In a telephonic press conference this morning, Roy Romer – a former Colorado governor, former Democratic National Committee ("DNC") chair, co-chairman of the 1996 Clinton-Gore reelection campaign, and a superdelegate – announced his endorsement of Barack Obama as the Democratic Presidential nominee. Despite what he called “affection for Senator Clinton,” Romer said that “[t]he math is controlling. This race is over, over. Sen Obama has accumulated a lead in caucuses, primaries, and superdelegates that cannot be overcome.”
Redrawing the Electoral Map: Romer explained that his endorsement was based largely on his belief that Obama has a better chance of beating McCain in November, which he said Obama could do using a different electoral map than the one Democrats have used in the last few elections and which Clinton is continuing to advocate: “As I watched the campaign unfold it was obvious there was a different kind of winning possibility that Senator Obama was presenting to the party.... This nation is evolving. Colorado is one of those states you call a red state... [but] I don’t think Colorado is the same state it was 20 years ago. I think we need to get out of the straight jacket, ‘this is a red state, this is a blue state’.... We need a candidate who can appeal to the evolving nature of U.S. politics.” Plouffe added, “we’ve won a heck of a lot of battleground states,” including Washington, Colorado, Virginia, and North Carolina, and stated that Nevada, New Mexico, Montana, and North Dakota “all could be competitive in the fall.”
Not Pressuring Clinton, Just Giving Her Information... Romer denied that his announcement was intended to put pressure on Sen. Clinton to drop out of the race, explaining that his goal instead was to eliminate any uncertainty about where he stood so that Clinton had more information on which she could base her own decision, and calling on other undeclared superdelegates to do the same: “All superdelegates would help the party by making [their endorsements] known as quickly as they can. That’s not forcing [the Clinton campaign] out of the race, that’s giving them facts that they can then base their own decisions on.” He later added, “it’s important for her [Clinton] to know where we [superdelegates] are so she’s not misled.”
... But the Information Says the Race Is Over: However, Romer also believes the time has come for Clinton to make a decision about whether the nomination is achievable. While the extended primary campaign has helped the party in some ways, Romer added that “there is a time that we need to end it and to direct ourselves to the general election. I think that time is now.... At some point in time all of us have got to say, ‘where are the numbers? where is the math?’”
Michigan and Florida: Seat, But With Consequences: As a former chair of the Democratic National Committee, Romer also had firm opinions about the contentious issue of seating delegations from Michigan and Florida, which the DNC's Rules & Bylaws Committee unanimously voted to disqualify after those states tried to increase their influence in the primary process by moving their elections to dates earlier than those allowed by DNC rules. Romer said, “I was chair of the party. The party has to set rules, and the party has to have some control over the timing of the primary races... you can’t just excuse that and say everybody has the same delegates they used to have.” He added, “They need to be seated, but there needs to be a penalty for failing to follow the rules” in order to preserve the party's ability to set primary schedules in the future: “This party has got to find a solution to seat those delegates, but it’s got to do that in a way that says to all states in the future that we mean business when we say there are rules... you can’t have a party that’s effective in modern politics unless you have rules that you can enforce.”
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe also observed that the Clinton campaign, not the Obama campaign, was blocking the resolution of the Michigan problem: “The Michigan and Florida situation will be resolved. There is a proposal from Michigan.... [and] we’re open to that proposal. [But] the Clinton campaign rejected it out of hand.” (The current Michigan proposal would give Clinton a net of ten more delegates than Obama.) Plouffe added that he does not believe Obama will be unable to compete in those states in the general election, citing polls showing Obama beating McCain in Michigan and running even with him in Florida.
Defining, and Approaching, the Finish Line: Plouffe also ruled out the possibility of the Obama campaign “declaring victory” after winning the majority of pledged delegates, which probably will occur during the Oregon primary on May 20. Plouffe said that winning the majority of pledged delegates would be “an important moment” because it will reflect “the will of the voters” and because most superdelegates have said they will endorse the candidate who wins the pledged delegate race. However, he denied that the campaign would be over at that point: “we’re definitely not going to declare victory... we still have three contests after that.”
Instead, the Obama campaign will continue until it reaches 2,025 delegates, which Plouffe said was close: Obama is only 147 delegates short at this point, which Plouffe characterized as “a very achievable number.” Ever since the Indiana and North Carolina primaries last week, the Obama campaign has been portraying the race less as a head-to-head, state-by-state matchup between the two candidates and more as a countdown to a 2,025-delegate finish line. In today's teleconference, Plouffe said that “our focus is on getting to that 2,025 number as quickly as we can.”
Not Poaching Superdelegates: Plouffe was asked to comment on the decision by Maryland superdelegate Jack Johnson to switch from Clinton to Obama; he replied, “Sen. Clinton’s camp has said on occasion that [even] pledged delegates are fair game... [but] we have not approached any of her delegates” to persuade them to defect. He added that Johnson “made that decision on his own.”
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Showing posts with label Oregon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oregon. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
Bill Clinton to Oregon Voters: "Trust Me to Deliver Your Ballots"
I've been unable to confirm certain key assertions in this post, so I've withdrawn it. Even unbathed, unshaven guys in pajamas who drink beer and stale coffee mixed together at 7 am while blogging from their parent's basement have some journalistic standards! Please check out my more recent posts, following the link below.
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Thursday, May 8, 2008
Clinton Campaign Defines Victory In Racial Terms
In a telephone press conference Wednesday, the Clinton campaign firmly reiterated its intention to keep seeking the Democratic Presidential nomination, spinning both her striking loss in North Carolina and her slender win in Indiana yesterday as positive developments -- while also appearing to admit that she is not going to win a majority of elected delegates even if Michigan and Florida's delegations are counted -- and parsing yesterday's primary results in starkly racial terms that are likely to exacerbate her increasingly significant troubles reaching out to minority voters.
The conference, called by Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson to discuss "the state of the race," was also attended by Geoff Garin, chief Clinton strategist, and Phil Singer, the campaign's Deputy Communications Director.
Wolfson seemed to rule out any possibility of Clinton suspending her campaign in light of Tuesday's primaries. Asked whether there had been any internal discussions about not going forward, an unidentified voice loudly replied, "NO!" When a reporter asked who had just spoken, Wolfson replied, "That was my declarative self." Several times during the conference, campaign spokesmen reiterated their belief that the drawn-out primary was a good thing for the Democratic Party and that voters want the campaign to continue. Apparently moving not the finish line but the starting line, Wolfson also described next week's West Virginia primary as "the first key test" of the campaign's momentum.
Putting the best face on a day that nearly all commentators are calling a significant win for Obama, Garin described the results in Indiana and North Carolina as "an outcome about which we feel very, very good." Indiana, where Clinton won by a scant 51 percent - 49 percent margin, "represents significant progress for Senator Clinton and .... is a good victory under challenging circumstances" because her narrow victory there was "the first time ... that Senator Clinton has come from behind to victory," according to Garin. And North Carolina, where Clinton lost to Obama by 14 points, "represent[s] progress for us," he said, underlining the campaign's focus demographic, because Clinton improved her performance with "the white electorate" compared to polls taken two weeks before the election. Wolfson, too, put a positive spin on yesterday's results, saying that Indiana and North Carolina were "two states we were supposed to lose" but "we won one." According to Wolfson, although Indiana was a near-tie, "Senator Clinton [was] making up ground in Indiana, and Senator Obama losing ground."
The Clinton campaign's analysis of yesterday's results was largely based on exit polling and a careful parsing along demographic -- mainly racial -- lines that seemed to track the campaign's recent strategy of dispatching Bill Clinton to speak to small groups of rural, almost exclusively white, Southern voters. Wolfson emphasized Clinton's support among white voters, saying, "in North Carolina among the white electorate we started even... and ended up with a 24 point advantage with that part of the electorate." Comparing Clinton's relative performance among white voters in North Carolina yesterday with her weaker performance with white voters in Virginia earlier in the race, Garin said: "Virginia is the closest white electorate in the country to the electorate that participated in North Carolina. We lost the white electorate in Virginia... [but] ended up with a significant vote" among whites in North Carolina. Garin continued by emphasizing other demographic groups that Clinton is targeting, saying, "Taking the two states together, Senator Clinton continues to run very strongly among people who are likely to be the swing voters in the November election... non-college-educated voters, seniors, Catholics...."
At points, the Clinton representatives' demographic parsing bordered on surreal. Wolfson seemed to imply that gasoline prices are primarily a white issue, suggesting that Clinton's proposal for a gas tax "holiday" had helped her with white voters and promising that she would continue urging that proposal on the stump. In response to a pair of questions about whether African Americans would support Clinton in the general election, Wolfson repeatedly referred to Obama's "passionate supporters," seeming to conflate the two.
In terms of campaign strategy, the Clinton camp almost expressly admitted that her presidential aspirations now lie in the hands of Democratic Party operatives, including the party committees that will determine the fate of the currently disqualified Michigan and Florida delegations and the undeclared superdelegates who theoretically could still give the nomination to Clinton. Although he described Clinton as focused on the last few primaries, Wolfson -- in terms redolent of Bill Clinton's infamous "it all depends on what the definition of 'is' is" -- admitted that she likely would not win the majority of elected delegates: "We expect that when we get to June 3rd we'll have a close result. It raises the question of how close is close."
Phil Singer seemed to admit that even Michigan and Florida are not likely to alter her probable loss in both the elected-delegate and total-delegate races, saying that seating both states would at best bring Clinton to "fewer than a hundred elected delegates, excuse me, total delegates" of the nomination. Nevertheless, Clinton is urging not only that delegations from those two states be seated, but seated in full (and without Obama receiving any delegates at all from Michigan, where his name was not on the ballot). Wolfson described Clinton's performance in both states' primaries -- in which neither candidate overtly campaigned -- as "significant victories" and disagreed with suggestions that the delegations be seated at half-strength as a penalty for knowingly advancing their primaries earlier than Democratic Party rules allowed: "Our feeling is that the delegations should be seated in full, that they should have full votes" "commensurate with the results from those primaries." Clinton also plans to keep making an electability argument to superdelegates, including in a meeting with undeclared superdelegates planned for Wednesday night.
Wolfson also was asked about Clinton's financial ability to continue the campaign. He described Clinton as having raised "an awful lot of money" but admitted Obama is doing the same: "We had a very good fundraising month last month, but Senator Obama had a better fundraising month." He acknowledged that Clinton had loaned her own campaign $5 million in April, another $1 million on May 1, and $425,000 on May 5. He declined to rule out the possibility of Clinton making additional loans to keep her campaign afloat.
Wolfson declined to speculate about the possibility of a "unity" Obama-Clinton ticket, calling it premature and stating, "we have not had any conversations with the Obama campaign about such a ticket" and "I have not heard her evince any interest in such a ticket."
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The conference, called by Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson to discuss "the state of the race," was also attended by Geoff Garin, chief Clinton strategist, and Phil Singer, the campaign's Deputy Communications Director.
Wolfson seemed to rule out any possibility of Clinton suspending her campaign in light of Tuesday's primaries. Asked whether there had been any internal discussions about not going forward, an unidentified voice loudly replied, "NO!" When a reporter asked who had just spoken, Wolfson replied, "That was my declarative self." Several times during the conference, campaign spokesmen reiterated their belief that the drawn-out primary was a good thing for the Democratic Party and that voters want the campaign to continue. Apparently moving not the finish line but the starting line, Wolfson also described next week's West Virginia primary as "the first key test" of the campaign's momentum.
Putting the best face on a day that nearly all commentators are calling a significant win for Obama, Garin described the results in Indiana and North Carolina as "an outcome about which we feel very, very good." Indiana, where Clinton won by a scant 51 percent - 49 percent margin, "represents significant progress for Senator Clinton and .... is a good victory under challenging circumstances" because her narrow victory there was "the first time ... that Senator Clinton has come from behind to victory," according to Garin. And North Carolina, where Clinton lost to Obama by 14 points, "represent[s] progress for us," he said, underlining the campaign's focus demographic, because Clinton improved her performance with "the white electorate" compared to polls taken two weeks before the election. Wolfson, too, put a positive spin on yesterday's results, saying that Indiana and North Carolina were "two states we were supposed to lose" but "we won one." According to Wolfson, although Indiana was a near-tie, "Senator Clinton [was] making up ground in Indiana, and Senator Obama losing ground."
The Clinton campaign's analysis of yesterday's results was largely based on exit polling and a careful parsing along demographic -- mainly racial -- lines that seemed to track the campaign's recent strategy of dispatching Bill Clinton to speak to small groups of rural, almost exclusively white, Southern voters. Wolfson emphasized Clinton's support among white voters, saying, "in North Carolina among the white electorate we started even... and ended up with a 24 point advantage with that part of the electorate." Comparing Clinton's relative performance among white voters in North Carolina yesterday with her weaker performance with white voters in Virginia earlier in the race, Garin said: "Virginia is the closest white electorate in the country to the electorate that participated in North Carolina. We lost the white electorate in Virginia... [but] ended up with a significant vote" among whites in North Carolina. Garin continued by emphasizing other demographic groups that Clinton is targeting, saying, "Taking the two states together, Senator Clinton continues to run very strongly among people who are likely to be the swing voters in the November election... non-college-educated voters, seniors, Catholics...."
At points, the Clinton representatives' demographic parsing bordered on surreal. Wolfson seemed to imply that gasoline prices are primarily a white issue, suggesting that Clinton's proposal for a gas tax "holiday" had helped her with white voters and promising that she would continue urging that proposal on the stump. In response to a pair of questions about whether African Americans would support Clinton in the general election, Wolfson repeatedly referred to Obama's "passionate supporters," seeming to conflate the two.
In terms of campaign strategy, the Clinton camp almost expressly admitted that her presidential aspirations now lie in the hands of Democratic Party operatives, including the party committees that will determine the fate of the currently disqualified Michigan and Florida delegations and the undeclared superdelegates who theoretically could still give the nomination to Clinton. Although he described Clinton as focused on the last few primaries, Wolfson -- in terms redolent of Bill Clinton's infamous "it all depends on what the definition of 'is' is" -- admitted that she likely would not win the majority of elected delegates: "We expect that when we get to June 3rd we'll have a close result. It raises the question of how close is close."
Phil Singer seemed to admit that even Michigan and Florida are not likely to alter her probable loss in both the elected-delegate and total-delegate races, saying that seating both states would at best bring Clinton to "fewer than a hundred elected delegates, excuse me, total delegates" of the nomination. Nevertheless, Clinton is urging not only that delegations from those two states be seated, but seated in full (and without Obama receiving any delegates at all from Michigan, where his name was not on the ballot). Wolfson described Clinton's performance in both states' primaries -- in which neither candidate overtly campaigned -- as "significant victories" and disagreed with suggestions that the delegations be seated at half-strength as a penalty for knowingly advancing their primaries earlier than Democratic Party rules allowed: "Our feeling is that the delegations should be seated in full, that they should have full votes" "commensurate with the results from those primaries." Clinton also plans to keep making an electability argument to superdelegates, including in a meeting with undeclared superdelegates planned for Wednesday night.
Wolfson also was asked about Clinton's financial ability to continue the campaign. He described Clinton as having raised "an awful lot of money" but admitted Obama is doing the same: "We had a very good fundraising month last month, but Senator Obama had a better fundraising month." He acknowledged that Clinton had loaned her own campaign $5 million in April, another $1 million on May 1, and $425,000 on May 5. He declined to rule out the possibility of Clinton making additional loans to keep her campaign afloat.
Wolfson declined to speculate about the possibility of a "unity" Obama-Clinton ticket, calling it premature and stating, "we have not had any conversations with the Obama campaign about such a ticket" and "I have not heard her evince any interest in such a ticket."
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Monday, April 14, 2008
Clinton Downs a Beer and a Bump to Impress the Cool Kids -- And This Dad's Not OK With It
As a father of daughters, I've got a big problem today with Hillary Clinton.
Let's be clear: I've got no problem with a President who occasionally chases down a slice of pizza with a cold brew or a shot of whiskey -- or both. Like most Oregonians, I'm particularly fond of our state's great microbrews and small wineries; I'm no prude about liquor (or much of anything else). And, of course, our current teetotaler President has been a disaster. (I'm put in mind of Lincoln during the Civil War: when an advisor complained that the North's most successful general was drinking too much, Abe ordered a barrel of the general's favorite whiskey sent to each of his other commanders.)
So if Clinton likes an (imported) Crown Royal, neat, back on the campaign plane at the end of the day, or -- without fanfare -- tips back a cool one with supporters at a pizza joint, I'm good. But that's not what she did Saturday night at Bronko’s Restaurant and Lounge in Crown Point, Indiana Saturday night. No: she bumped back a boilermaker to make a point about Barack Obama being "out of touch" with blue-collar voters, playing off his comment about some middle Americans being "bitter" at being ignored by Washington insiders.
Hillary Clinton is not normally a brew-and-a-bump kind of gal; she's just not. But she is a political animal, through and through -- and drinking boilermakers as a strategy for reaching Pennsylvania's working-class voters was even discussed jokingly in a segment of MSNBC's Hardball earlier this month, which Clinton's campaign staff wouldn't have missed. No: Clinton intentionally chose to do a particularly unhealthy kind of drinking -- chugging beer and whiskey at once, a combo designed to make you drunker, faster -- to increase her popularity with people she really has nothing in common with so that they'll vote for her.
Politics is politics, but it's not OK for Hillary Clinton or anyone else in public life to flaunt heavy public drinking in order to be more popular.
I'm the father of two beautiful, brilliant, creative, loving, sometimes gloriously self-confident, sometimes tragically insecure daughters, ages 12 and 14. Both are deeply engaged and opinionated about politics (at a John Kerry rally, my then-8-year-old tugged my arm and said, "hey, Dad, isn't that Peter DeFazio?"). And both, like everyone their age, are sometimes too concerned with popularity.
The older one will start high school next year -- where, I know full well, she'll start making delicate decisions about boys, alcohol, drugs, and the whole dangerous balance between exercising independence and experimenting with life, on the one hand, and remaining safe, on the other. I'm no fool: I know she'll make some decisions I won't agree with. My hope is that she'll be able to draw on varied sources of wisdom to help her make decisions that are still sound, still sensible, even if they aren't exactly the ones her dad would choose. And as she does that -- as she tries to figure out how to grow up and move beyond my paternalistic rules to become a wise and self-sufficient and complete woman -- I'd like her to be able to look to accomplished, self-confident, successful women like Hillary Clinton as role models.
If one of my daughters, trying to win Student Body President, showed up at a keg party and got drunk in order to score points with the "populars" (ask your kid if you don't know who they are), I'd be incredibly disappointed -- and angry, and concerned. Should I feel any differently when Hillary Clinton does it?
Fortunately, my daughters already know that what Clinton did is wrong. At a supposedly irresponsible age, they know it's not cool to misuse alcohol to "fit in." Even for adults, even to win a big election, it's just. not. cool.
But Hillary Clinton -- the candidate who trumpets her experience and worldliness as predictors of her supposed good judgment -- doesn't seem to have figured that out. She's drinking in public to look cool and win votes. For the first woman with a serious shot at the White House to trumpet an unhealthy kind of drinking in order to gain publicity points, is to display either an utter tone-deafness to her role as a model for America's girls (and even adults), or a culpable willingness to ignore her moral compass in order to win. She's either inexcusably foolish or inexcusably calculating; take your pick.
Either way, she deserves to be grounded by the responsible adults in the Democratic Party, not elected Student Body President.
***********************
(Photo credit: AP)
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Thursday, February 14, 2008
SuperDelegates and the Anti-democratic Perquisites of Power
UPDATE, Feb. 19: Hey -- bloggers make a difference? I'll bet Thomas Paine's pamphlets had some impact on the creation of our democracy, too. So pay attention, and please participate. (CNN overview of "supers" here.)
UPDATE: Feb. 15: USA Today and CNN on the Michigan and Florida delegates problem; Wall Street Journal on yet another reason Obama would be the better candidate.]
UPDATE: FEB. 14: Happy Valentine's Day from Sen. Clinton: with her campaign floundering, and losing both the popular vote and the specific constituencies (women, Latinos) she had considered her "firewall", she's now pushing for the flawed Michigan and Florida results to be included in the delegate vote tally.
This follows her earlier, but not well-publicized, statement defending the superdelegate system on the grounds that her inside-the-Beltway friends have better "knowledge of the candidates" than we voters do, and calling Obama's proposal (that the "supers" simply vote the way their constituents voted) "really contrary" to the way things are supposed to work.
Put the two positions together -- that we should count the two states that intentionally broke the rules and which even Hillary originally agreed should be disqualified (but where, unlike Obama or any other Democrat, she still campaigned), and that it's OK for a relatively small group of party insiders to override the popular vote -- and it's clear that Clinton has now officially abandoned any remaining pretense at (a) supporting small-d democracy, (b) playing by the rules, or (c) putting the Democratic Party's interests before her own drive for power. There's no question any more: she'll break the rules and shatter the party -- even have the nomination wind up being decided by the Supreme Court, a la Bush 2000 -- rather than even risk losing in a fair fight.
[Update, Feb. 14, 11:48 am Pacific: The Boston Globe has more damning detail about Clinton's outspoken disregard for the democratic process, and her self-serving flip-flop on seating the Florida and Michigan delegations:
The New York senator, who lost three primaries Tuesday night, now lags slightly behind her rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, in the delegate count. She is even further behind in "pledged'' delegates, those assigned by virtue of primaries and caucuses.
But Clinton will not concede the race to Obama if he wins a greater number of pledged delegates by the end of the primary season, and will count on the 796 elected officials and party bigwigs to put her over the top, if necessary, said Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson.
"I want to be clear about the fact that neither campaign is in a position to win this nomination without the support of the votes of the superdelegates,'' Wolfson told reporters in a conference call.
"We don't make distinctions between delegates chosen by million of voters in a primary and those chosen between tens of thousands in caucuses,'' Wolfson said. "And we don't make distinctions when it comes to elected officials'' who vote as superdelegates at the convention.
"We are interested in acquiring delegates, period," he added. ***
Clinton -- who initially joined other Democrats in opposing Michigan and Florida's decisions to go ahead with early primaries -- now wants the votes of those primaries counted. The Obama camp thinks that idea is unfair, since candidates were not allowed to campaign in those states, and Clinton alone kept her name on the Michigan ballot, meaning Obama did not have a chance at getting even provisional delegates.
Clinton's even trying to reframe the issue by changing our language; her campaign no longer refers to "superdelegates" (a term so well accepted that it draws 2.75 million Google hits), but will start calling them "automatic delegates" (which both downplays the fact that each of them has a vote worth 10,000 of ours, and implies that they don't actually have a choice who to support). Orwell would be proud. So would Joe Stalin, and especially Karl Rove.
So considering all this, ask yourself: does Clinton sound like an agent of change, or an establishment politician committed to winning at all costs, even if it means ignoring both the will of the voters and the rules she herself helped put into place?
David Sirota, writing today for the Huffington Post, echoes my analysis of what this means:
So that's the coordinated message: If democracy has been allowed to be trampled in the past, then we should all sit back and be fine with democracy being trampled now...as long as it is trampled in defense of the Clintons. Egomania knows no bounds and no loyalty -- not even to the founding principles of democracy.
At least the mainstream press -- here, here, here, here -- is finally catching on to what a big deal this is, though they're still focusing on the Superdelegates and less on the equally important -- and more deceptive -- issue of seating the Florida and Michigan delegations without pushing them to hold new caucuses or primaries that allow all candidates to compete and all voters to participate. The original post below explains why this news today is so significant, and why it puts Hillary Clinton in such a poor light. (Meanwhile, you can sign petitions here and here, and contribute to Obama here.)
ORIGINAL POST, Feb. 9:
After checking out CNN's primary watch page late last night, I pretty much know what I'm going to be doing for the next six months:
Yesterday there were three Democratic primaries/caucuses: Washington, Nebraska and Louisiana. Obama won all three states overwhelmingly: 68-31% in Washington, 68-32% in Nebraska, 57-36% in Louisiana. He also won the more complex race for delegates in those states: 35-14 in Washington, 16-8 in Nebraska, 23-15 in Louisiana. (All figures are as of midnight last night, with between 96% and 99% of precincts in all three states reporting.)
So Obama gained 74 or so democratically-elected, "promised" delegates yesterday, and Clinton gained only 37 of such delegates. And since (depending on who was counting) the candidates were either neck-and-neck or Obama had a slight lead in the "promised" delegate count heading into today's primaries, he should have about a 40-delegate lead overall, right?
Wrong. Here's CNN's leaderboard as of about midnight Saturday, after substantially all the day's results were in:
Look closely: according to CNN, Obama has 908 democratically elected candidates to Clinton's 877 -- a 31-delegate lead -- but Clinton is still over 70 delegates ahead overall, even after getting her tail whupped today, because she's won the loyalty of (read: campaigned and done favors for, made huge campaign donations to, and shared Bill's donor Rolodex with) 223 party insiders called "superdelegates", while the less-well-connected Obama has only lined up 131!
(UPDATE, FEB. 12: After Maine last Sunday and with the "Potomac primaries" underway today, Obama is continuing his winning streak, but the situation still hasn't changed. CNN reports: In total delegates, Clinton tops Obama 1,148 to 1,121, according to CNN estimates. The breakdown paints a slightly different picture, as Obama leads 986 to 924 in pledged delegates, and Clinton is winning among superdelegates 224 to 135. Does this sound democratic to you, or does it sound like a system designed to ensure that only "establishment", business-as-usual pols can be elected?)
Gain a sweeping victory in elected delegates and yet wind up farther behind because while you were diligently campaigning, your opponent was (much more fruitfully) bribing or twisting insiders' arms. It's our current DLC, Centrist, Clintonian, Democratic (but not democratic) party in a nutshell. And while Obama is asking the superdelegates to simply vote the same way as their states or districts -- a fair solution -- Clinton is defending the superdelegate system, supposedly because the "supers" know the candidates personally and therefore can make better decisions about them than we mere citizens can! It's hard to imagine a less democratic position for a "Democrat" to take: that the aristocrats in the House of Lords quite properly can override us commoners who don't know what we're doing when we vote.
Wait, it gets worse: there's also the Michigan/Florida question. When those states moved their primaries earlier in the calendar without the DNC's permission, the party told them that if they persisted their delegates wouldn't count. They persisted. Clinton sneak-campaigned in both states by making sure her name was on the ballot then buying regional TV ads that would air both in contested states and in the disqualified states. Clinton, unopposed, won big in both states. And now the DNC says, firmly, that those delegates won't be seated -- unless the party decides otherwise at the convention itself. Big loophole, that: two huge, influential states' delegations show up and demand to be seated, it's all the news will cover, it threatens to overshadow the party's message on the issues, and you don't think they'll cave in and seat them? Especially if Obama wins the popular vote, but admitting Michigan and Florida will swing the popular vote the other way and make it look like Hillary actually won?
Yeah, right. The ongoing impeachment proceedings of Bush and Cheney illustrate the degree to which the current Democratic Party leadership -- with, I hope, the exception of Howard Dean -- stands firmly for truth, justice, fair elections and the American Way.
I'm trying to remember the last time the people voted for one candidate, but the other candidate manipulated a small group of power brokers to gain the Presidency anyway. The whole situation just seems really familiar. Just give me a sec. Was it... was it... Bush-Gore 2000, where Gore won the popular vote but Bush won the five Supreme Court votes that really mattered?
So that's what we're coming down to: We The People vote for one candidate, power brokers pick the other, power brokers win. And it doesn't matter which well-connected candidate is pulling the strings, because both parties will roll over for the people with power.
It's offensive. It's undemocratic, and unDemocratic. If the superdelegates don't do the right thing and align themselves with the popular vote, there may be -- there should be -- uncontrollable protests at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August, a la Chicago 1968.
If Clinton wins the nomination unfairly, without huge protests from the roots, then regardless of the outcome of the general election it'll be a good time to check New Zealand's immigration rules. There's great mountain climbing there, the fly fishing is tremendous, the political system is only a little bit rigged -- and it's half a planet away from the former United States of America. But let's not lose faith. Instead, let's work to make sure that doesn't happen, because America's worth fighting for.
That's why I know what I'll be doing for the next sixth months: still doing my climbing on Mt. Hood, my fishing in the Deschutes and McKenzie -- and working to un-rig the Democratic Party's rigged and unfair primary system.
P.S. Feb. 12: Paul Abrams at HuffPo has a good idea for resolving the superdelegate controversy, and holds out hope for Florida and Michigan as well. Fingers crossed. And the Democratic Party is considering revamping its primary process -- but only after November, which is sensible but does us no good now. Meanwhile, though, Hillary still seems to have the lead overall despite falling farther and farther behind with primary voters. A little sunshine and a little progress shouldn't lull us into complacency...
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UPDATE: Feb. 15: USA Today and CNN on the Michigan and Florida delegates problem; Wall Street Journal on yet another reason Obama would be the better candidate.]
UPDATE: FEB. 14: Happy Valentine's Day from Sen. Clinton: with her campaign floundering, and losing both the popular vote and the specific constituencies (women, Latinos) she had considered her "firewall", she's now pushing for the flawed Michigan and Florida results to be included in the delegate vote tally.
This follows her earlier, but not well-publicized, statement defending the superdelegate system on the grounds that her inside-the-Beltway friends have better "knowledge of the candidates" than we voters do, and calling Obama's proposal (that the "supers" simply vote the way their constituents voted) "really contrary" to the way things are supposed to work.
Put the two positions together -- that we should count the two states that intentionally broke the rules and which even Hillary originally agreed should be disqualified (but where, unlike Obama or any other Democrat, she still campaigned), and that it's OK for a relatively small group of party insiders to override the popular vote -- and it's clear that Clinton has now officially abandoned any remaining pretense at (a) supporting small-d democracy, (b) playing by the rules, or (c) putting the Democratic Party's interests before her own drive for power. There's no question any more: she'll break the rules and shatter the party -- even have the nomination wind up being decided by the Supreme Court, a la Bush 2000 -- rather than even risk losing in a fair fight.
[Update, Feb. 14, 11:48 am Pacific: The Boston Globe has more damning detail about Clinton's outspoken disregard for the democratic process, and her self-serving flip-flop on seating the Florida and Michigan delegations:
The New York senator, who lost three primaries Tuesday night, now lags slightly behind her rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, in the delegate count. She is even further behind in "pledged'' delegates, those assigned by virtue of primaries and caucuses.
But Clinton will not concede the race to Obama if he wins a greater number of pledged delegates by the end of the primary season, and will count on the 796 elected officials and party bigwigs to put her over the top, if necessary, said Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson.
"I want to be clear about the fact that neither campaign is in a position to win this nomination without the support of the votes of the superdelegates,'' Wolfson told reporters in a conference call.
"We don't make distinctions between delegates chosen by million of voters in a primary and those chosen between tens of thousands in caucuses,'' Wolfson said. "And we don't make distinctions when it comes to elected officials'' who vote as superdelegates at the convention.
"We are interested in acquiring delegates, period," he added. ***
Clinton -- who initially joined other Democrats in opposing Michigan and Florida's decisions to go ahead with early primaries -- now wants the votes of those primaries counted. The Obama camp thinks that idea is unfair, since candidates were not allowed to campaign in those states, and Clinton alone kept her name on the Michigan ballot, meaning Obama did not have a chance at getting even provisional delegates.
Clinton's even trying to reframe the issue by changing our language; her campaign no longer refers to "superdelegates" (a term so well accepted that it draws 2.75 million Google hits), but will start calling them "automatic delegates" (which both downplays the fact that each of them has a vote worth 10,000 of ours, and implies that they don't actually have a choice who to support). Orwell would be proud. So would Joe Stalin, and especially Karl Rove.
So considering all this, ask yourself: does Clinton sound like an agent of change, or an establishment politician committed to winning at all costs, even if it means ignoring both the will of the voters and the rules she herself helped put into place?
David Sirota, writing today for the Huffington Post, echoes my analysis of what this means:
So that's the coordinated message: If democracy has been allowed to be trampled in the past, then we should all sit back and be fine with democracy being trampled now...as long as it is trampled in defense of the Clintons. Egomania knows no bounds and no loyalty -- not even to the founding principles of democracy.
At least the mainstream press -- here, here, here, here -- is finally catching on to what a big deal this is, though they're still focusing on the Superdelegates and less on the equally important -- and more deceptive -- issue of seating the Florida and Michigan delegations without pushing them to hold new caucuses or primaries that allow all candidates to compete and all voters to participate. The original post below explains why this news today is so significant, and why it puts Hillary Clinton in such a poor light. (Meanwhile, you can sign petitions here and here, and contribute to Obama here.)
ORIGINAL POST, Feb. 9:
After checking out CNN's primary watch page late last night, I pretty much know what I'm going to be doing for the next six months:
Yesterday there were three Democratic primaries/caucuses: Washington, Nebraska and Louisiana. Obama won all three states overwhelmingly: 68-31% in Washington, 68-32% in Nebraska, 57-36% in Louisiana. He also won the more complex race for delegates in those states: 35-14 in Washington, 16-8 in Nebraska, 23-15 in Louisiana. (All figures are as of midnight last night, with between 96% and 99% of precincts in all three states reporting.)
So Obama gained 74 or so democratically-elected, "promised" delegates yesterday, and Clinton gained only 37 of such delegates. And since (depending on who was counting) the candidates were either neck-and-neck or Obama had a slight lead in the "promised" delegate count heading into today's primaries, he should have about a 40-delegate lead overall, right?
Wrong. Here's CNN's leaderboard as of about midnight Saturday, after substantially all the day's results were in:
Look closely: according to CNN, Obama has 908 democratically elected candidates to Clinton's 877 -- a 31-delegate lead -- but Clinton is still over 70 delegates ahead overall, even after getting her tail whupped today, because she's won the loyalty of (read: campaigned and done favors for, made huge campaign donations to, and shared Bill's donor Rolodex with) 223 party insiders called "superdelegates", while the less-well-connected Obama has only lined up 131!
(UPDATE, FEB. 12: After Maine last Sunday and with the "Potomac primaries" underway today, Obama is continuing his winning streak, but the situation still hasn't changed. CNN reports: In total delegates, Clinton tops Obama 1,148 to 1,121, according to CNN estimates. The breakdown paints a slightly different picture, as Obama leads 986 to 924 in pledged delegates, and Clinton is winning among superdelegates 224 to 135. Does this sound democratic to you, or does it sound like a system designed to ensure that only "establishment", business-as-usual pols can be elected?)
Gain a sweeping victory in elected delegates and yet wind up farther behind because while you were diligently campaigning, your opponent was (much more fruitfully) bribing or twisting insiders' arms. It's our current DLC, Centrist, Clintonian, Democratic (but not democratic) party in a nutshell. And while Obama is asking the superdelegates to simply vote the same way as their states or districts -- a fair solution -- Clinton is defending the superdelegate system, supposedly because the "supers" know the candidates personally and therefore can make better decisions about them than we mere citizens can! It's hard to imagine a less democratic position for a "Democrat" to take: that the aristocrats in the House of Lords quite properly can override us commoners who don't know what we're doing when we vote.
Wait, it gets worse: there's also the Michigan/Florida question. When those states moved their primaries earlier in the calendar without the DNC's permission, the party told them that if they persisted their delegates wouldn't count. They persisted. Clinton sneak-campaigned in both states by making sure her name was on the ballot then buying regional TV ads that would air both in contested states and in the disqualified states. Clinton, unopposed, won big in both states. And now the DNC says, firmly, that those delegates won't be seated -- unless the party decides otherwise at the convention itself. Big loophole, that: two huge, influential states' delegations show up and demand to be seated, it's all the news will cover, it threatens to overshadow the party's message on the issues, and you don't think they'll cave in and seat them? Especially if Obama wins the popular vote, but admitting Michigan and Florida will swing the popular vote the other way and make it look like Hillary actually won?
Yeah, right. The ongoing impeachment proceedings of Bush and Cheney illustrate the degree to which the current Democratic Party leadership -- with, I hope, the exception of Howard Dean -- stands firmly for truth, justice, fair elections and the American Way.
I'm trying to remember the last time the people voted for one candidate, but the other candidate manipulated a small group of power brokers to gain the Presidency anyway. The whole situation just seems really familiar. Just give me a sec. Was it... was it... Bush-Gore 2000, where Gore won the popular vote but Bush won the five Supreme Court votes that really mattered?
So that's what we're coming down to: We The People vote for one candidate, power brokers pick the other, power brokers win. And it doesn't matter which well-connected candidate is pulling the strings, because both parties will roll over for the people with power.
It's offensive. It's undemocratic, and unDemocratic. If the superdelegates don't do the right thing and align themselves with the popular vote, there may be -- there should be -- uncontrollable protests at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August, a la Chicago 1968.
If Clinton wins the nomination unfairly, without huge protests from the roots, then regardless of the outcome of the general election it'll be a good time to check New Zealand's immigration rules. There's great mountain climbing there, the fly fishing is tremendous, the political system is only a little bit rigged -- and it's half a planet away from the former United States of America. But let's not lose faith. Instead, let's work to make sure that doesn't happen, because America's worth fighting for.
That's why I know what I'll be doing for the next sixth months: still doing my climbing on Mt. Hood, my fishing in the Deschutes and McKenzie -- and working to un-rig the Democratic Party's rigged and unfair primary system.
P.S. Feb. 12: Paul Abrams at HuffPo has a good idea for resolving the superdelegate controversy, and holds out hope for Florida and Michigan as well. Fingers crossed. And the Democratic Party is considering revamping its primary process -- but only after November, which is sensible but does us no good now. Meanwhile, though, Hillary still seems to have the lead overall despite falling farther and farther behind with primary voters. A little sunshine and a little progress shouldn't lull us into complacency...
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