Come November, I’ll be voting my conscious rather than my political party. If Clinton’s shennanigans put her on the ballot, I won’t cast a vote validating her tactics. I won’t vote for McCain, but I will skip that part of the ballot.
I’m afraid, at this point, I’d have to agree. I live in California, so I don’t think it will be an issue anyway.
And though I think SCOTUS is the primary reason that a Dem (even one I don’t like) is worth getting into the White House, I honestly think she will be a disastrous president–putting the party and its platform back a decade or two, easily. McCain would be Bush III, but at least in 4 years, we might have another chance to take things back and put them straight. But if her presidency went sour (and given her standard operating playbook and the fanatical commitment her opponents would have of obstructing her in every possible way), we would be looking at another 8 or 12 years in the wasteland.
Obama may not live up to his promise. He might find the cultural tapestry of Washington much harder to reform than he thinks. But he’s still a president I would be proud of. If she becomes president, I would be constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, for another flub or scandal or self-created PR fiasco to make every (D) look bad for putting her there in the first place. This may not be all her fault, but it is what I think will be largely inevitable with her in charge. 
No, voting is not an obligation (thank goodness!). But while your approach has some attractive personal morality, think what it would mean if extended to a significant sector of the population, that is, those who dislike Sen. Clinton.
Whether we like it or not, the choice we face every four years in November is which of the (usually) two choices facing us we are going to select to run our country. No single person’s vote is instrumental in this choice. But, if every voter applied the same sort of criterion to voting that you are applying here, the result would be a foregone conclusion. Indeed, a democratic election only has validity as a method of popular choice if substantial numbers of people with an interest in the outcome participate.
So, whether you like it or not, if Sen. Clinton is selected by her party to run for the office of President as their candidate in November, and you (and others with similar ideas about voting) refuse to vote for either candidate, and Sen. McCain carries the election by anything other than a substantial majority of electoral votes, then you (and the others like you) will have been the ones to put him in office, or at least had a pretty substantial role in doing so.
Maybe you can live with that. But I’ve been voting in elections since 1978, and I can tell you that the only time I ever didn’t vote in such a situation (fairly long ago and not a Presidential election), I was very unhappy with my feelings at the outcome. I’ve voted every year since, even when the choices were less than palatable (for example, 2004, not to mention 1988, and let’s not forget that ridiculous time I had to choose between Barbara Boxer and Bruce Herschensohn in 1992! :eek: ).
If you are not going to vote in the fall, do it for a somewhat more compelling reason than spiteful rhinectomy.
But you see, one way to do that is to let the superdelegates know that we will not roll over and vote for Hillary if they override the primary results to put her on the ticket.
Listen, I have asked you to stop insulting me, so this will be my last reply to you. I will not, under any circumstances, vote for a candidate for President who I feel is unqualified for the office, and who I think will make a BAD President. I am not going to “vote for the lesser of 2 evils”. That is my prerogative, and if Hillary Clinton and John McCain are my only 2 choices then I will not cast a vote. And yes, I can live with the outcome, because both of them are equally bad in my opinion. This has nothing whatsoever to do with spite. It has to do with looking deeply at each candidate and not liking a damn thing that either of them will bring to the table.
If you don’t believe I have done my homework about Hillary Clinton, then I once again invite you to search my postings to be disabused of that notion. I think Hillary Clinton will hurt this nation every bit as much as John McCain, and I am not obligated by your sense of morality to put her in office just because you think she’d be better than, or less bad than, John McCain.
So get over it.
What spite? It’s not my job to vote for Clinton, it’s her job to convince me to vote for her. Despite your ideas, if she fails to convince me that I want to validate her campaign with my vote then that is no one’s fault but her own. No candidate deserves my vote by default.
Believe it or not, this isn’t some pouting thing that Obama lost (assuming her did). I honestly don’t want to cast a vote for Clinton no matter who she is running against. She doesn’t embody the things I want in a president and so I won’t vote for her. I’d have felt the same if she was running the same campaign against Edwards or Richardson or Dodd.
Nonsense. This as ridiculous an idea as blaming those who voted for Nader for the Bush presidency. If Hillary can’t stop these scorched earth tactics long enough to keep those democrats that support Obama, then a McCain presidency , if it happens, is her fault and noone elses.
Total hogwash. As an independent, somewhat conservative voter, I am electrified this year, for the first time since…forever. There is somebody I actually want to vote for, as opposed to against. If that person isn’t on the ballot come November, then I shall leave that section empty. I won’t support McCain, but I’ll be damned if I cast a vote for Hillary other than the one that banishes her back to the Outer Darkness that spawned her. “None of the Above is Acceptable” will get another write-in vote.
Sure, it’s OK to seat them- just as long as Obama stays ahead, right? *"I know this is not a popular opinion in most circles, especially amongst Obama supporters, but Obama said from the very beginning that so long as it doesn’t affect the outcome in any way, Florida and Michigan will have their delegates seated at the convention, and I agree with him. And it’s looking more and more like seating them won’t make a difference in Obama’s pledged delegate lead…I gave all of the 40% “undeclared” in Michigan to Obama, and I split the Edwards & Kucinich votes from Florida between each, giving the extra 1% to Hillary since they didn’t split evenly…
So long as he continues to maintain the lead by at least this margin until the last contest, and the supers don’t overturn the pledged delegate results, I say let them seat FL and MI as is and be done with it."* And, it’s only OK if they do their math your way, which they won’t? :dubious: How about if they award enough to push Hillary past Obama? :dubious: Or are you only OK if Obama still wins?
“Free to do what they want” until they don’t do what you want, in which case you’ll walk? And “there will be consequences”? :rolleyes:
True- Hillary is only twice as qualified as Obama.
As DSYoungEsq so abley puts it, there ain’t much difference between Hillary Platform/Positions and Obama’s. There’s a lot between the two people, sure.
But if you won’t vote for whichever Dem gets the nod, you are casting half a vote for McCain, in effect.
McCain is marginally worse than Clinton so in that very hypothetical I’d probably vote Clinton. But I understand the thoughts of those who feel that Clinton and McCain are equally objectionable. I felt that myself until he recently crossed the line on an issue near and dear to my own heart.
The “problem” with us Democrats is that we are not as partisan as most Republicans. We actually are almost independents. To many of us Republicans are not the enemy even if some of them are our enemies as individuals. We will cross over or sit home if we don’t think the Democratic candidate is better for the country than the Republican one.If Clinton wins in a divisive and scurrilous way many may come to that conclusion. That’s not spite; it is a reasoned analysis even if I currently disagree with the conclusion.
To the Clintonites on this board: Can you come up with some reasonable math that puts Clinton ahead by August?
She’s been outplayed on every front since January. Campaigns in shambles and she’s desperately throwing the kitchen sink at Obama. She’s not fit to be the President of the United States. Ever.
That’s about as academic as I’m going to get 9 pages into this thread.
Question: How would it affect the numbers if they manage to rehold the Florida primary for real, like they’re proposing now? Would Hillary still win? And if they do this for Florida, they’d almost certainly do it for Michigan. What would wins for Hillary in both two states do?
Kos at the Daily Kos collected some figures today for anyone who cares to look at them. Summarizing 8 different metrics, the headline tells the tale: Clinton is losing
Elsewhere, the Hill reports that excitement over Obama’s possible coattails is picking up:
Eyeing Obama coattails
Doesn’t matter, Obamas supporters would inevitable come out for him and it would be very close and he could even pull it off in one or both. Most likely MI over FL for an all out Obama win. So no, the numbers would essentially stay the same, unless of course Obama trounces Hillary in either one. Then he’d be further ahead than he is now. Hillary would have to seriously trounce Obama to have any real effect, I don’t see that happening in either state.
I read the coattails article and thought it was well done. Hillary is losing but she’s sure to pull a wicked witch of the west and go down slooowly…I’m melting…I’m melting…
Good!
Realistically, I can’t. Obama is ahead and there isn’t enough delegates left for Clinton to retake the lead. There is a realistic possibility that Obama also won’t get enough delegates to lock up the nomination and both of them will go into an open convention. Clinton’s presumedly hoping that she can survive the balloting at the convention long enough to convince delegates to turn in her favor.
That said, I don’t think it’ll go that way. Obama is more likely to swing Clinton delegates in his favor than the reverse. Obama will have the lead and the recent momentum and he’s certainly a more charismatic person who’ll do well working the delegates. And Clinton supporters will accept Obama as their second choice but a lot of Obama supporters won’t accept anyone but Obama.
Any new numbers will hurt Clinton. She’s already got the “win” in these states; the only direction she can go is down. And Obama’s numbers have been improving. He’d probably do better in a do-over vote now than he would have in a normal primary vote in these states back in January.
I’m hoping one of Sen. Clinton’s surrogates notices how youth is breaking for Obama and says something to the effect of “Hillary would have won, if it wasn’t for those meddling kids!”
I’m no “Clintonite” but the math I can handle. Between Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan she makes up 60 plus delegates. Difficult but not impossible. That puts the pledged delegate count within 100. She makes it within 1% on the popular vote. She argues that those results are virtual ties and that she’s proven she’s the better candidate to win Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in a general election. That primary votes mean more than caucuses. That her momentum shows that the Democratic electorate has second thoughts about Obama. Enough superdelegates either agree or are coerced in other ways with that as a cover to put her over the top.
Unlikely, yes. But not an impossible turn of events.
I wonder how many early Clinton supporters switched to Obama over the last 6 months? I know getting numbers on that would be near impossible, but it would be interesting. I know Obama initially did well with young, college, new grad types…but he’s picked up a lot of us not-young professional types as well. I wouldn’t swing for Hillary and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Obama earned every cent of what he’s gotten from me, and personally it’s time, money and energy. I simply do not like Hillary’s politics. Not Platform, but politics. Things on this baord have gotten into the fire breathing realm. Give me some Tolkien threads for awhile - so I can take a breather. Thanks for not showing teeth or breathing fire Little Nemo - it’s a nice change from some of our other brethren here.