Stick a fork in her: Clinton's done

[John_Mace]

Once again, as much as I hate to defend Hillary, I can’t really blame her for wanting to use the superdelegates to her advantage. It has nothing to so with “democracy”. It’s about the rules the Democrats set up a generation ago to select their candidate. Still, I would be very surprised if those party leaders went against the popular vote. Many of these guys are Congresscritters who are going to worry about their own re-election prospects.

The ironic thing about MI and FL is that they wanted to have more influence in the selection process. But had they just kept them where they were, they would have had even more influence than moving them.

[Sarahfeena]

[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
You said she broke the rules. Now you say she didn’t really. Wha ev, dude. :rolleyes:

The facts be damned, burn the witch! :rolleyes:
You “don’t care” what the facts are, only about nursing your outrage and denouncing those who unaccountably don’t share it? This is *Great Debates * here, not the BBQ Pit. Try it over there instead, will you?
[/QUOTE]
Do you really think that a freshman senator has more political clout than someone who is the wife of a 2-term president and has twice as much experience as a senator? Come on. I’m not “nursing outrage,” quite the contrary…I find myself too unsurprised by any shady deals Hillary might be involved in to work up even a little bit of outrage.

[DSeid]

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
The bottom line is that he took his name off the ballot in Florida. He removed himself as a candidate. There’s no way you can call that “Campaigning.”
[/QUOTE]
DtC - no he did that in MI, not FL. His name was on the ballot there. And no, he didn’t campaign there.

Hippy- that link says that he’d seat them if he was (already) the presumptive nominee. And having a presumptive nominee already being establisjed allow their seating has been what everyone was presuming was going to happen. Having their delegates decide who the nominee by altering the rules in the endgame would kill any chance of a Democratic victory.

[Shayna]

[QUOTE=Desert Nomad]

Would someone please remind Senator Clinton that this is supposed to be a democracy… damn, the dictatorship I live under in the UAE seems pretty good compared to America these days.
[/QUOTE]
My new heroine, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius kind of just did (though on a slightly different subject). . .

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/samgrahamfelsen/gGgjcG

Senator Clinton and her campaign surrogates keep deriding Senator Obama’s wins in red states by saying that her victories in the ‘big states’ are the ones that matter,” Governor Sebelius said. “The right Democrat, like Barack Obama, can carry red states, just like the 14 Democratic governors elected in states won by George Bush in 2004. We can’t tell people their votes don’t matter and then expect their support against John McCain in November. Senator Obama is reaching to Independents and Republicans because they desperately want to change our politics. I hope Senator Clinton will follow his lead and stop dismissing Democrats that don’t live in New York or California.

Take that!

[John_Mace]

[QUOTE=Shayna]
My new heroine, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius kind of just did (though on a slightly different subject). . . Take that!
[/QUOTE]

Plus, I don’t know of any Hillary supporters who won’t vote for Obama if he is the nominee. But… I know a few Obama supporters who won’t or might not vote for Hillary. I’d put myself in that category. If it’s Hillary vs McCain, I’m not quite sure whom I’d vote for.

[Carol_Stream]

[QUOTE=Shayna]
The version Congress submitted, that didn’t include that language, was passed into law.
[/QUOTE]

Illinois doesn’t have a Congress.

[Shayna]

[QUOTE=Carol Stream]
Illinois doesn’t have a Congress.
[/QUOTE]
Excuse me, I meant the House.

Better?

[tnetennba]

Isn’t “congress” a generic word for a bunch of people who make laws? How can a house not be a congress? Just asking, not arguing.

[stolichnaya]

Speak for yourself. I live in Illinois and I have had* plenty* of congress.

[Carol_Stream]

[QUOTE=Shayna]
Excuse me, I meant the House.

Better?
[/QUOTE]

General Assembly, actually.

Leaves one to wonder what else you don’t know about Illinois politics when you expound on Barack’s voting history.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

[QUOTE=Carol Stream]
General Assembly, actually.

Leaves one to wonder what else you don’t know about Illinois politics when you expound on Barack’s voting history.
[/QUOTE]

It all amounts to different words for a state legislature. Same difference. Your semantic quibble has no bearing on the actual point.

[kaylasdad99]

Yeah, but she gets to say someone who intends to vote for a Democrat was wrong about something, so it’s all good.

[Carol_Stream]

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
It all amounts to different words for a state legislature. Same difference. Your semantic quibble has no bearing on the actual point.
[/QUOTE]

No.

Shayna’s statement:

The version the Senate brought before the Governor was vetoed. The version Congress submitted, that didn’t include that language, was passed into law.

doesn’t make any sense.

Congress does not equal state legislature. For one thing, Congress is made up of two bodies, not one.

[Siam_Sam]

[QUOTE=cricetus]
Isn’t “congress” a generic word for a bunch of people who make laws? How can a house not be a congress? Just asking, not arguing.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, but that’s “congress” with a small C. When it’s “Congress,” it’s different; there’s only the national one in Washington.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

[QUOTE=Carol Stream]
No.

Shayna’s statement:

doesn’t make any sense.

Congress does not equal state legislature. For one thing, Congress is made up of two bodies, not one.
[/QUOTE]

THE US Congress is bicameral but bicameralism is not part of the definition of the word “congress.”

In politics, a congress (“a gathering of people”) is the name of the main legislative body in a state that operates under a congressional system of government.

The state legislature of Illinois is, in fact a “congress,” under the generic definition of the word. It is conventional for us to understand “Congress” (Capital C) as reffering to the United States legislature which happens to be bicameral but that is not the only definition of the word, and bicameralism is not a requirement for a congress to be a congress.

All of this is still irrelevant to the point which was about why Obama voted “present” on a particular bill, not who has a greater pedantic knowledge of the Illinois legislative system.

[stolichnaya]

What, I get no love for the sex joke? This thread is one uptight congress, or assemblage of people. I’ll be lucky if I don’t get impeached, man.

I’ve been reading about this present vote thing, and though I am inclined to give my man Barack the benefit of the doubt, I have yet to have it sufficiently explained to me, to the extent that I feel that I could explain it to someone else.

I read Shayna’s link upthread, but I believe that there is more to it than this- and if Obama expects such an explanation to battle the charge of “100 present votes”, it’s gonna need some serious succinctifying, anyway. I’d be most happy with a little piece on, hey, this is how a present vote is part of the culture of the Illinois state legislature, or assembly, or congress, or whatever, as opposed to Barack saying, “This is how the legislature works- I voted present, there were potential constitutional problems with the amended version of a bill that I had originally co-sponsored, and rather than vote for it, or vote “nay” against a bill I had sponsored, I voted “present” which is tantamount to saying, this bill has my support assuming that we can modify it somewhat”. That is a wonky explanation which will satisfy only fellow wonks. This layperson wonders why he did not vote “nay”.

[DSeid]

[QUOTE=John Mace]
Plus, I don’t know of any Hillary supporters who won’t vote for Obama if he is the nominee. But… I know a few Obama supporters who won’t or might not vote for Hillary. I’d put myself in that category. If it’s Hillary vs McCain, I’m not quite sure whom I’d vote for.
[/QUOTE]

I know that this has been covered in several threads at several times, but this cannot be overemphasized. There is a solid core of hard Democrats just like there is a solid core of hard Republicans. Then there are soft Democrats, independent sorts who just happen to have found the Democratic candidate more appealing in every election so far. Next are true independents. Finally there are soft Republicans who may swing over in a general.

The core will is really ready to get a Democrat in the White House and they will come out for either HRC or Obama. They are a given but they may not be enough to take the White House on their own, no matter how revved up they are.

The soft Democrats would likely come out for HRC if they are not turned off by the process of how she gets there, but if she gets there in ways that smell of back room deals, without a clean win, they’ll stay home in some significant numbers or even vote McCain.

True independents more so and the soft Republicans will come out to vote against her. They like McCain’s independent streak.

As a “soft” Democrat (I’d like to think I’m an Independent but I’ve never not voted for the Democratic candidate so far, since coming of voting age 30 years ago), I’m with you John. I could vote for HRC only if she won it with a majority or at least parity of pledged delegates and without any tactics that smelled of dirty pool. Otherwise I think a McCain Presidency it is. Better that than the damage an HRC victory would do to the Democratic Congressional majority.

Once again, I think the various superdelegates are starting to be aware of that too. They understand that this is an election that will be won by appealing to the independent and swing voters and by not helping rev up the Pubbie base. Obama appeals to those independent and swing voters and does not rev up the Pubbie base. HRC doesn’t appeal to the independents much, doesn’t attract any swing votes, and revs up the Pubbie base against her.

Loyalty to the Clinton machine, fear of it, or not … I suspect that when push comes to shove the superdelegates would decide this election for Obama, even against a slight lead for HRC in pledged delegates if it came to that, because they want to win the White House and keep a Democratic majority and they too recognize that he is more likely to achieve that than she is.

[Carol_Stream]

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
All of this is still irrelevant to the point which was about why Obama voted “present” on a particular bill
[/QUOTE]

Oh, that’s easy. Because he’s a tool. Shayna’s erroneous exposition not withstanding.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@stolichnaya

This layperson wonders why he did not vote “nay”.

Then he’d have people right now asking him why he voted “nay” on stuff he said he supported.

Cherry picking voting histories is one of the oldest political games there is. Things are rarely as simple as voting yes or no on things. There are drafts, there are poison pills, there is wrangling, there are specific versions of bills which need to be worked out. many of the votes are part of a process of settling on a final bill and voting “present” is sometimes part of how the sausage gets made. It isn’t fair to try to pigeonhole anyone in any legislature based on preliminary votes on bills and it would be virtually impossible to find anyone who appeared to be 100% ideologically consistent in how they vote.

[stolichnaya]

But if he votes nay for something he previously supported, then he says “because they changed it”. Simple explanation.

I am not suspicious of him here, but I still don’t understand the apparent tradition of the present vote in the Illinois state legislature. I seek some third party documentation that it is common for state legislators to vote present, and the message which this vote sends to one’s fellow legislators. So far I’ve heard this explanation only from Obama himself, and it’s a bit of a mouthful.

Maybe there is no easy explanation, but if that’s true, this could end up being his 87 billion dollars.