First HRC wants the voters to decide. Then, she wants the super delegates to decide. HRC doesn’t like caucus states because of activist participation. She doesn’t like states with a large AA constituency. Red states shouldn’t count. She agreed Michigan and Florida wouldn’t count; now those states should count. Good Lord. The more she spins this, the more she is perceived as a manipulator. Michigan and Florida are out. It was agreed to by all the candidates. HRC doesn’t get to change the rules to achieve her end. This is starting to border on lunacy.
Have her own positions been changing that fast, or has it merely been the Obama-camp spin about her positions, which you’re helpfully repeating for us, that has had to change thaf fast? :dubious:
RTF, someone who claims to be so in tune with the political process should know better than that (seriously, dude, come on now) She’s been working with the DNC and the MI and FL DC’s to do exactly what should be done here, get revotes set up. Obama, not. As you frickin’ know.
E-Sabbath, if you can expound on what does not make sense to you, perhaps I can help. But if you’re really more interested in personal attacks, take them elsewhere, please.
Gozu, your objection was addressed in the OP link you obviously couldn’t be bothred to read. They *have * been asked.
The rest of you still repeating the “It’s too late, the state parties agreed to the rules last winter, tough shit, people” utterly fail, or perhaps simply refuse, to get the point as well - as evidenced by your complete avoidance, or perhaps simply unawareness, of the meanings of democracy and leadership. Shitfire, you don’t even address the value of winning in November. :rolleyes:
Is this meant to say that Clinton has a better chance of winning in Nov? Because if you can’t even win your own party’s nomination following the rules as laid down from the beginning, how do you make the case that you’ll be the better candidate in Nov?
Or, to put it the way Steve Cauthen did when asked how he won a horse race, “I put my horse down, he put his horse down. Mine won.”
Elvis, that wasn’t a personal attack. It was a compliment on your mastery of spin. You’re very good. And very fast. I’m honestly serious, if you have the voice for it, I think you could have a career in radio.
As for what does not make sense, I defer to the rest of the participants in this thread.
pantom, your line of reasoning only makes sense if you think the general-election electorate is of the same nature as the Democratic-primary electorate. I would hope you know it isn’t.
E-Sabbath, you’re ducking. If you can articulate a specific objection of any kind to anything I’ve said, then out with it. If you can’t, then kindly cut the crap.
SteveMB, got any of them “cite” thingies that are all the rage here? :dubious:
Was I dreaming when I heard that Clinton beat Obama by nearly ten points in PA?
For a candidate who allegedly has no chance, that’s a huge margin of victory. If she was as dead as everyone says she shouldn’t be able to win any remaining state by any margin.
Shitfire Elvis what part of “dead” do you not understand? I understand that you believe that it is a major problem that it is dead. I understand that you refuse to acknowledge that if Clinton wanted to show “leadership” on this then the time to do so was when the decision was made to strip them of their delegates, not after a vote was held that she won uncontested and after she is losing without. I understand that you don’t want to acknowledge that Clinton’s people instead were an active part of making the decision to strip the delegates, while Obama’s people were no where nearly as involved in that decision. I understand that you choose to ignore the importance of having some kind of order to the primary process if the price, future chaos, serves the purposes of your preferred outcome. You may honestly believe that it isn’t fair to either Clinton or to the voters in those states. But “dead” is a pretty simple concept, surely you can understand what it means? There is no way for it to happen at this late date. Zip. None.
Now as to the effect come November, see my post 22. If this is decided before the convention then the delegations will be seated and the healing can begin. The fact that I believe that will be the outcome is of little importance, but most party hot shots see that as the likely outcome as well. Either one of them will drop out before then on their own or the supers will make it clear which way they are going and the loser will be forced out. Alternatively they get seated as is because the powers that be have become convinced of Hillary’s superior electability and Obama won’t go and so she wins their seating on appeal.
Clinton “has no chance” to win the nomination of the party because even victories bigger than what she won wouldn’t come close to putting her in the lead. It doesn’t follow that because she has no chance to win the overall nomination, she should lose every individual contest.
I’m not quite sure what this pertains to. Could you clarify your intent behind the question?
Right now, the polls show McCain and Obama about even in PA, while Hillary beats him by about 5%. Of course, those numbers could change a lot between now and November. That is exactly the sort of thing the superdelegates will have to take into account. If they think McCain beats Obama in PA, and that’s pivotal to winning/losing the election, then they should throw their support behind Hillary. We don’t see much of that happening, though. Why do you think that is?
That is because the superdelgates know Obama’s appeal transcends who voted for Hillary in PA, OH, FL, MI, TX etc…etc…He’s a democrat, and the dems want in this fall very badly, and Obama’s appeal seeps into those old democratic ties more than peoples disdain for him as a candidate. He is more widely liked and that is what will eventually lead him into the white house in the fall.
Why would I object to anything you say, Elvis? It’s performance art. You can’t be serious about this… or maybe you are. Do you know, I’ve never seen you articulate and defend a concrete argument?
At any rate, you’re a master of deflection and spin. I applaud it. Attempting to debate with you is much like pounding sand.
Elvis, your argument only makes sense if how you run your campaign has no bearing on your executive abilities.
Hillary has had two chances to show her executive abilities, first in 1993 with the health care plan, which she flubbed, and now in this campaign which, having organized her campaign as if it was winner-take-all instead of proportional (a big state strategy like hers ONLY makes sense in a winner-take-all system) she now wants to change the rules after it became obvious her strategy was a failed one.
Obama ran a 50-state strategy, and that turned out to be the correct one for a proportional delegate system.
He put his horse down, she put hers. Hers lost. Deal with it.
It also makes sense if you never expected any serious opposition, as well. She thought she’d be the candidate by Super Tuesday and she’s been playing it that way ever since, even though it’s a losing strategy now. Personally, that’s another box checked off on my “Why she shouldn’t be president” worksheet…anyone who is so inflexible as to continue beating a useless strategy into the ground long after it becomes a moot point shouldn’t be running a country.
Well, they hope that-- they don’t know it. And I’m not 100% convinced that is right. In fact, I’m not even 75% convinced. I think a lot of Dems are fooling themselves into thinking they have two really strong candidates, and they’re golden in November. I still support Obama (although not as enthusiastically as many on this board), but he and Hillary are simply not anywhere near the best that the Democrats could produce. It’s more a matter of the Republicans being weak than either of those two being strong candidates.
Please let me be in charge of what I do or don’t know. I’ve seen various did-not, did-too allegations about this in assorted places. I’ve personally been in favor of revotes from early on, but I really don’t have a clear picture of who’s done what to further or drag their heels on such events, and under what circumstances.
To the best of my ability to tell, Team Hillary has put a lot more effort into having the MI/FL results count ‘as is’ than into bringing about a revote. I could be wrong, but you were making an assertion about what I know. That’s what I know, even if it’s wrong.
Elvis, this isn’t a strong position to take when the argument shifts to the role of super delegates. Would you have the same level of outrage if the super delegates chose HRC despite the popular vote or pledged delegates favoring Obama?
We’ve certainly done that in plenty of the umpteen dozen previous “what should the superdelegates do?” debates.
One of my expectations is that if one candidate has a clear lead in delegates, but that lead is undone by the supers, then the supporters of that candidate will be a bit upset. Most of that candidate’s supporters will of course be longtime Democratic voters who will hold their noses and vote Dem again.
But a lot of Obama’s supporters are young people whose ties to the Democratic Party are only now being formed. There’s no reason to expect them to suck it up and vote Dem in November if they feel like Obama’s been screwed over, because they’re not yet firmly Democratic voters to begin with. They may stay home, they may vote for McCain, who knows? But a lot of them won’t vote Hillary - and we’ll risk losing them for the future.
A lot of these people first voted Dem in 2006; a lot of others first voted Dem by voting for Obama in the primary. I don’t know how true the CW is that if you get young people to vote for the same party three times in a row, you’ve likely got them for life, but as a matter of fact, I would like to maximize the chances of creating a cohort of twentysomethings who will be reliable Democratic voters for the rest of their lives.
And then there are black voters. If they feel like the party screwed Obama over, you think they’re going to wait in line for hours to vote when the inner-city precincts don’t have nearly enough voting machines? A lot of them will remember when that happened to them last time, say “screw it,” and stay home.
I’m sure the same thing would be true in reverse if Hillary had a clear lead in pledged delegates, but the supers all went for Obama. I expect a lot of women would feel betrayed by the party, and wouldn’t show up in November. But that’s a moot point, since Hillary’s not going to overtake Obama in pledged delegates, or any other meaningful indices between now and the end of the primary season.
First, I said florideans, not florida democrats. Republicans also pay taxes and vote, you know? They do have a say in how their money is spent.
Second, I read the OP. This may surprise you but I try not to lose the respect of the people who read me.
I sincerely wish there were more voices of dissent, providing us with good arguments and good answers. I imagine having to reply by yourself to so many people doesn’t leave you as much time to think and redact good answers, thus the abundance of your unsatisfactory one-liners.
I’m sorry to say but that does not change the fact that you will lose the respect of many who don’t know or don’t care about such mitigating circumstances when they read your one of your poorly-contructed, faulty arguments. I am truly saddened by that :’(
My advice to you is to take more time to research and to remember that you should be willing to be wrong every once in a while. I know I was humbled many, many times. Keeps my ego in check
