On Demand
DNC Delegate Decision
Monday, June 02, 2008
The Democrats have met to discuss the fate of the Florida and Michigan delegates. Here to analyze the situation is Liz Halloran, senior writer with U.S. News and World Report, Lesley Clark, national correspondent for the Miami Herald, and Gordon Trowbridge, Washington reporter for the Detroit News.
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Comments
Questions for your guests:
1) There was a large bloc of delegates in MI that were officially "uncommitted." Are those same individuals now compelled to vote for Obama at the convention or have they been replaced by Obama delegates? What happens to the delegates won by the other two Democrats on the MI ballot?
2) All of the Democrats were on the FL ballot. What happens to the delegates that were pledged to candidates other than Clinton or Obama? Are they free to vote as they please? Might this change the eventual delegate count from FL, however minimally?
The DNC needs to overhaul the presidential nominating process to avoid another FL/MI mess. The delegate system should be completely abolished. The party nominee should be the candidate receiving the most popular votes. To make vote counting easier, all states and territories should vote by primary. Voting by caucuses should be abolished. A handful of NH and IA politicians can’t be allowed to hijack and screw-up the voting calendar for 48 states every 4 years until the end of time. To end the IA/NH reign of terror, a rotating regional primary calendar should be devised. For the general election, the electoral college should be abolished and the presidency should be given to the candidate who receives the most popular votes.
i have to blame dean for bad leadership. this should have been handled better from the start. dean used the same solution as the GOP, EXCEPT he waited until the 11th hour
seth,
I agree wholeheartedly. This seems needlessly divisive and complicated.
Questions for the Obama campaign:
It looks as though the Clinton campaign is considering taking this to the credentials committee, thus putting off a resolution while she continues to use the popular vote argument with superdelegates. They think they have a case for the committee.
It looks as though if the decision had gone totally her way on Saturday that Obama still would have been closer to clinching than she. She would still have made the popular vote argument but would have been robbed of the issue to take to the credentials committee and he would have been able to go to the superdelegates and brag about how magnanimous he was. Why didn't they do that? It seems to me that it could have been the ultimate jujisu move.
I 2nd hjs: Dean's leadership was zero. I wouldn't hire Dean to run a lemonade stand. To me, #1 culprit in FL/MI fiasco are Iowa and NH. Their fanatical insistence on voting before the other 48 states, forces those states to play musical chairs by changing their voting dates every 4 years. Do Iowa and NH have nuclear weapons with which to threaten the DNC and RNC? The DNC and RNC need to give a WWE smackdown to Iowa and NH and smash their strangehold over the primary calendar.
It's true. The big mistake was trying to "punish" voters in these two states because their leaders moved the primary dates. Who cares when they vote? And why punish voters? What did they do? It was a huge, dumb thing to do.
The second mistake was then going back on their word. If you say you're not going to seat the delegates, then don't seat them! They laid out the rules back then. You can't change them now. Now they've opened the door for controversy.
DEM. MATES
Women demand
And will not stop--
Hillary has
To be on top.
How about Donna Brazile for DNC leader?
This is the wrong gig for Dean. He has strenths in other areas. This isn't one of them.
there was never a doubt that MI/FL would be seated makes me think no one should have taken their name off the ballot, though.
we should have regional or national primaries. no more caucuses.
the super delegates should do their job now and support one of the candidates.
I think what Hillary is not taking into account is all the people who have changed their minds since she began! She'd have had my vote if she hadn't made a fool of herself and shown herself to be so ungracious and mean. I was disgusted with her long ago.
Maybe a lot of people who originally voted for her have changed their minds, too!
Obama has my vote now.
Clinton uses her own math for the popular vote. She's lying...as usual.
Here is the popluar vote - http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html
Why is Clinton allowed to just make up things. I find it funny that no one challenges these comments and that her supporters actually repeat this stuff.
Brian, I think that you got the popular vote count wrong. Clinton leads in the popular vote with FL,MI and 4 caucus state estimates plus all uncommitted in MI going to Obama.
She leads by over 65,000 votes. The other caucus states do not have popular vote estimates.
plz also mention that voters in PR don't vote in the actual election. Her mandate there is equivalent to a mandate from, say, the French or even penguins.
And where does Lani Guinier get off saying Clinton is the better national candidate? She's incredibly divisive among Democrats, more so nationally.
What about all the delegates for Edwards? Now that Edwards supports Obama, will Obama get some of those delegates?
11
votes could change on both sides
It's Clinton, not Obama, whose behavior is reminiscent of Florida in 2000. The DNC attempted to correct the effects of an undercount caused by its own defective edict, which resulted in a ballot that did not list all candidates and a suppressed voter turnout, with many voters, particularly Obama supporters whose candidate was not on the ballot, not turning out.
Clinton has tried every trick she, Wolfson and Ickes could contrive to prevent that retabulation. It's she who does not want to count the votes.
What exactly does Clinton expect to happen after the last primary? Why should the superdelegates wait until July?
If New York had moved up the primary to be threatened with the same predicament as MI & FL, I would not have bothered to go vote. I am sure many people in MI & FL felt the same way, so how valid are those primary results anyway. How can Sen. Clinton honestly say that no one in MI would have voted for Obama, had his name been on the ballot? As far as I know, it is not illegal to take your name off a ballot, so why does he need to be punished. Obviously, the Rules & Bylaws Committee exits to clean up these types of messes (even though they are partially to blame). I am glad that these two states were not completely disenfranchised, but rules are rules, they had to be punished in some way.
Let's just imagine that every vote but in MI and FL had been the same. Would senator Clinton be petitionning the DNC to count them all and not
"disenfranchise the voters."
Ickes' vulgar and petulant behavior was embarassing. He typifies what many people find so distasteful about the Clintons and their acolytes.
This has nothing to do with Dean, he is not the Commissar, just the head of the DNC, a referee, really.
Clinton's approach to the FL and MI primaries if very revolting, it is very much spin, it is very manipulative, it is driven by arguments devised by never-resting $500/hour attorneys. It is devoid of fairness and common sense. It has turned me off completely from her as I've tried to be nice.
Another note, I saw a C-SPAN interview of Hillary from 1996 and she was awesome. That is who I would not mind being President, not the crass politician who filled her later shoes.
I can't believe what's going on in Michigan: what Hilary is doing is asking that the decision to exclude the Michigan primary be retroactively overturned in order to undo its effects--namely, the exclusion of the Michigan primary votes. But the other candidates' taking their names off of the ballot (and Obama wasn't the only one to do this out of deference to the decision) is among those effects and should also be undone. She can't have it both ways. And she certainly can't claim to be the champion of otherwise silenced voters. The only legitimate solution in Michigan is to hold a new primary. Who's going to pay for that?
why dont we call a spade a spade...
- hillary has lost because she ran an awful campaign, and was inconsistent w/ her message. NOT because she is a woman. she is exploiting the REAL sexism many women experience so that she can gain the nomination through the back door.
- hillary making this a 'civil rights issue' is shocking and trivializes the various civil rights fought for by women, and minorities.
It was an important strategic move not to concede the 4 Michigan delegates to Clinton. This makes the next argument about the 4 delegates, not the full 73-0. Give them a hand and they'll take an arm, as we've seen.
Brian is right. According to CNN, if the Obama votes in MI are counted and approximations are made for the caucus states, Obama leads in the popular votes. That's without S.D. and Montana, the states that vote tomorrow.
Amazing! How perfectly deceitful that delegates were STOLEN? By rights, without both names on the ballot, MI cannot even being considered a contest. In fact, Obama had the DNC votes to have had the MI delegate count split 50-50 - but graciously did not. Just amazing that Clinton would even make such an argument votes were taken from her. Obama was nowhere a few years ago and has run a perfectly masterful campaign indicative of his leadership. Compare that against the Clinton campaign.
The Democratic nomination race is a race for delegates. Period.
Also: There is no such thing as "the popular vote" in a nominating season that includes primaries, caucus, open contests, closed contests -- i.e., there is no way to line up all of these ways of casting votes in such a way as to make a fair metric.
Moreover -- unlike the general election, which is held on one day -- nominating contests are conducted over time.
In this case, 5 months of time -- enough time for the popular will itself to shift.
Clearly, Clinton's institutional backing and name recognition was an enormous benefit to her in the early contests.
But recent polls in New Jersey and California show that Obama -- who lost those states to Clinton by 10 and 8 points, respectively -- now is preferred to Clinton by 7 and 6 points, respectively.
This suggests that, if the contests in New Jersey and California -- and, presumably, elsewhere -- were run again today, Obama would receive more votes and, very likely, more delegates.
This dynamic of shifting voter preferences -- i.e., the fact that the popular vote is a moving target -- would have applied, even if every single contest had been run as a primary of the same kind (closed or open).
Election rules do not serve guarantee the ideal candidate gets elected, they provide a set of rules, understood and accepted by all candidates, that clarify what the candidates need to do in order to win.
Even if Sen. Clinton's dubious claim to have 'won the popular vote' or 'have momentum' is taken uncritically, for the party or superdelegates to invalidate the existing delegate selection process at this point is absurd. I voted for her in the New York primary, and would be happy to have her as President. But she has lost the primary contest. Maybe the Democratic Party primary process is flawed, but the time to fix it is after the convention, not when the contest is reaching its conclusion with a clear winner under the existing rules.
That Puerto Rico speech is just astounding. With that ridiculous representation about the popular vote Clinton really makes clear that she doesn't respect the people that voted for Obama.
#21 Albert makes the key and overlooked point: every voter in MI and FL was under the impression that the primaries did not count. Hundreds of thousands of people at minimum DID NOT VOTE because the elections were not going to be counted. Then you turn around and count them? Or try to without acknowledging this huge issue?!
Blame Dean, Blame the rules, Blame the DNC, Blame anyone except the petulant, sore loser who ran a lousy campaign.
well, they should have had a 2nd primary but no one wanted to pay for that. if they would have they would have saved this headache
Correction re Michigan:
The Obama "votes" in MI have been reconstructed from votes for uncommitted delegates. Clinton claims that those votes don't count. She is disingenous in asserting that the votes were not for Obama.
Much as I would like to see a woman as President, Hillary's fuzzy math ( in her own interest) only underlines her 'politics as usual- it's all about her election' stance.
If PR can't vote in November why include their popular vote in the total?
As a resident alien I shudder at this idea of the USA model of democracy worthy of being exported to the rest of the world, as the superior to anyone other society.
I saw count every vote, and count every vote equally.
When you can't be sure, approximate as best you can.
So, when it comes to FL, count every vote.
When it comes to IA, NV, ME and WA, approximate it as best you can.
And when it comes to MI, count Clinton's votes. And assign most of the uncommitted to Obama. But imputing ALL of them to Obama is ridiculous. Some of those people wanted Edwards, who also took his name off the ballot. And not all Edwards supports have Obama as their second choice, even though Edwards has endorsed Obama. So, what's a fair number? 75% Let's say 75%. I think that that is high, but I'm willing to work with that number.
That would mean that Clinton is about 15,000.
The race is that tied. More than 35,000,000 votes cast, and she is ahead by 15,000 votes, as of today.
So, given a tie among the direct voters, the rules give the superdelegates enough clout to break a tie. The rules allow the superdelegates to correct any number of problems, including if the delegate count does not match the popular vote count. That's not breaking the rules, that's part of the rules.
Regular "pledged" delegates are not required to stick with their pledges. Is that also the case for the MI delegates?
Why should Hillary get "everything she wanted"? Obama is playing the game by the rules. If the rules were to be changed in the middle of the game now, we'd all look like fools, and Hillary would look like a petulant child who is being appeased. And she IS being petulant and ridiculous. She is such an embarrassment to me as a woman and a feminist right now, I cannot even begin to express how much. I really just wish she'd go away now.
Even if you cnsider Clinton & Obama to be tied, the choice of a candidate should be made on who will be the better president (not the better candidate - after all Bush was the better candidate but an appalling president) Clearly based on the campaign, Obama will be the better president. Clinton has made bad strategy decisions and didn't correct them; she chose staff based on loyalty not competence; she's willing to run a scorched earth campaign regardless of the consequences.
Steven,
no one has lost until someone gets to 50% of the delegates, which BO has not yet reached
Why the Obama campaign didn't give Hillary the delegates, and thereby deprive her of the right to go to credentials committee:
Psychological advantage; she'd have "won" a victory, even if on the basis of his gracious concession. He needed to look right and like a realistic, but tough politician; the campaign is looking ahead to November.
Why is everyone so quick to PUSH Clinton out of the race? It's clear that the country is divided (as it has been for years now) pretty evenly, so why not let it play out at the convention? That's fair and democratic.
Moreover, as a Hillary supporter, I am appalled at the favorable and encouraging press given always to Obama (even by public radio in many cases) and the drumbeat to push
Clinton out. Here's an idea: why not go through their ISSUES and see what the MAJOR
differences are, and THEN let the people decide who will get the better health care, or
vets' benefits, etc. etc.?
I understand that Obama ran a better, smarter campaign. If this was a matter of who deserves it, between Clinton and Obama, he deserves it.
But what about if look at what the VOTERS deserve? Isn't what the voters deserve more important than what the candidates deserve? And don't the voters deserve the the candidate that most of them supported, regardless of the machinations or complications of delegate calculations?
What do the VOTERS deserve? Why does anything else matter?
Why is there a P.R. primary when they cannot vote in a presidential election?
Marna
what about which one would win in November?
who can win in the swing states?
This caller is trying to add the math to get the popular vote: it is a joke. The Michigan vote did not count, the Florida vote did not count. More than a million people did not vote because they were told it would not count. Now you will turn around and play some fuzzy math.
The "leadership" from Hillary which leads to this kind of misunderstanding, this kind of manipulation of people is the last thing we need.
The media hasn't been properly analyzing how small the "protest" outside of the meeting actually was. Organizers were promising 10,000 people and most news accounts said there were 500 people maximum in attendance. This is a very small (but loud) echo chamber. Do the reporters from Michigan or Florida see or here the outrage that was exhibited by the people at the poorly-attended "Count Every Vote" rally, many of whom didn't live in either state.
Please do the math based on Cinton's contention that she has won the swing states and states that will normally vote for the democrat, like ours. Please leave out states that will not vote for any democrat.
When will the Michigan and Florida DNCs acknowledge that they caused this whole debacle and take responsibility?
I think it’s totally not right to include Florida at all. Yes-- the argument can be made that those that voted should get their voices heard, but what about those that stayed home, because they were told their vote would not count?? What if they would have voted for Obama?? The math then would have been in his favor there…what about those voters’ right to be heard??
To quote Jon Stewart: You are right - Causes should not count because only the people who care the most and are most informed go to causes. Or as Chris Mattews said - Why won't educated people vote for Clinton?
Imagine if all the candidates had know that MI would count (even at 1/2 strength) and stayed on the ballot. Chances are that John Edwards would have done well in a state with lots of union workers. Would we have ended up with 3 candidates still in the race in June?!?
Question - isnt not counting the 30,000 write-in's in MI "disenfranchising" those voters? doest 30,000 represent 5% of the total votes cast?
Comment - STOP TALKING ABOUT POPULAR VOTE! IT"S A CONTEST OF DELEGATES!
We want Clinton out because she's making this race ugly, that's why. We don't want a president with that kind of attitude, that's why. It's no longer a matter of her competence. She's embarrassing people she once could have counted as supporters. Like me. I cannot support someone who goes around saying, "I'm the winner, I'm the winner" when she's obviously not the winner, who wants to change the rules to suit her needs (and what if the show were on the other foot and she were in Obama's place? how would she feel about the rules then? eh?)
Clinton OUT. Goodbye Hillary. Nice try, but you made a mess of it and nobody likes you anymore except very stubborn, blinded people.
ch 50
it was actually the GOP lead state legislatures that caused this little issue in MI FL.
I haven't heard anyone mention that Edwards, Richardson, Dodd, and most of the others on the Michigan and Florida ballots, have endorsed Obama. Why wouldn't their votes then count for him? And I thought that they can give him their delegates as well?
Bye Bye Clinton staffers.
I'm disappointed that Brian is repeating the Clinton spin that has been percolating ad nauseum about "stolen delegates" when they were never hers. MI knowingly conducted an illegal "beauty contest" primary, which all candidates publicly acknowledged as meaningless PRIOR to the voting. Obama was not on the ballot. To say that Clinton "won" MI delegates is simply not true. Nor does she lead in the popular vote, which her campaign claimed at the start was not even important -- only the delegate count mattered.
Further, Obama had the votes on Saturday for splitting the MI delegates 50-50, but the Clinton camp refused to agree. He was gracious enough to go ANOTHER extra mile to solve the problem. Yet, Clinton is STILL aggrieved and complaining instead of applauding the more than fair, unity decision.
The entire fight is a divisive distracting spectacle manufactured by Clinton when what we should be focusing on is McCain and the serious issues the campaign faces. As a Democrat, I deeply resent being blackmailed by members of my own party so Clinton can feed her ego.
The primary season is over. Clinton lost. She should GET OFF THE STAGE.
Finally, it was not Dean who made the decision about FL and MI but the Rules Committee. Dean should be commended for waging a "50 state strategy" that has installed Democratic organizational infrastructure in every state. It will be extremely valuable to Democrats in November and for the future.
I have an amazing idea. In an effort at objective fairness, let's try this: Let's make some rules BEFORE the election. For example, we'll allocated delegates based on votes in primaries and/or caucuses. The candidate with the most delegates will be declared the winner. This may sound overly simplistic, but it's worked before.
Let's also agree that changing the rules in the middle of the contest is disingenuous, undemocratic, and damaging to the party. Do the Patriots petition the league to be Super Bowl champions because they had more regular season wins?
Hillary went into this campaign and lost. She can stay in if she likes. She ran an atrocious campaign. Her attempts to redefine the results of the election are at best cynical. More likely it's an indication that her shameless narcissism and sense of entitlement is more important to her than the Democratic party.
This entire episode (FL/MI) reveals the duplicitous nature of the DNP- and their 'candidates'! These people are, (generally speaking) all self-absorbed with their own political self-importance!
In point of fact, these DNP people don't care a 'whit' for America vis-á-vis 'public service'!
What a joke the Democrat National Party has revealed itself to be! But again, it's unfortunate that the 'joke' is on America!
Remembering Senator McGovern's failed Presidential candidacy, Senator McCain is going to win in November and he is going to win big!!
gabby
or ask why do elites vote for obama?
Democrats all know what it feels like to be disappointed - even incredulous - that our candidate has lost. It does not feel good. Therefore, even though I am an Obama supporter, I do feel for Hillary's fans. However, Hillary has lost. We need to admit it, deal with it, and move on. I hope her supporters can manage to quickly get through the stages of grief, then turn their thoughts and energies to what is best for this country. I don't think McCain qualifies.
It seems to me that the Rules Committee made bad rules that could not be followed at least in FL where the Republicans controlled the process. Why should FL voters be penalized because of an impossible process created by the Rules Committee?
RealClearPolitics.com has done an outrageous thing!
Suddenly, they are assigning all of the uncommitted votes from MI to Obama, as though the DNC decisions to give him the delegates means that they actually voted for him.
The delegates are supposed to be reflective of the votes. But now, the votes are being assigned as reflective of the delegates, even when those assignments ignore the existence of other candidates who were in the race (e.g Edwards).
Impute some of the those uncommitted voters to him. Impute most of them to him. Impute 3/4 to him. If you really think that he would have gotten 9 times as many votes as Edwards, impute 90% of them to Obama.
But unless you actually believe that Edwards and the others would not have gotten even 5% of those votes, you cannot impute all of those voters to Obama.
If numbers of caucus voters were not counted, did the winner get all the delegates from that state? Thats not what happened in other states, where they were divided proportionally. If they were not counted, how could the proportion be determined???
What do voters deserve? Voters, this nation, the world deserves the bes and this year that means a presidential leader like Obama.
Vote for whom you like. I'm voting Obama.
Like many, I was not originally an Obama supporter. (He was not know and everybody knew the Clintons) But I have come to see very clearly the caliber of Obama verses his political opponents. All politicians "tailor the truth" but as show in this campaign up to this very day the Clintons spit in your face and would have you believe it's rain.
RE: Clinton's primary logic: I was finally exasperated enough to send an email directly to Senator Clinton this morning. For what it's worth, here is the text of my letter:
Dear Senator Clinton,
I am a registered voter in the state of New York and have voted for you in the past. In this difficult and contentious primary season I have made the reluctant move from supporting you to supporting Senator Obama. Now your persistent claim to have won the Michigan primary -so cravenly unfair, bizarre, even - moves me to vow that I will not vote for you in any future election. I advise you not to let the very loud shouts of supporters standing nearby deafen you to the judgment of history. Our country has lost sons and daughters, and suffered immeasurable loss of prestige in the world because its current leader deafens himself to those who do not support his policies. In the later stages of this primary you are behaving the same way, with the same self-serving arrogance and frighteningly willful denial of facts on the ground. America cannot afford another leader like this. Please allow us, Democrats and independents, to move forward, united, now. This is clearly in your power to do, and it is your duty to your country to do it.
My problem w HC is I don't like the way she has run her campaign... I do not find her arguments persuasive. Her attempt to conflate the FL primary w the 2000 fiasco is incredibly and blatantly self serving. I though her expression emotional was genuine and sincere. As for her supporters' charges of sexism in the campaign, I agree it has been ugly and mean, but I wish she had taken the opportunity to address it head-on as Obama did with his 'racism-in-America' speech after the Wright comments, but that would have been risky politically. Her 'lets wait until June because you never know' and then mentioning the RFK sassassination in the next sentense was shocking. These actions and others convey the impression she feels entitled to the nomination for some reason.
...angry, tearful women? thanks, but no thanks.
i have to join in piling on hillary by pointing out that she has run an awful campaign and that that puts the lie to her claims of capability and leadership.
it's funny to see so many people on tv with their professionally made signs and their talking points.
also, mr. ickes on the sunday chat shows was a representation of politics at its worst. you couldn't get a straight answer out of the guy. news flash! that stonewalling, evasive, dishonest performance reflects back on the candidate.
it's a good thing senator obama isn't as nasty as some of his supporters on this board
@ Alex so you are saying you should count every vote for Hillary but not count the votes against her. Also Alice huffman made it clear what this whole thing is about. When asked by Wexler why did she vote to strip the two states of their superdelegates last year she responded by saying that there was no way of foreseeing what has happened. This is not about voting rights.
At the end of the 2008 Presidential election cycle- America's 'silent majority' will not elect a ½-term, liberal senator- who has been a subscriber to 'liberation theology (whatever THAT is!!) and in the bargain... -get his terminally irascible loudmouth wife at the First Lady!!
Again- what a joke! But unfortunately, this horrible 'joke' is on America!!
#37
Your math is as bad as the Clinton's. Get over it. She ran a crappy campaign and should not be the democratic nominee. Why is everyone acting like such sore losers? Please, enough with the lunacy!! If the tables had been turned and Hilary had removed her name from MI ballot, the Clinton campaign would be screaming bloody murder if Obama wanted to seat delegates from that 'primary' - and rightly so. Any other argument is absolutely ridiculous.
I used to be a Clinton supporter but her actions as of late have been beyond the pale.
#33
LOL, I totally agree. Clinton is a whiney little baby who thought she was entitled to this and now that she ran a lousy campaign and got her butt kicked she is basically blackmailing the democratic party by essentially saying that she will keep going and dividing the dems until she gets what she wants. How undignified, how selfish!
She's like the jealous psycho byfriend "If I can't have her(in this case the democratic nomination) then noone will. It's disgusting and if she were a republican carrying on like this then every one of her democrat supporters would be critisizing her actions. What a joke this is!
Welcome to at least 4 more years of a republican presidency!
I know there are a LOT of Obabma supporters out there, but why???? I fail to see his accomplishments, oh I forgot, he hasn't even finished his first job in the Senate yet but has spent most of time trying to get his second job (while on the clock). In every other job in the world, it is customary to expect the candidate to have proven him/herself with a litany of accomplishments, except to be the President of the United States, it would seem. I fully realize that he is an excellent orator but being accomplished at giving impressive speeches does not translate into being a good president! Just because one can give good speeches does not mean that he can take those words can put them into action. That is why it is important to see the actual accomplishments of the candidate.
With the way the Clinton Campaign 'machine' feels- if I were Senator O-Ba-Ma... I would hire a 'food-taster'!!
An if by some nutty reasoning-
he allow Ms. Hillary to become his running mate for VP- remembering that 'politics ain't bean-bag'... I would hire TWO food-tasters!
Clinton is fighting for the almost 49% of dem primary voters who still support her.
Posted by: Jesse CalifanoJune 02, 2008 - 10:42AM At the end of the 2008 Presidential election cycle- America's 'silent majority' will not elect a ½-term, liberal senator who has been a subscriber to 'liberation theology (whatever THAT is!!)
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_theology
as to your larger point, the silent majority will hopefully act in their own best interests on issues like the war, the economy, choice for women, universal health care, and etc.
it will be interesting to see if obama's people can switch out the liberal tag for a progressive tag and then define "progressive" on their own terms.
fact is, mccain opposes universal health care as a "big government" program but he supports this senseless war which is being financed by bonds held by the chinese government.
i resent a guy who has government health care telling a single mom that she's not entitled to government health care and that should fight the insurance companies on her own, or the implication that she should have made better choices in life.
so we'll see whether or not the silent majority can be roused to vote in its own best interests.
I distinctly remember that Mr. Obama said on his famous "race" speech that he can no more disown Rev. Wright than one can disown his/her mother, father, etc. because (the man is like family to him).
Well, i guess he can now, just a few weeks later, since his pastor and his church is now proven to be more than a nusance and an inconvenience. That's character for you.
HRC's constant distortion of the truth through propaganda and surrogates is akin to the Bush administrations distortion of the truth about the necessity of the war in Iraq.
The more i hear HRC in the primary campaign the more i can see her using the same crude and dishonest tactics to mislead the country into actions she deems "necessary".
and.. no one is pushing Hillary out. we're asking her not to destroy the party while she says in the race.
Hillary's "popular vote = Bush's WMD, that is, not there.
MTW in NYC
Regardless of which candidate you support, the attitudes and motives as displayed by Mr. & Mrs. Clintons have now exposed them as arrogant (I wonder how it must feel to lose to a “fairytale” Ouch.) self-interested, and opportunistic with an ignorant socio-political recklessness.
Shamefully, the propaganda forces pushing behind both campaign agendas has overshadowed the real problem – the dysfunctions of state and federal government. For the umpteenth time in modern American history, both parties come to fail together and screw up thousands of citizens’ rights.
It’s my hope that the Clintons figure out how to respectfully carry on their political futures, as well as help to repair the divisions resulting from a polarizing campaign – people hissing at the name of the first black candidate in our history, is the agenda of one person taken to the wrong extreme, and as it’s been said, is beneath the self-respect of Mr. & Mrs. Clinton both. It’s a shame
#80
The actions of Wright after the Race speech weren't just mere nuisance - he was showing nasty, narcissistic and truly insulting behavior that had nothing to do with pointing out America's horrendous history of suppression and brutality. Instead, his behavior was an expression of frustration and anger at the way he personally had been treated. He lost sight of betterment of the whole and became self-focused and bitter - divisive and hateful.
I am sure that Obama still has compassion for his former pastor, but no one should be expected or required to maintain a relationship with a person if the nature of their character changes so drastically.
The people who decry how negative and nasty Clinton detractors (Obama supporters) are sound a lot like the right wing people who decry the Bush haters. First off, they are wrong. Secondly, they really miss the point: the actions, the rhetoric of these "leaders" that prompts such a negative reaction.
i think we all know HRC is making it more difficult for Obama to win the general election so she can run in 4 years.
how do you make yourself indispensable? create in your supporters the sense that you were cheated because of discrimination. (discrimination touches a raw nerve in everyone) do that while pushing the idea that your loss is a loss for all women. ... and then, offer yourself up as the only person who can placate your angry discriminated against voters. simple really, bring people down so that they lift you up as the saviour.
time for a person w/ character and dignity in the white house. enough smoke and mirrors on weapons of mass destruction, war, and who got the popular vote.
"Well, i guess he can now, just a few weeks later, since his pastor and his church is now proven to be more than a nusance and an inconvenience. That's character for you."
It is character. His speech was wholly consistent with his foreign policy statements on Cuba and Iran: you don't predicate your relationship with any group, domestically or internationally, on alienating them; you don't make your enemies your enemies by naming them your enemies. But that doesn't mean that at some point enough's enough. Wright was coat-tailing on Obama to get media attention he didn't deserve and unfairly to Obama's detriment. Time to cut him loose.
And that's all you've got? Clinton supporters have no business talking about character. There's no ethical grounds for what she's pulling in Florida and especially in Michigan; her reference to the lateness of her husband's and Kennedy's primary campaigns was blatant distortion of the facts; she's a blatant race-baiter; she and many of her blindly vociferous supporters are gender-baiters (because people dislike her not for her sex but for the above); and if Obama had been caught in a lie on the level of sniper gate his run would be over, but like Bush's stupidity, Clinton's dishonesty has become such a given that it gets a pass. Ridiculous. Feminists should have higher standards. The soft bigotry of low expectations applied by women to women is a horrible perversion of ideals.
Voters should look at the "Four State Pledge" agreed to by the Dem primary candidates (posted at politico in August 2007). If politico or anyone else can post the SIGNED pledges, perhaps that would put an end to all this wiggling re Florida and Michigan. The last paragraph reads:
"THEREFORE, I ______, Democratic Candidate for President, pledge I shall not campaign or participate in any state which schedules a presidential election primary or caucus before Feb. 5, 2008, except for the states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina, as “campaigning” is defined by rules and regulations of the DNC."
Here is the link to the complete text of the 2008 Campaign Four State Pledge.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0807/Dear_candidates_early_state_edition.html
To Susan #81 and Maria #82,
I agree with both of you that Hillary is simply the flip side of George Bush. I'm glad to see i'm not the only one on this board who feels that way.
To Kevin #86
You're right on about Hillary. I'm convinced she wants Obama to lose in Nov so she can boast I told you so.
and i'm sure if BHO doesn't win for any reason HRC will be blamed for the loss...
Bill, #87
Feminists DO have higher standards. That's why most of us are voting for Obama. You know, the guy who got there on his own, not by some Empress-Dowager-got-my-senate-seat-through-my-important-husband-former-president.
Sadly, Hillary was never a feminist choice. She was the entitlement choice, and as a single working woman, I felt completely insulted by being told HRC was a "feminist choice" and that her race was failing due to media sexism.
This race was supposed to be decided through caucuses AND primaries, and Obama strategized for that. Hillary sleepwalked through the campaign, and still has not woken up to reality. HJS, I'm sorry if that sounds mean, but the fact it, HRC has earned everyone's disgust.
hjs,
If Obama loses in Nov, he certainly deserves most of the blame but you can't deny that Hillary used every cheap shot against Obama. Obama never mentioned Clinton's pardon of Puerto Rican terrorists, Hillary's employment by a SF law firm where several partners were Communists, he never mentioned renting out of the Lincoln bedroom, or any other Clinton scandal.
Tom Hayden Details Clinton's 60s Past
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/27/former-radical-tom-hayden_n_98848.html
seth
good that he did not as they are mostly irrelevant.
hjs,
Rezko and Ayers were irrelevant and that didn't stop Hillary from using them to smear Obama. Assuming Obama is the Dem nominee, will you vote for him? Will you vote for him even if he doesn't pick Hillary as his running mate?
seth
i've said many times i'm vote of the dem nominee. that's doesn't mean i think he'll win.
but i'm looking at the big picture i have a real fear of mccain and the same GOP faces around him that are selling this country to the highest bidder and moving us closer to right wing fundamentalism.
it's SAD that too many HRC/BHO supporters aren't willing to stand up for either candidate for the good of our country.
The idea that many of the caucus states didn't record the number of people who participated & for whom they voted makes it doubly undemocratic that delegates are selected by caucus. In future ALL delegates should be selected by popular vote in primaries open to Democrats & Independents ONLY - (allowing Registered Republicans to vote simply allows them to cause mischief). And to those who say that all of the states choose their own methods of delegate selection, the DNC can lay down the law by denying states which don't adhere to these basic rules any right to be at the convention. Let's finally stop the game playing & make the Democratic Party the Party of the People by making the popular vote the ultimate arbiter of power. Then we can address the electoral college issue & bring our voting systems into the 21st century. COUNT EVERY VOTE!!!
no open primaries but no independents should democratic primaries. if they want to vote in the democratic primaries they should be democrats
hjs,
I'm glad BO can count on your vote. As the likely losing candidate, it's imperative that HC make a passionate, heartfelt appeal to her supporters to vote for BO. Of course, BO has to reach out to her supporters as well. I think 1 reason for strong negative views toward HC by BO supporters is when HC said she & McCain have a lifetime of experience and BO has 1 speech. Name me another case where 1 DEM candidate said the REPUB nominee was better qualified to be President than the likely DEM nominee. HC has nothing but contempt BH and considers him unworthy of being President. How can you expect his supporters to like her when she trashes him in this way?
seth
how old are u?
primaries are about vetting the nominee, voters will ask about obamas experience in the fall. we weren't voting for butter queen, i was glad to see a good debate. if experience is going to be an issue in the fall obama than is finished. if the general election is going to be a left-right battle obama needs the support of HRC so why the bashing, by some, of her. because she fought hard? because she did not get a divorce when her husband cheated? because she didn't bow out when some wanted her to?
Barack Obama's entire campaign has been predicated on the idea that Hillary Clinton was unable to "bring real change" because she was beholden to special interests & their lobbyists. If that isn't "trashing" then I'm not sure I know what is. The idea that Hillary or Bill Clinton have not served the interests of millions of ordinary Americans in the course of their lifetimes of commitment to progressive causes is DEEPLY offensive to many of us who support them. The Clinton administration was a Democratic Party success story - one of the only one's for nearly 40 years!!! The Party seems intent on walking away from that legacy, which is stupefying & nearly beyond belief. In any event, Obama is surely NOT blameless when it comes to "trashing" (& thereby weakening or undermining) a fellow Democrat. In this, he has been very much a good student of his colleague Sen. Ted Kennedy, who showed us all how it's done in 1980 with his 'brilliant' campaign against Carter in the face of the Reagan challenge!!!
This thread is closed.
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