled that they think if they just keep on they will eventually prevail and have history record that the Clintons can be beat.
The myth of the clintons would be over and the Clintons would lose their power and no longer control the party.
Just Some Fuckhead
But a hell of a lot of voters think she should stay in, and many of them, especially women (including a lot of women on a pop culture board I read)
Let them know they aren’t very good supporters if she has to stiff her creditors.
Jesus, the HRC campaign is a total embarassment.
Mary
John, she definitely exploited the existing resentment masterfully (mistressfully?), but I don’t think the media is doing a good job, or will do a good job, of explaining this to voters. Florida in 2000 is still a hot issue for lots of Dems, so I don’t think this topic can be efficiently spun. I think most people who are not diehards will look at “they broke the rules, but hey, we don’t want to disenfranchise anyone, so here’s an adjusted total of delegates” as a fair compromise.
I learned how to drive at Young Drivers of Canada, where the classroom instructor was a completely awesome truck driver who scared us and encouraged us masterfully. I remember him explaining the right of way rules at a 4 way stop to us once, then saying that we should damn well assume that everyone arriving at the stop with us either didn’t know the rules or didn’t care about them. In his words, “You can be right, but you’d be dead right.”
That’s what the FL and MI debacle looks like to me. We’re headed for a serious pile-up if the media narrative doesn’t convince voters. I don’t think there’s the time, will or media cooperation to do this. It’s time to look magnanimous so one of these people gets the presidency instead of, gods help us, McCain.
Hart Williams
Well, like old Huck Huckabee said: She’s not in the math business; she’s in the MIRACLE business.
Praise the Lord and walk out of the church! (If it’d been her, sez she.)
But ask yourself this: If we’re worried about all those extra-Constitutional powers that Bush has granted himself, does anyone really think that Hillary is going to roll back the clock on them … considering her idée fixe on Michigan and Florida (“And if we don’t resolve it, we’ll resolve it at the convention—that’s what credentials committees are for.”)
I’m certainly sleeping better at night thinking about it.
Wilfred
yeah, yeah, yeah, etc. But you will still vote for her if she somehow manages to fuck everyone over and get the nomination. So there.
John Cole
My mother taught us a poem about that for driving:
“He was right, dead right, as he drove along,
But he is just as dead as if he’d been wrong.”
Same thing.
Hart Williams
Is this how she’d run a theoretical Clinton Administration II?
demimondian
No, I don’t think that Bill is behind this. I genuinely think that the whole “Obama showed the Clintons can be beaten” thing is Noonan’s projection; she, like all those who were in Republican party during the 90’s (including, sadly, John), has an unhealthy obsession with WJC and HRC. In addition, as a member of The Village, wants to see the Clintons humiliated, which is even more unhealthy for American.
Ironically, the one thing which will unify the party behind supporting their right to carry on until August would be for *Obama* to make it a “Clintons versus The Village” thing. I kind of wonder if Obama is planning on exploiting that fact to heal the party during the balance of the primary, in fact — I mean, whatever else the Democratic Party may think of the Clintons, we agree universally that they were treated like dirt by the Washington press from day one, and we resent it. Deeply.
I just want to see the primaries over. Big difference
Notorious P.A.T.
I live smack-dab in the middle of Michigan, and I know a lot of people, and none of us feels like we are being screwed. Where is this talking point coming from? It sucks that we didn’t get to have our votes count, but it was through no fault of either campaign. And it darn sure isn’t a reason for Hillary to spend 3 more months talking about what a great president John McCain would make, and what scary black men Barack Obama hangs out with.
demimondian
Hey, John — what are you putting up for post 10000?
It’s your next one!
Just Some Fuckhead
She just can’t look as if she’s being pressured by outside forces.
.. to leave Iraq. Gives ya the chills, doesn’t it?
Mary
Tunch! Tunch! Tunch!
We haven’t had a Tunch post for ages!
Conservatively Liberal
Boy, she really knows how to run a campaign, right? I know that Hillary has claimed that she (and John McCain!) have the necessary ‘experience’ to be commander in chief, but someone should point out to her that Chimpy has already bankrupted the country. So her kind of experience is not necessary, we have already been through seven years of that crap.
She is only blustering about carrying on to the convention if the rumors about her campaign finances are true. Maybe she is trying to drum up some last minute money to pay the bills with, or maybe she is hoping Obama will loan her some money if she quits. ;)
The way she keeps upping the ante as this wears on, I am half expecting her to announce that her supporters will collectively slash their wrists if she is not nominated.
If that is the case, it will be one of the better offers she has made so far…lol
demimondian
Yes, you antisemitic asshole, I will.
Dulcie
More like mass seppuku.
Brachiator
Great commentary. I wonder how Pennsylvania vendors will take to being stiffed by the Clinton campaign.
I caught a little bit of the ABC Sunday news analysis show and watched George Will approve of Senator Clinton continuing her campaign.
Even though she has not crossed the “Ability to Face Reality” threshold, some Republicans are clearly enjoying the spectacle.
mrmobi
I’ve been in some arguments with Clinton supporters online lately, and I think your idea here is correct, Mary. I don’t understand what the big rush is, as long as HRC lays of continuing endorsements of St. McCain.
As I see it, McCain is Bob Dole, part II. I’ve rarely seen a worse public speaker, and he has little command of the issues, much less real understanding. This, my friends, has every appearance of being a blow-out in November.
Right with you on that, Mary. It look to me like there is a re-alignment happening with the supers and I’d also guess that they are going to be deciding this, and before the convention.
cay enns
Hillary is now “The Decider.” She will decide the fate of the party. She will drag everyone down due to her Bushian messianic complex. Superdels better step in, NOW.
Just Some Fuckhead
That’s what the FL and MI debacle looks like to me. We’re headed for a serious pile-up if the media narrative doesn’t convince voters. I don’t think there’s the time, will or media cooperation to do this. It’s time to look magnanimous so one of these people gets the presidency instead of, gods help us, McCain.
Mary, can you flesh out your “serious pile-up” regarding Florida and Michigan? I heard from another commenter that it would be political suicide for the DNC to not seat Florida and Michigan. Is this what you are suggesting? How, exactly? Or if you don’t subscribe to that exaggeration, exactly what kind of serious pile-up is going to happen?
Republican and Democratic legislators in Florida and Michigan voted to defy committee rules and move up their contests. RNC and DNC responded by invalidating all or parts of their future delegations unless the states moved back their contests. They didn’t and so they’re busted.
So, there is in fact no “serious pile-up”.
The Obama camp has magnaminously agreed to splitting the MI and Fl contests down the middle and seating the delegation so those states can, in fact, be enfranchised. But the Clinton campaign has rejected this offer because it doesn’t give her an advantage in two contests she herself said would not count.
Someone who claims to be an Obama supporter should know this and instead of pushing out an ominous HRC talking point about a “serious pile-up” in regards to FL and MI should actively be knocking down ridiculous last minute attempts to change the rules everyone agreed to beforehand.
marjowil
I agree with Notorious P.A.T. I’m in the Detroit area, and I don’t see anyone really sweating the primaries that much, let alone “pissed off.” This talking point is IMO bullshit.
Sure, back in January, when many of us were trying to figure out what to do, whether to vote or not, whether it would count or not, whom to blame, whether to vote “uncommitted” or for a Repub, there was a lot of confusion and anger among anyone who gave a damn. Hell, we couldn’t even “write in” a candidate though their was a line for it… how many uninformed voters wrote in a candidate like Edwards or Obama without realizing it would nullify their votes? And how many just stayed home?
I was pissed at everyone, including my candidate at the time, Edwards, because no one seemed to care (except Republicans) that Michigan’s economy has been in the dumper forever, that the ballot made no sense, that we were screwed by our own Mich Dem party leadership, governor & legislature, etc., who wanted a Clinton mandate anyway.
I was pissed at the DNC because of favoring Iowa & New Hampshire, because they stripped us of delegates instead of, like the Republicans, at least giving us 50%. Pissed that we got like a blip of coverage about the total clusterf*ck of our primary. So some of us voted, and some of us didn’t, and we got over it.
Now, suddenly, Clinton et.al. are so fucking worried about us, holding our banner high, claiming she “won” our state when she barely eked out an empty majority, and do I hear anyone bitching about our supposed disenfranchisement? I’ve had a couple people ask if there would be a re-vote, but they were all Obama supporters anyway. I don’t see a lot of passion or interest generally in the election, except some snark and disgust over the whole fiasco.
Now I just wish Clinton and the media and all these commentators would leave us alone. The time to speak out was early in the year, when we were looking for a voice and willing to risk everything for just a little interest from the media and candidates. All I heard then from the Dems were how terrible we were for breaking the rules, and hey, most of us had no idea that the MDP was going to throw our votes under the bus or that DNC would not come to some kind of agreement with them before it came to that.
We are back trying to make a living again, waiting for November. Don’t presume to speak for Michigan. Don’t tell us how to feel now that Clinton has suddenly discovered we exist. We’ve moved on.
zzyzx
I think we might be starting to see the Clinton death spiral. Gallup’s tracking poll is up to a 10 point difference today which is the biggest that Obama has ever had. Her $3 million fund raiser probably will make it there by the end of Monday, but only barely and with a lot of begging which means that her totals will be down from last month.
Between the two of those, she very well might have another week of explaining why she’s not dropping out which will lead to a further drop in the polls which will lead to lessened fund raising which will lead to more people speculating that she’ll drop out.
She needs a big game changing narrative soon. Wright wasn’t it and attacking is backfiring, so she needs something positive for her instead of negative for Obama.
Meanwhile, Obama is drinking beer and bowling (horribly) on the campaign trail in Altoona and appearing to have a blast.
JackieBinAZ
Over at Hillary’s Web site, they are shooting for $3 million by March 31 and according to the total there, they’ve raised $1.9 million. Ouch!
Mary
The “disenfranchisement” meme (as inaccurate as it may be to many people who have looked at this closely) could be a talking point for the GOPs for the next few months (“Look how unfair the Dems are being to their own voters!”). Obama, if he gets the nomination, would look more like a top-down choice than a people’s underdog. And based on what I’ve seen in the non-political boards and other sites I follow, there is some resentment in those states, especially among women who support Clinton. If even a small number of those voters stay home in November, this could make a difference in a close race.
Of course, appearing to capitulate to MI and FL could also be counterproductive. If MI and FL are seated even at 50% strength, but somehow this contributes to Clinton getting the nomination, this could be spun as her manipulating the party to get what she wants. But I think the perception of “disenfranchised” voters and the party shutting things down hurts the Democratic candidate worse than the Clinton scenario.
Of course she’s a hypocrite. I’ve been disgusted by the way she has spun around after taking that pledge. But splitting the delegates 50-50, instead of at 50% strength of the current proportions, is meaningless. I don’t think that will satisfy angry MI and FL voters.
There’s somebody who posts as “Mary” at The Carpetbagger report. I post there as “MaryL”, so you may be mistaking me for a notorious Clinton supporter. I don’t claim to be an Obama supporter, I AM his supporter (well, as much as I can be, given I’m a foreigner and all). I’ve been posting here for a couple of years, too. I’m not a concern troll and I’m not pushing Clinton talking points. I’ve been wrestling with this and I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that some kind of compromise is needed to get this show on the road.
marjowil
The best way for Clinton not to leave a lot of pissed off supporters not voting or voting for McCain would be for her to try something new: be gracious for once and tell her people that Obama would make an excellent president and we should all get behind him to unify the party for victory. If she would do this, and do it sooner rather than later, and convincingly, most of her people would have enough time to get used to the idea before November. If she keeps running bitter, kneecapping him and praising McCain til summer, it’s gonna be awfully hard for her people to come around in time.
Of course, this would be assuming she would do some unselfish for the good of the party and the country. lots of luck with that.
mikefromtexas
This is about more than just Hillary, the survival of the entire DLC structure is a stake. I read yesterday that one of Penn’s business partners is quitting Monday and going to work for McCain. He sees the end in sight and he’s bailing.
demimondian
Linky, please? I’d like to be able to cite this if I use…
Jeff Altemus
“And that is where we are right now, it seems. An increasingly unpopular leader, convinced of her own infallibility and swayed by a messianic complex guiding her to believe that she alone can win, vows to fight on with no end in sight. Advised by a coterie of morally crippled degenerates and buoyed by the support of a rabid but diminishing core of die-hard loyalists, the campaign will continue on, attempting to re-write the rules and re-write history all the while branding those who refuse to remain loyal as treasonous or traitors to the cause. Certain states don’t count we are told, certain voters are irrelevant, and we must pay no attention to the losses and only look the scant few successes and latch on to the future firewalls. When those firewalls come and go, new ones are immediately erected. The spin is uncritically swallowed, regurgitated, and those who reject it are told they are wrong or just aren’t seeing things right or just want to lose or they have Clinton Derangement Syndrome.”
Ha. That is a brilliant paragraph. Talk about things you wish you’d written. You just created one for me.
wvng
I wish I could see the “Clinton death spiral” that zzyzx sees. Let me rephrase that. As a member of the reality-based community I see it clearly, as clearly as I saw what would, must, happen in Iraq. But as a member of the reality-based community who has watched the Bush administration just do whatever they wanted over the past seven years regardless of reality, I find that reality is overrated as a predictive tool in the current climate. Clinton (the Clinton I supported until pretty damned recently) is clearly acting like Bush, just doing whatever she wants without regards to the results.
Hillary acting just like Bush. I couldn’t have imagined writing that even a month ago. She is following a campaign strategy that is cleverly alienating many of her strongest supporters. James Fallows had this to say the other day:
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/03/joe_conason_crossing_the_line.php
Conason wasn’t just a supporter. He was an active Clinton protector. Way to go Hill.
Dulcie
John, Hillary needs her own category. Democratic Stupidity doesn’t really get to the essence of what her campaign has become.
The Grand Panjandrum
Hey John doesn’t saying she’s in it until the Convention remind you of College Football coaches saying they have no intention of taking another job? Sorta the same thing, innit? Just say what you have to say, until the obvious happens.
Then you wake up one morning and …
Just Some Fuckhead
Mary, if the Republicans were dumb enough to push this line it would simply be pointed out that they also penalized their Florida and Michigan delegations. Hello? Of course, none of this concern trolling about what the Republican might say about us would be even be necessary if the HRC camp would agree to a 50/50 split in the two contests that HRC herself said would not count.
No, Obama would still look like a formidable candidate with a phenomenal grassroots campaign that toppled two icons of the Democratic party. In fact, Obama would win Michigan if new contests were held but new contests cannot exclude voters that voted in the Republican primary because they were told the Democratic primary would not count. And, really how fair is it to award Obama 40% of the voters that did not vote for HRC when there were in fact about a half dozen other candidates in the race at the time and untold millions of voters who didn’t bother to vote because THEY WERE TOLD THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY WOULD NOT COUNT BY *EVERYONE*, including HRC.
You are completely tone-deaf if you think, like Clinton supporters, there is anything to Michigan and Florida other than a desperate attempt by the HRC campaign to renig on the rules they agreed to before the contests started.
I don’t buy your “angry MI an FL voters” agitating for a split that favors HRC. I believe the commenters who claim to be from Michigan and say the only thing they are angry about is HRC not speaking up for them when it counted and now after the fact only being interested in them because it’s the only path to the nomination for her. Of course, the Clintons are renowned for being there for you when they need you.
I do buy into the notion of angry MI and FL Clinton supporters agitating for a split that favors HRC. And I give them the same quarter as angry MI and FL Obama supporters that want a split that favors Obama: none. The voters were told the contests would not count, so many voters did not vote. The only fair solution is to either enforce the penalty of not seating their delegations or split ’em 50/50.
If you’re pushing for awarding the MI contest AS IS, then you’re a pretty lousy supporter because NO ONE, including most of the HRC folks, thinks that is fair. No one. If you have to proactively claim not to be a concern troll, perhaps that should be some sort of clue.
JackieBinAZ
If they seat Florida and Michigan, or even hammer out a compromise, they are ensuring a nice clusterfuck for the next primary season. Party leaders in Michigan and Florida were told up front what would happen … now, instead of facing the consequences, they stand a chance of gaining an extra reward of being extra-special for going against DNC rules. Whether or not you agree with DNC rules, all of the candidates did and signed declarations saying so.
Mary
Bite me. If you’re not going to just call me a lousy supporter, but hint at me being a concern troll, I’m not taking the time to deal with your arguments. It’s a stupid, shitty way to deal with someone who’s been a good faith commenter on this site for a hell of a lot longer than your handle has been here.
west coast
To date I haven’t heard Hillary say anything that couldn’t have comfortably come from the lips of Richard M. Nixon circa 1971. By remaining in the race she’s offering Democrats the opportunity to become pre-Reagan Republicans.
With the DLC everything old is new again.
Just Some Fuckhead
Bite me. If you’re not going to just call me a lousy supporter, but hint at me being a concern troll, I’m not taking the time to deal with your arguments. It’s a stupid, shitty way to deal with someone who’s been a good faith commenter on this site for a hell of a lot longer than your handle has been here.
Suggesting we seat MI and FL to the benefit of HRC based on unfair contests that HRC herself said WOULD NOT COUNT is not operating in good faith. At best, it’s a sly shiv in the back of Obama, at worst your not really a supporter. Somewhere in between those two extremes you’re like the spineless Democrats who jump every time Bush says “boo”, who feel like we must continually accede to the HRC campaign’s increasingly shrill demands as she threatens to push the button that is tied to the explosives around her waist.
PK
I have a feeling that Hillary’s next step is going to be to run as an independent. She will probably declare that because Florida and Michigan were not counted, she was illegitimately deprived of the nomination, so for the good of the nation she is running as an independent. This woman is going to have to be dragged off the stage kicking and screaming!
Just Some Fuckhead
so for the good of the nation she is running as an independent.
That’s the nightmare that keeps Joe Lieberman awake at night.
Rarely Posts
Forget about the candidates. Forget about whose fault it is…the fact of the matter is that people in Florida voted and for the most part they want their vote to be counted (except, I’m guessing, the one’s that voted for Obama). The reason this will be a disaster for the DNC and the Democratic party is because Florida is a swing state. Florida voters could just as easily go for McCain as they could for Hillary or Obama. Piss them off and they might just go for McCain. In fact, I think it is pretty likely that enough of them will pick McCain over Obama because so many people think McCain is a reasonable, polite maverick and not Bush’s clone. Hint: You might want to quit saying Hillary is just like McCain for two reasons. One, she isn’t. Two, that will make it easier for disgruntled Florida voters to go for McCain…you’ll convince people he’s a liberal, for christsake.
Martin
After reading a bit more, I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason that the party and the supers are leaving this alone is simply a matter of principle.
The proportional delegate system and the superdelegate system are both designed to drag out the primary process as long as possible. Even in a one-sided race it would take someone running past Super Tuesday to clinch this thing (even though it might be obvious what the outcome is earlier than that).
Further, the DNC this cycle offered states additional delegates if they would hold their primaries in April, May, and June. If NY and CA had moved their primaries to June they’d have gotten a 30% delegate bonus and it’d be virtually impossible for the race to officially end before then.
The only conclusion I think we can draw from all of this is that they want every state to have every chance to have a say (other than those that break the rules). After all, if Dean and the DNC called on Hillary to drop out, it’d be effectively the same message to PA, NC, and the remaining states that their vote doesn’t count – by sheer will of the party leaders and irrespective of any rules. That (IMO) is a far worse message to put out there than what is happening over MI/FL because it would be a change of message mid-cycle. So, I think the official party position would be that candidates should stay in to the very end unless they themselves choose to pull out – and I think the party is working fairly hard to stick to that message. So far the only superdelegate to call on anyone to drop out is Leahy, I think. There have been other calls to sort it out in June, but that’s after voting is done.
whatsleft
As a Florida voter and native Floridian, and, full disclosure, an Obama supporter, people I talk to here are on the same page as the Michiganders. We are not angry with the party or with either camp, and we fully understood at the time that our vote was not supposed to “count”. We were actually disenfranchised by our thoroughly Republican legislature. However, due to our appalling budget situation, I think they will be getting their comeuppance come election time…
Just Some Fuckhead
Martin, real good analysis except you left out two things:
1. HRC cannot mathematically close the pledged delegate lead. Presumably such a long and interesting contest as you describe would be one where the lead was changing hands back and forth and either candidate could come out ahead. That isn’t the case here and in fact, the losing candidate has NEVER lead.
2. HRC has endorsed our Republican challenger over Obama and has otherwise said Obama is not qualified to be President. I think the folks who designed the attrative scenario you laid about above didn’t envision a bloody fight where one candidate would “throw the kitchen sink” and drive up his negatives AND hers. I think they imagined a process that would allow our candidates to monopolize media coverage for months and months while BOTH training direct fire on the Republicans.
(and you will notice I keep saying “the scenario you describe” because, in fact, this Democratic primary process was specifically and purposefully developed to allow a well-funded candidate to obliterate her opponent by Super Tuesday)
I think those two things have rendered moot any benefits from the system you describe and that is why Richardson and Casey finally moved and why Leahy has started the call for her to concede. Just to be clear, no one has an issue with HRC staying in a race she cannot win and thereby getting Democrats lots of nifty coverage. What we mind is her strategy of kneecapping Obama and driving her own negatives threw the roof and calling into question the legitimacy of the Democratic primary.
Rarely Posts
Really? Where do you live? You must talk to different people than I do.
http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed1/idUSN1824538520080318
Just Some Fuckhead
We were actually disenfranchised by our thoroughly Republican legislature.
In fairness, didn’t I read that only one legislator voted AGAINST moving up the Florida primary? Which would mean that virtually every Democratic legislator supported it?
Just Some Fuckhead
Yea, let’s just throw out all the complicated stuff so it’s simple. Okay, we’ve thrown all that stuff out and now all we’ve got left is Florida voters that ignored the DNC and the Democratic candidates and voted anyway in a primary they were promised would not count.
So why are we rewarding them at the expense of the voters that followed the wishes of the DNC and Democratic candidates and did not vote in a non-sanctioned contest?
Again, you are ignoring the fact that the RNC also penalized the state. Or is this the complicated stuff we are throwing out for the purposes of making this simple? Fine – out with it! No more complicated stuff!
If this set of theoretical angry Florida voters exists, and there is actually no proof they do, then they are certainly equaled (no, outnumbered!) by my mythical set of voters who will burn down the state if they are now told that they should have voted when they were told not to vote because it wouldn’t count because it will now count.
Hint: You might want to quit saying Hillary is just like McCain for two reasons. One, she isn’t. Two, that will make it easier for disgruntled Florida voters to go for McCain…you’ll convince people he’s a liberal, for christsake.
If I have all this crazy power over the voters of Florida then, trust me, Obama will win in a landslide.
whatsleft
Rarely Posts – I live in Jacksonville, which went big for Obama, and I have loads of family in South Florida, where I was born and raised. Sadly, a lot of my outside-of-South-Florida relatives are Repubs :(
whatsleft
JSF – the reason Dems in our legislature voted for that bill is because the disgusting Repubs tied the primary move-up to some very important election reforms. So, it was really in our best interests to vote for the election reforms and take the consequences. The Dems tried mightily to strip the primary move-up or have it voted separately, but we are heavily outvoted – at least until November!
Just Some Fuckhead
JSF – the reason Dems in our legislature voted for that bill is because the disgusting Repubs tied the primary move-up to some very important election reforms. So, it was really in our best interests to vote for the election reforms and take the consequences. The Dems tried mightily to strip the primary move-up or have it voted separately, but we are heavily outvoted – at least until November!
So the bill wouldn’t have passed if all of the Democrats had voted no?
Martin
That doesn’t matter. If she can’t close the gap it doesn’t mean we don’t still have the primaries. If people want to vote for someone who can’t win for whatever reason, thats their right. Nobody called for Gravel to drop out.
This is what has been causing people to struggle with the decision above. Every few weeks Clinton seems to snap back to more-or-less good behavior which I take as a sign that people in the party are talking to her about this – that once she runs out in the weeds, there’s a threat to call on her to end it, and she stops some of the crap and the party calms down, and it repeats. I think if there is no apparent damage to Obama or the party, then they’ll let her run, but my point is that they *want* to let people stay until the end, so the mathematical argument is non-existent to the party. The only argument that I think will sway them is damage, and truthfully, there seems to be limited damage. Wright was the worst of it, and that was going to break sooner or later, so what Ferraro did was bad but was probably inevitable. I’d rather that McCain have taken the polling hit for going there instead of Clinton, to be honest.
Redhand
Nice summary. But then again, given her mendacious personality, why should any of us be surprised?
TenguPhule
If Hillary plans to run the country like she runs her campaign, she doesn’t deserve to be dogcatcher, let alone in government.
Just Some Fuckhead
Who? No one called for Gravel to drop out because no one knew he was still in the race. But yeah, if Gravel was in the same spot as HRC, smart people would be calling on him to drop out.
Is there evidence that the HRC camp was pushing the Wright stuff? I don’t recall seeing any. Certainly she brought it up again after it had died down but that’s because she was asked a direct question about it and she is pathogically incapable of taking a high road.
Rarely Posts
Oh, they exist all right. See the link to a recent poll I posted above. I’m not sure I’d call them angry. Like I said, this is a swing state. Any little thing will push Floridians into the arms of the rival party. And not counting their votes is one of them.
Rarely Posts
You kind of live in the belly of the beast, my friend. I’m a native Miamian, and while I love my blue slice of Florida, the rest of the state—arrgh!
Just Some Fuckhead
Yeah, mine do too then. So I guess we’re at a stalemate where your solution to exclusively benefit HRC by only counting voters that defied the DNC and the candidates and voted in a non-sanctioned primary competes with my solution to enfranchise all the citizens of Florida by splitting the delegation 50/50 and allowing everyone to have a voice.
Yes, and one of those little things is you HRC folks changing the rules afterwards to count a non-sanctioned contest that voters were informed would not count and thereby disenfranchising all the voters that followed the dictates of the candidates and the DNC.
So, clearly, throwing out all of the complicated stuff and operating entirely within your simplistic paradigm, we’re screwed either way.
Just Some Fuckhead
Whatsleft, I’d like it if you could kindly provide some background on this. Could Florida democrats have stopped the primary from being moved if they voted against it or were they outnumbered anyway? I ask because I’ve been under the impression that Florida democrats also worked to move up the primary and that is one of the reasons Florida superdelegates had their superdelegate status revoked.
On the other hand, if they were outnumbered and the bill was going to pass anyway, what is the point of voting for it and therefore looking like you support it?
Just some history on this if you have the time..
Rarely Posts
Pretty much. Unless you can get Obama to step down, I’m pretty sure Florida is going red once again.
It isn’t my simplistic paradigm, btw. It’s just how a lot of Floridians see things. I try to live in a reality based world. You are free to think as you wish, of course.
demimondian
There’s a wonderful video of the House Minority Leader in the State of Florida offering, with infinite sarcasm, an “amendment” — which he asks to have ruled out of order — to to move the primary to Feb 7. Evidently, he was counting on being able to “correct the record” later on; unfortunately for him, what he actually said was caught on video.
The Florida Democratic Party was in on the scam from the beginning.
demimondian
Fixed to have some bearing on reality. Everything else you said is a complete lie.
— demi “Leon High School, Class of 1976” modian
Rarely Posts
How is it a lie? You can pretend all you want that most Democrats are the inverse of goose-stepping Republicans and will fall into line. It simply isn’t true, at least not in Florida. We’ve always been the big tent party, and IMO, a lot of Obama supporters are thumbing their noses at a huge chunk of the party.
Dave_Violence
This is a joke, right? You actually think Hillary! will quit because of money? She’s not going to run out, ever. She’s got patrons with super deep pockets.
demimondian
wow.
Rarely posits, I bow down before you. I have never before dealt with someone whose self-righteousness was so pure, so unalloyed, with such unplumbable depths. You are unique. Nonpareil. Your contribution to the human condition is without compare.
I would say, though, that, like a great painting, though, it would be best if you didn’t reproduce — much of your value lies in your uniqueness.
Martin
I challenge the call. Let’s review the videotape
Looks like the state Dems had no interest in performing a good faith effort to move the date. Had they, the DNC was willing to be lenient on the state and probably would have seated 1/2 of the delegates instead of stripping all of them.
demimondian
They’re limited to $2300 hard money for the cycle, though, and a lot of them are tapped out. Obama’s millions upon millions of $25 donors? He hasn’t even started to tap that well deeply.
Just Some Fuckhead
Well, there we go! We’ve broken out of your simplistic paradigm and come to your conclusion that Obama can’t win Florida no matter what happens with the Florida delegation!
So why, exactly, did you spend all day arguing about the Florida delegation?
And you claim to be in the reality-based world?
Martin
They weren’t pushing it, but Ferraro’s “They’re calling me a racist because I’m white” comment is what moved it from Hannity to the big networks. The video had been out there for months, but the networks didn’t want to be seen as the one introducing it. Someone needed to make the ‘he’s racist against white people’ charge to get that going. Ferraro’s whirlwind news tour as racism victim took care of that nicely.
Martin
That’s sad to hear. Have you guys started on the recall elections for the Dem shitheads responsible for this fiasco or are you still blaming voters in California and West Virginia?
Rarely Posts
Does that mean you can’t answer the question?
Rarely Posts
He can’t because he doesn’t care about Florida, else he would have made a serious effort to solve the problem. I’m glad you were finally able to see that.
Just Some Fuckhead
I dunno. There’s really no evidence in the Clinton campaign of that level of overarching strategery. Instead, I think, shit just happens and they quickly brainstorm it to see how to best use it in a short-term tactical sense.
That’s what happens in a campaign that started with an Underwear Gnome plan:
1. Announce Inevitability
2. ??????
3. Win Nomination.
When that started failing at step 2, they added the following steps:
3. ??????
4. ??????
5. ??????
6. Steal Nomination Somehow.
So, no, I don’t really buy into the vaunted Clinton myths about political strategy.
demimondian
No. It means I *won’t* answer the question.
SATSQ V k, for very large k.
Conservatively Liberal
Fixed.
Rarely Posts The Truth, I don’t respond to you often but I do notice that you like to ask questions that have obvious answers. Obvious to everyone but you, it seems. Your position as a Hillary supporter is clear, and the ‘questions’ you ask are the loaded ones that Hillary supporters parrot all over the place. If you want answers to them, search the site. I am sure that they have already been answered fifteen or twenty times.
This is a perfect example of the crap you spew here. Your leaders made this a problem for Hillary, Obama, the DNC and you, yet you Clintonistas keep framing it as Obama disenfranchising you. What about the agreement that Hillary signed? In that instrument, you have proof positive that Hillary agreed that your vote would not count. She (and the other Democratic contenders) signed a piece of paper that said that your leaders screwed the pooch, and that your voice would not count.
If you are going to try to hold Obama accountable as the sole reason Florida and Michigan would not count, give it up. It makes you look stupid. Are you pissed about your vote not counting? Then hold your state party leaders accountable.
They created this mess. Not Obama. It is not for him (or Hillary) to ‘fix’. They are not responsible for the fuckup.
Martin
He can’t solve the problem! Why the fuck can’t people get this through their fat heads. Florida Democratic party and the DNC can solve the problem if they can pass muster with the DOJ civil rights division.
Stop yelling at Obama and yell at your fucking state party already. But for the 9th time, the problem seems to come down to how can you invalidate half of an election but not the other half without disenfranchising voters or breaking state law. If you can solve the challenge post it here – right now. If it’s so goddamn easy, let’s hear the solution.
Brachiator
People said the same thing about Dubya when he ran against Gore.
Some voters may be very forgiving if they see McCain as more likable and more trustworthy than his Democratic challenger, and Senator Clinton is far more vulnerable on this score than is Obama.
This is a great point, and I think that it says much about Obama’s political instincts that he has spoken plainly and clearly about Clinton’s right to stay in the primary battle. He has neatly side-stepped any potential charge that he might be one of those bad little boys trying to bully poor little Hillary and being unfair to her.
As an aside, I find it interesting that this idea that the party is not being fair to Hillary and that party leaders are trying to bully her resonates so much with some women, when Senator Clinton and her helpmates Bill “just a fairy tale” Clinton and James “Richardson is a Judas” Carville have been far bigger bullies.
By continuing to treat Senator Clinton, and her supporters, with respect on this issue, Obama is allowing them room to come on board his campaign with their dignity intact. I could even see him offering Clinton the VP slot, although I am not sure that she would accept, and some of her hard-core supporters would continue to be steamed that she had to settle for second place.
craigie
This is a dream ticket – not because I like Hillary, but because her presence at VP would prevent the Crazy Right Wing from shooting President Obama.