Letters to the Editor
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Feels Like A Clinton Test Balloon
For the 'the whole process is flawed so I may as well steal it anyway' approach. For the good of the party and the country, she should step aside now.
Any other candidate would have been hounded out of the race by now.
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@wynter
"The largest issue that points to this is the 2008 version of the "hanging chad", the Michigan and Florida "do over" failures. These failures were largely attributed to the Obama campaign's instructions to stonewall the process in the legislature. Obama may have spoken on Larry King that he was all "for" a do-over in those states, but his operations on the ground and in the state senates were clearly told to oppose any "do over"."
Do you have any evidence of this? I'm not saying it's not conceivable that he's stonewalled, it's just that I haven't seen anything remotely credible to confirm this...are you just assuming this is the case or is there evidence out there?
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Democratic Quandary
Who to vote for? A nut with two boobs or a bub with two nuts?
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Michigan, Florida
The reason there is no re-do in Michigan is that Hillary and Granholm did not push for one until two weeks ago or so. The reason for that was that Hillary and her campaign clearly thought that a re-vote would result in a 50/50 tie at best -- were as she came out from the previous vote, without Obama on the ballot with 73 delegates and in principle Obama with a chance to play for about 50 odd uncommitted delegates. It was only when it becamse absolutely, totally clear that there was no way she would be allowed to keep the delegates she secured in a vote where 45% of voters WOULD NOT VOTE for her, to the extent of voting uncommitted on the ballot (and indeed more might have voted Obama/Edwards had the choice been there), that she very late in the day started backing a revote. The problem was she left it too late to flip her position. Because the big win would have been to take all the Clinton delegates (73) from Michigan, she did not push for a Florida revote -- which likley would have been closer anyway, because again she wanted to keep the lead there and also not set a principle for Florida.
Now one can leave out of this the rights or wrongs, but the real problem is the wishful thinking -- why did Hillary and co think that they would get the Michigan 73? Why did they think the Democratic party could be browbeaten into swallowing that idea? Why did they wait so long before pushing a revote? Had they pushed say in January or February it would have happened.
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Please note that McCain is getting help from Rove
Even though the men personally detest one another and share nothing in terms of goals or values. But they see a GOP win as more important than that. Dems would never do that. They want to be loved and hugged and agreed with and would never pick political expediency over personal tastes. Well except for Hillary, which is why most of the Dems are throwing rocks at her now.
Let me know how that failure tastes in Nov, will you?
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IT NEEDS AN OVERHAUL
The way Democrats choose a Democratic nominee needs a bit of an overhaul for sure, however, the existing process is getting it done even if it doesn't suit every media talking head's time line for starting to destroy the November candidates.
Michigan and Florida knew the rules last year and chose to ignore them. Of course, they had no way of knowing then that they would have a real say in the race this year. Still, they knew the rules and disenfranchised their own voters and delegates - not the DNC as they now want to place their blame. I do find it interesting that Obama - just so freakin' concerned about everyone - doesn't want a do-over and we know that's born of political ambition. He's already proving what an untrustworthy politician he has become.
The super delegates have a say in this no matter what the Obama people say about how it will divide the party, disenfranchise (oops! there's that accusation again from their mouths) voters who have already voted, etc. Many of these are elected officials who understand how serious our problems are in our country. Many have been in the wilderness for years with GOP-controlled state legislatures and/or Congress. I would imagine that they might want a little more meat on the bone if I were them. If they choose Clinton, so be it.
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@juliebird - it's not Howard Dean's fault.
This was supposed to be over by now. If it was, our presumptive nominee would be flush with cash with which to pound John McCain into dust. Instead, blame the voters, who can't make up their minds whether they want Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. As a result, resources we were counting on to kick John McCain's ass are being used instead on infighting between the two camps.
If Dean could do anything helpful at this point, it would be to get the two candidates together and come up with some solution to this problem. Otherwise, we'll be looking at yet another losing season we should have won.
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This mess was inevitable
When Hillary Clinton declared she was running for president, this frigging mess was all but inevitable. HRC is the most insincere, phony and ruthless politician the Democratic party has had in generations. She was going to use any trick, deception and ruse to win a battle she had intitially believed would be a cake walk-just like the Iraq invasion she voted so enthusiastically to authorize. When she realized she was in danger of losing the nomination, you just knew she wasn't going to give up and that she was going to either get the nomination playing dirty, or was going to destroy any chance the eventual nominee might have against the Republican nominee, so she can run virtually unopposed in 2012. When Bill Clinton basically declared that McCain and Hillary were the only patriotic candidates running for the presidency, he issued a threat to the Democratic party:nominate Hillary, or we will make sure that John McCain is the next president.