Letters to the Editor
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Join the hope train
It looks like progress is being made to admit delegates from Florida and Michigan, either through a re-vote, or seating those already selected in the recent previous votes.
Won't happen. Seating the delegates already selected is a non-starter. Howard Dean is a very smart strategist, and he realizes the only way out of this mess is to go by the rules stated at the beginning of the race. FL and MI's votes do not count. As far as a revote goes, the DNC is definitely not going to pay for it. The DNC paying for a revote would be akin to the NBA paying a player's fine for unsportsmanlike conduct.
So, there are only two alternatives as I see them, the states pay, or the campaigns pay. MI and FL can ill afford another 20-25 million total dollars right now. The campaigns both have an incentive to pay, Hillary because she can win more delegates, and Obama because he would want to be seen as, at the least, just as fair-minded as the Clinton campaign. However, Hillary doesn't have that kind of cash to throw around, and her "strategy" right now is to count the votes as is. With time running out, it is very very unlikely that an agreement of this kind will be reached in time for the convention.
Obama is our nominee. Check out Intrade, where Hillary futures are trading at 23%, and Obama's at 77%. The market knows. Frankly, I think Obama is a great buy right now, 77% is far too low. The superdelegates are not going to thwart the electorate. New voters and young voters are at an all-time high, and this is a wonderful opportunity to expand the democratic base. The party will not squander that chance.
Furthermore, Hillary will get the Republicans to come out en-masse to vote against her, simply because she is so (unfairly) hated in right wing circles. Obama will have coattails.
This game is over.
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@renegade
The latest stratagem being floated is a mail-in do-over in both FL and MI. This may be the most viable solution; it's certainly preferable to altogether alienating who knows how many millions of voters from the Democratic ticket come November. Would you really like your vote tossed in the waste can due to forces beyond your control? Don't think so.
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Only a Diaper Load
Typical Kinton Kamp blather. As James Carville, the Karl Rove of the Clinton years, said about Pennsylvania, it's Pittsburgh and Philly with Alabama in the middle. You're obviously from the Alabama portion. How do you feel about Geraldine Ferraro's racists screed this morning. My guess is that you like it, and subscribe to the Klinton hints that Obama is getting a free media ride 'cause he's a darkie. Yeah, that's why Governor's offices and both houses of Congress are packed with black officer holders. Another diaperload from the Klintons. It's SOP for the FUBAR campaign.
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Well....
The latest stratagem being floated is a mail-in do-over in both FL and MI. This may be the most viable solution; it's certainly preferable to altogether alienating who knows how many millions of voters from the Democratic ticket come November. Would you really like your vote tossed in the waste can due to forces beyond your control? Don't think so.
I'm in favor of a revote. I'm not entirely happy about it. I think that, on the left hand, everyone knew the rules before the game began, on the right hand, FL and MI flaunted the rules to try to get a bigger influence, and now they are going to get a bigger influence by going last, but on the gripping hand, we don't want to alienate all those voters.
So, in the end, I agree. However, from a strategic standpoint, I really don't think, for this election, those states matter. I want to win. I'm thinking down the road. Down the road, we don't want the bad blood. For this election, Obama wins a landslide, and has coattails, even without FL and MI.
With FL and MI in the primary, he still wins the primary, and he still wins the general, so it's a win-win situation. Sorry if that was a rambling response. So... I agree. Why do I get the feeling you won't like my response anyway? :)
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Winner take all systems
Reality based lib wrote:
If the Democratic primary was "winner take all" like the GOP's: yes, Clinton would be in the lead. Go ahead, join the GOP if you prefer that system
Oh, come on, you can do better than that! Even E. J. Dionne (LIBERAL WaPo columnist) noted in his recent column that the dems' yen for exaggerated 'fairness' was screwing them up in their ridiculous proportional representatation primary system.
This thing would have been settled by now with a sane, RATIONAL system - such as - yes, the GOP has, though they didn't invent it. I recall way back when - in an era gone by - the Ds ALSO had a winner take all primary system. Then they fucked it up and substituted this stupid idiotic proportional bunkum which merely draws the primary infighting out and confers an advantage on the Reeps.
As for "junior senator" I was alluding to a Newsweek piece some weeks ago that before his campaign Obama had a basement office in the Senate Bldg. He earned that by being lowest man on the seniority totem pole. He's barely served for two years in the Senate while HRC has completed SIX. HRC also, as the NW article noted, took the poor little sprat Obie under the wing and showed him the ropes, and whereabouts of things. Even got him into the committee orbit- while noting recently he hasn't used it to call one single investigation.
Obie is a newbie and there's no getting around it. The guy needs to let HRC have her chance now, then wait 8 years - when he will still be a young 54, and go for it then. He has jumped the queue and hence deserves all the attacks he gets, including the recent one from Geraldine Ferraro who told it like it was.
If Obie doesn't want to be veep, fine, then he gets nada. Let him go back to his basement office and do whatever. The guy has too big a sense of entitlement and he doesn't merit it.
See also:
www.obamatruth.org