In a nutshell, Democrats are suing to stop – get this – Democrats, from voting!!
Yes, it really is that crazy.
The Nevada caucus rules have been in place for nearly a year. Several “at large” precincts had been set up in Casinos so workers could easily get to a caucus to vote.
The whole point of this setup was to allow people who otherwise couldn’t participate that day a real option to have their vote counted.
But when Clinton’s camp lost the much coveted union endorsement from the Culinary Worker’s unionto Obama, people with connections to the Clinton campaign filed suit to stop the casino caucuses, which are sure to be filled with Culinary Workers.
Look.
I understand politics is a nasty game. I understand that people think anything is justified in the name of winning, because they really do think they’re the gift from God and the rules should be bent to their needs.
But to file a lawsuit that would essentially stop a large number of people from voting??? That’s just beyond the pale, even for a Clinton.
Bill Clinton says that the caucuses unfairly weight the casino caucuses with more delegates than non-casino sites get. But isn’t that because they expect a much larger turnout, due to the centrality, than other locations?
He argues that it favors casino workers over others who have to work on Saturday. But the setup wasn’t chosen to disenfranchise other Saturday would-be voters. It was chosen as a chance to empower those who haven’t been able to vote in the past. This setup does not make it harder for anyone to caucus, but it does make it easier, for some, than it’s been in the past.
And again, no one objected until Obama got the endorsement.
The Clintons say they’re not behind this, but that’s not enough. The fact that they’re not outraged that someone would want to change the rules on a much neglected set of voters at this late date speaks awful volumes, to me.
The party system. It is broken. Or at least suffering from terminable design flaws. Huh?
In Michigan, we were required to sign a form asking for a Democratic or Republican ballot. My understanding of the law is that these forms are kept “private.” Except that they may be accessed by the Republican and Democratic parties. A lower court invalidated the law, I believe finding that at a minimum, the forms must be available equally to all. But our stalwart state supreme court struck that decision down in a hurry. Forms that are proprietary property of the parties — no problem.
I love the smell of Democracy in the morning. I’m just ashamed I believed in the ideal for three plus decades before I woke up.
“Our party” has already disenfranchised voters in Michigan. Michigan’s moving forward of its primary had no discernible impact (negative or otherwise) on the results. Yet, unless things change, the party will not seat the delegates. The people of Michigan are being singled out and penalized for no real reason at a time when other states have determined that their primaries will also move forward in time. If you don’t dance to the party’s tune, you pay the price. The electorate be damned.
Well, in Michigan’s case, I’d say it was the local party that was working against the national party, so the local officials ended up disenfranchising the state they were trying to empower.
It was an unfortunate system all around. And didn’t something similar happen in Florida? Will those delegates count, in the national race?
I had no idea this was going on up there. That’s so not cool. You’d think the Clinton’s wouldn’t want this kind of information out there.
LAWSUIT TOSSED
TPM:Judge rules in favor of Vegas Strip Caucus sites
THANK GOODNESS!!!!
Btw – see Bill Clinton’s angry response when questioned about this:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/a-feisty-bill-clinton-defends-nevada-lawsuit/
Clinton is artful at lying. They express outrage at any obstacle or anyone who gets in their way – the Restoration project heralding their return to the White House.
Dems will lose if HRC is the nominee.
Prompted me to do a blogpost of my own on this. I don’t know how this managed not to fly into my radar this past week. Clinton got his facts wrong (again), using the language as the lawsuit, while denying the Clinton campaign is involved in the lawsuit.
Clinton said:
Despite the fact that the rules were agreed up by everyone, no one raised objections until two days after Obama got the nod from the CWU, right? Well, I looked at the NV Dem caucus site and it says:
So the lawsuit was completely without merit in the first place.
Thanks. And it’s even worse. I wondered why Clinton was saying some people’s votes counted “five times” as much as others, under the current system.
It’s simply not true.
Here are the rules for the NV caucuses. All delegates are awarded based on the quantity of voters in each precinct. It’s fair, and simple. And I’m glad the judge thought so too!