:rolleyes: I have several times argued on this Board that pro-Obama Dems should quit it with the Clinton-bashing, because she could still win the nomination and we can’t afford to do anything that will reinforce the memes the Pubs would be using against her in the general. But this goes over the line even by my lights.
Hillary, the manner in which each major party’s candidate won the nomination is rarely an issue in the general election, barring very extraordinary circumstances. This ain’t 1968.
The only way the “legitimacy” of the Dem nominee will be in question is if the losing candidate questions it, publicly and repeatedly, even after the Convention.
That’s not going to be you doing that, is it? :dubious:
IIRC, when Pillory was enjoying her early lead, she took the attitude that Florida and Michigan knew the deal going in, and that was it. Hell, a man a rarely agree with, Al Sharpton, said the same thing about a month ago on NPR.
Now that it looks like she’ll need every delegate she can beg, borrow, or steal, she changes her tune.
Considering the way some Dem supporters of the losing candidate in 2000 questioned publicly and repeatedly even after the next election, I would say this is an expected tactic.
You don’t think this is an extraordinary circumstance?
The Democratic voters in Florida and Michigan are plenty pissed off - and if a situation develops where their votes would have been decisive, they will be more pissed off. You cannot afford to have two states worth of pissed off voters this year in your party - if they are pissed off at you.
I said it before, the DNC fucked themselves over this. The Republicans by contrast took away only half of the delegate slate for breaking the rules. It is unlikely that this kind of fuss would be raised over a reduction in delegates rather than a complete disenfranchisement.
And yeah - it could be 1968 or worse. If Hillary gets the nomination - not an impossibility - then there will be riots.
That was because the results of the general election were disputed. Different situation entirely. Nobody questioned Gore was the “legitimate” Dem nominee.
The problem is, they’re pissed off at the wrong person, and all because that loudmouthed bitch Hillary Clinton keeps blaming him publicly for something he had fuckall to do with.
No. The Florida Democratic Leaders fucked themselves, only now they’re lying about it, claiming to have been railroaded by the Republican majority. That is a flat out fucking LIE.
ALL they had to do was show the DNC that they took “provable and positive” steps to prevent the legislation, and to have done so “in good faith”, and POOF, no sanctions! And that’s EVEN IF they ultimately had to vote FOR it due to the paper ballot issue. See my post here for more details on that issue.
They swore up and down that they had taken those steps. Even wrote letters to Howard Dean, lying about having done so. Except the stupid schmucks forgot about the video cameras in the Senate when they were making a mockery of the DNC’s rules and merely playing lip service to putting forth an amendment opposing the change in the primary date.
The Florida Democrats knew full well that they would lose ALL of their delegates if they didn’t at least make an attempt to stop the date from moving up. They were even given the option of setting up a second contest at a later date that would be the one whose results would count. At the time they were made this offer, they had plenty of time and resources to make it happen and give their electorate the right to be heard in the primaries. But they played a game of chicken with the DNC, saying people wouldn’t want to come out to vote twice (which is bullshit) and that caucuses would disenfranchise their constituents. As if they aren’t feeling disenfranchised NOW? Goddamn morons.
I am not saying that there wasn’t fault in Florida and Michigan as well - but the penalty was too strict from the outset.
Because it was, state leaders had no real interest in modifying things - they never dreamed that the DNC would really stick to this punishment.
It made matters a hell of a lot worse, and indeed led to this present state. Like I said, if the penalty were a reduction of delegates, the states would have regarded that reduction as the cost of doing business for holding an earlier primary, and wouldn’t have fought much afterward.
Cast blame all you want - the long and the short of it is Democratic politicians in both states went along with the date change - and Democratic voters in both feel they have no voice now in the nomination contest. That sucks for your side.
It sucks only in producing the current impasse. I don’t expect any Florida Dem who cares about who the next POTUS will be will stay home on e-day – or vote for McCain – just out of a sense of resentment over the primary.
But as I said before - you need those Democrats in those states to man the phone banks and lit drops. Hard to turn them out on a Saturday morning if they’re pissed off.
And if you combine this issue with a potential superdelegate problem, things might get really messy. And make no mistake - Hillary has no incentive to drop out before the convention. Because there is no winner-take-all in the Democratic Party, there is no way that Obama will have enough delegates heading into the convention to cinch the nomination - and in the convention, anything can happen.
Yeah, well fuck em. If they want to pick the candidate, they have to play by the rules. Letting cheaters into the game does not increase its legitimacy, no matter what HRC says.
I keep hearing that I (as a MI voter) am really pissed off right now.
I’m not, and neither is anyone else I know. We roll our eyes at the arrogance of our state legislature, but I ain’t mad. Our state broke the rules, and this is what we get for it.
That’s retarded. That’s like blaming the parents when you miss Prom because you were warned that if you broke curfew you’d be grounded for a month, and you were too fucking stoopid to do the math when you defied them and tried to sneak in after midnight.
Which utterly defeats the purpose of imposing strict sanctions in the first place! If every state thought, “Gee, if we pass legislation moving our primaries up against DNC rules, we’ll only lose half, so what the hell!”, we’d have a bloody nightmare primary season on our hands.
Sorry, but the DNC specifically wrote rules in that afford states the opportunity to avoid ANY sanctions, providing they go through certain steps in a “good faith” effort. Florida knew this, so they made a GAME out of it, thinking they’d pull one over on the DNC, get their early primary and laugh all the way to the polls.
Sure, it’s not so great right now for our side but I’m missing something. Are you saying that the DNC, as governing body of party primary and caucus rules, would have gotten a better result by implementing a half-assed (reduction in delegates) sanction, perhaps encouraging more states to take such a risk, rather than stating the hard and fast outcome and standing fast by it to discouraging more state bodies from getting out of line?
Even if the sanctions were too strict, Florida and Michigan knew that before they moved up their primary dates what the outcome would be. How is that the DNC’s fault at all? Sure, both events got us to where we are now, but I’d rather have it the way it is now, than some “system of chaos” were there no tight rules. If the governing body backs down from the stated consequences, why adhere to any rules and restrictions at all? Just let the primary season devolve into a free-for-all of dates, formats and “My-impact-of-the-nomination-is-bigger-than-yours - No,-mine” pissing contests?
I’ve been saying all along that whoever the nominee is needs to show they won according to the rules. Counting the Florida or Michigan delegates would not be following those rules. They should not be counted.
They were pretty pissed off after Super Bowl XXIV. But then the lack of oxygen kicked in and they just walked around, kicking over trash cans and throwing rocks at small animals.