Didn’t say that either.
If Clinton drags it out (she’s LOSING, which is why it’s her we’re talking about, not Obama), there’s no threat of “the party” sabotaging her or anything like that. She will be doing it herself - being seen by the Democrats as 2008’s Nader would certainly totally destroy her chances of ever getting in the big chair.
Oh, and comparing the Clinton/Obama competition to the Paul/McCain competition is just beyond silly.
-Joe
**
Little Nemo**, I have no problem with Clinton staying in the race if she doesn’t embark on a mission to destroy Obama. The smear tactics are hard to tolerate. If she insists on smearing the likely nominee and a fellow democrat, I want her out of the race. If she can run a smear free campaign against Obama, it is probably good to have two strong candidates underscore McCain’s weaknesses.
I can’t speak for anybody else, but I’d have been glad to see Hillary win a hard-but-fair contest, even if it involved throwing a lot of elbows.
My problem with her is that she’s validated the other side, and denigrated Obama by comparison. Not only have she and her husband cozied up to Richard Mellon Scaife and Rush Limbaugh, and distributed American Spectator anti-Obama wingnut agitprop, but she’s repeatedly said that McCain’s qualified on foreign policy, but Obama’s not.
AFAIAC, that’s outside the lines. You don’t use GOP talking points to attack your fellow Dems with: you attack their positions on Democratic grounds, or not at all. You don’t denigrate your fellow Dems by comparing them unfavorably with Republicans, unless you’re arguing that they should be drummed out of the party altogether.
I was pretty pissed about Obama’s Harry-and-Louise-style ad criticizing Hillary on health care for exactly these reasons. But Hillary’s gone beyond - way beyond - that.
Hillary’s far too politician-y for my tastes, but I don’t see what’s wrong with comparing anyone to anyone, especially if the comparison is true in this case. And I want to see Obama win in November.
Comparing Obama’s readiness to be C-in-C to McCain’s, and finding Obama unready and McCain ready?
That’s bullshit. “Our guy’s not ready to lead this country in a dangerous world, and their guy is, but vote for our guy anyway.” Yeah, that makes loads of sense.
And I’d argue that the opposite is true - that McCain really has minimal foreign policy experience, his knowledge is weak, and his understanding atrociously bad. No sense of tradeoffs, interrelationships, no knowledge of who’s with and against whom in the part of the world he’s focused on keeping us involved in. Obama has no experience per se, but he’s got a very sound strategic vision for what the U.S. needs to be doing in the world.
I think keeping them both out is best. The consequences of breaking the rules must be clear. As I understand it, MI has a Democratic governor who could have vetoed the early election but didn’t. In any case I haven’t heard where the Dem’s couldn’t have prevented it if they wanted to.
As for FL, they may have been railroaded into an early election, but ultimately I think they will focus their anger on the Republicans, not the DNC. The Republicans who seem to be doing poorly for the last couple of cycles. I think it possible that the Democrats in FL may roll up their sleeves and do their best to oust them from the majority over the next couple election cycles.
Sooner or later they will be motivated to create some real push-back and if they succeed FL may remain blue for quite a while after that. At least, so long as the Democrats regain full control of the White House and Congress and do a reasonable job of governing for the next few years. I think the mood of the country is more than ready to swing back towards liberalism and give that a try for a while. The GOP demonstrated they can’t govern and it will take them time to re-invent themselves.
And I’d be more impressed with both candidates if they’d start showing me how effectively they can attack McCain, not each other. That’s where we need to see some one-upsmanship.
Can’t we reach a Solomon-like decision and just cut each delegate in half?
You misspelled “candidate.” 
How were they (the Dems) railroaded? It was my impression that the vote was nearly unanimous by the Florida legislature. I think the vote was 118 - 0 in the House. It’s hard to argue that you were railroaded when not one member voted against the measure.
The people who believe this lie will tell you that the Democrats did try to fight the legislation in the beginning, even making an amendment themselves, not to move the date prior to February 5th. For instance, these people, who say:
True, they did, and they were defeated. But how serious and honest were they in those efforts? Watch this video and see for yourself:
Note the dripping sarcasm and the <wink, wink, nod, nod> going on. This was not a “Good Faith” effort to prevent the early primary. They literally went through the motions under false pretenses, only so they could later claim they tried, by presenting their amendments to the DNC Rules Committee as evidence that they took “provable and positive steps” to stop the legislation.
It is alleged that the Rules Committee saw this video evidence, which is how they know that the Florida Democrats intentionally made a mockery of the threat of sanctions against them, as opposed to genuinely fighting against this legislation.
And then Senator Geller had the gall to write a letter to the DNC, putting the full blame on the Republicans.
The man’s a liar and his constituents have suffered the consequences. Were I a Floridian, I would be campaigning hard to oust his ass from office.
And none of this addresses, from the CBS article above, that they were offered an opportunity not to have sanctions imposed if they just called the early primary a “beauty contest” for the Presidential portion of the voting, and held a second contest at a later date. They chose not to do that because they didn’t think their constituents would want to come out and vote twice, which is ridiculous, seeing as how they’ve been fighting so hard to do just that for the past several months.
Their other argument against that proposition was that the 2nd contest would likely be caucuses as opposed to “primaries”, and they felt that method would disenfranchise voters in their state. Hmmm, let me think about that a moment. . . “Disenfranchise” voters by making none of their voices heard at all by thumbing their nose at the DNC Rules Committee and having none of their delegates seated, or “Disenfranchise” voters by making them come to a second election held as a caucus." Which of those options truly “disenfranchises” their voters more? You do the math.
I’m not following this . . . Exactly what nefarious motive are you attributing to the Florida Dems?
The practical result of their actions appears to be to allow Obama to maintain his lead and deny HRC the advantage of the Florida delegates; but I can’t think they had that in mind when they voted on the change.
Are you serious? What’s not to get? Their motive was to get the early primary date they wanted, and not be sanctioned for moving it because they took “provable and positive steps” to prevent it.
Except that they didn’t, which is shown clearly in that video.
The DNC knows this, so did, in fact, sanction them.
They tried to “call the bluff” of the DNC, and learned to their dismay that it was no bluff. This had nothing whatsoever to do with the candidates in particular, this had to do with thumbing their nose at the DNC and getting their early primary votes to count, regardless of the winner. Had they been successful in pulling one over on the DNC – no sanctions. Obama and Clinton both campaign in their state, it’s a fair contest, and they get to go before all the February 5th states – woo hoo.
Too bad the DNC saw through their subterfuge.
I am a Michigan voter that voted for Edwards. My understanding was Clinton was not to appear on the ballot either. If she had followed through with what she said she would do ,this problem would not exist.
May I ask exactly what rule is broken by sugesting one of the candidates step aside ‘for the good of the party’?
It was explained to me that the final vote also included a measure that would allow paper ballots, and that there was no way that the Democrats could vote against that so they had to concede the early primary.
Nonetheless, my initial statement about anger against the GOP, who have caused endless consternation for the Florida Dems for at least the last decade, stands. Although from what I saw in the video, be that all true and accurate, then first they might well begin by purging those from their own house that might be working against the party’s best interest. I certainly believe that there are plenty of Democrats in this country who need to be replaced. The party hasn’t endured it’s long losing streak and many spineless representatives because all is well with it. We need candidates worth voting for who will not only have the support of Dems but of independents and Republicans as well in order to attain a majority in that state and elsewhere.
I think they mean the rule that whomsoever the Democratic Leadership Council anoints shall be the winner :rolleyes: .
Yes, that’s true. And the DNC rules allow that even if they all voted unanimously in favor of the final bill because it contained amendments they couldn’t, in good political conscience, vote against, there were outs that would have avoided the sanctions.
Show provable and positive steps were taken to oppose the legislation. Moving for an amendment that opposed the early date would’ve been a good way to show this. And Steven Geller knew this. That’s why he said in that video that they were doing this horse and pony show so that they could submit it to the DNC later to “prove” they tried to block it. Clearly it was not a good faith effort and the DNC saw through their little mockery.
Once the legislation was passed, they could’ve arranged for a separate caucus date that fell within the DNC guidelines, making the early primary a “beauty contest” for President, but allowing their constituents to vote on all the other measures that were important to them at that time, coming back later to make their “real” vote for the presidential nominee. They refused that option, citing “disenfranchisement”.
Either one of these steps would’ve allowed them to vote unanimously on the legislation that created paper trails that they wanted, but avoid the sanctions that lost them the seating of their delegates at the convention.
They did neither, and now want to blame both the Republicans, and, mysteriously, Barack Obama.
I’m not sure how effective any of that would be with the Dems in the minority, not knowing the particularities of FL state politics, but if they had good steps they could have taken to prevent this then my feelings are the same as I hold regarding MI. The best remedy is to say “See you in 2010.” It’s time for the Dems to run a tighter ship and start eliminating even the impression of corruption or favoritism as much as possible. After all, a majority of states want to do the primaries differently, which is fine. They should wait until after this election cycle like everyone who didn’t break the rules and hash it out afterwards.
If your assertions are incorrect- I’m not saying they are - or whether the majority of Democrats in the state rightly or wrongly blame it on the GOP it’s still more fuel for them to push back hard against the GOP majority. And since the national winds seem to be blowing leftwards there may be a critical mass of people outside the party in FL who want change badly enough that the time is close when Democratic dominance will be achievable.
Probably not effective at all. Make no mistake, I’m not arguing that the Dems could’ve beaten this legislation with a more concerted effort. Their Minority position likely prevented that from ever being possible. But they only paid lip service to trying, which is all the DNC asks of them.
And when the Rules Committee found against them in their claim that they’d tried, they were still offered a chance to avoid sanctions by holding a second contest in the form of caucuses. They chose not to.
Therefore, my conclusion is, they have no one but themselves to blame. Not the Republicans. Not Barack Obama. Themselves.
By the way, since this is the Straight Dope, after all, here is the cite for the rule I’ve been quoting, and the section itself (relevant portions highlighted by me):
Senate Democratic Minority Leader Steven Geller did not “act in good faith” and, in the process, screwed his constituents out of their delegation at the convention. I hope he’s proud of himself.