U.S News & World Report asks Hillary Clinton a question about a potential caucus in Michigan and a revote in Florida:
“I would not accept a caucus. I think that would be a great disservice to the 2 million people who turned out and voted. I think that they want their votes counted. And you know a lot of people would be disenfranchised because of the timing and whatever the particular rules were. This is really going to be a serious challenge for the Democratic Party because the voters in Michigan and Florida are the ones being hurt, and certainly with respect to Florida the Democrats were dragged into doing what they did by a Republican governor and a Republican Legislature. They didn’t have any choice whatsoever. And I don’t think that there should be any do-over or any kind of a second run in Florida. I think Florida should be seated.”
Let’s forget about fairness and just talk about what benefits Hillary Clinton. Clinton received 55% of the vote in Michigan, ‘Uncommitted’ received 40%, and Dodd and Kucinich picked up an additional 5%. Obama was not on the ballot. It clearly benefits Clinton to seat the delegates as selected, especially because the latest poll out of Michigan shows them tied at 41%-41%.
Now, Michigan is proposing holding a caucus, which is easier to put together and less expensive than a second primary. Because Obama’s supporters are more committed and higher-information voters, caucuses benefit him. I can understand why Clinton doesn’t want a caucus. But it may be a caucus or nothing, because she will never win a credentials fight to get her Michigan delegates seated.
As for Florida, it isn’t obvious that a do-over would hurt her. She beat Obama 50%-33% in the Florida primary (which included Edwards) and she is currently polling at 55%-39%. It’s true that Obama generally improves his position if he has time to campaign in a state, so there is no guarantee that Clinton could repeat her strong performance in a second primary. The bottom line is that from Clinton’s point of view she’d like to get these delegates seated as is, but she’d probably be better off getting a second vote that has legitimacy.
As for fairness: the fairest thing would be new primaries in both states. If that isn’t possible, then new caucuses in both states would be preferable to nothing. It’s true that the caucus format seems to favor Obama, but caucuses would be fairer to the Michigan and Florida voters than no say at all.
I don’t really blame Clinton for fighting for her political life, but her position isn’t tenable.
HRC needs to STFU and go find a mule. I’ll listen when she releases her tax returns:
Let’s sign this petition
what is the mule?
darn BooMan, you had to ask? the whole explanation is X rated. Don’t shoot me…but you asked. I wrote, “go find a mule”
hint:
what’s HRC doing to our donkey?
you’ll find the clue in “HRC needs to STFU.”
change the last 3 letters in find and replace with ^c^
got that? I’m sure you’ll complete the puzzle. it’s a folksy in the english speaking Caribbean islands-not nice when you’re told to go “find” a mule.
at the mo, we’re here enjoying the sun and beach and there’s lots of rooting for the man, Obama.
btw, I see Sen. Daschle told Hillary to fire the aide who compared Obama to Starr.
In one of his analyses during Super Tuesday,Carl Bernstein summed it up like this.The elctorate is rejecting Hillary Clinton.
That explosive statement went unrecognized for some time.It is short, deadly and to the point.
This is what the Hillary Clinton camp recognized.When she goes head to head against Obama she stands no chance in a fair fight.She has to fight dirty a la Bush/Rove.
From that point on, she has tried to salvage her tottering candidacy from complete disaster by making one extravagant demand after another,hoping to ensure her “political viability” when the bankruptcy of her candidacy comes to a full head.
She is simply setting the negotiating process in motion in advance of the defeats that are coming.Barack needs to hold firm and rack up delegates everywhere and make her position even more untenable.
Her sense of entitlement is now shattered and the aura of invincibility has been replaced by sheer panic.
I’d like to point out that Clinton’s against any kind of do-over. She needs the delegates she got from her blatant electoral fraud in those two states to win the nomination. If they have a do-over and Obama gets a chance to, you know, actually campaign there and have his name on the ballot, they’re going to move towards the 50/50 split. And that spells bad news for her.
Clinton has no interest in fairness. She’s determined to lie, cheat, and steal her way to the nomination, no matter the cost.
One nitpick …
MI traditionally holds caucases, holding a primary there is not unfair.
Er … holding a caucus I mean.
True, but the Michigan Caucus is a caucus in name only – it’s essentially a statewide primary funded by the party. What they’re talking about for the do-over is a real caucus like every other caucus state holds, and that’ll be the death of Hillary and she knows it.
They held a primary this year.
That’s not bad for Obama, since it’s polling even.
I have friends and relatives in Florida. I hope that there is a do-over in Florida and Michigan so that the Demcrats in those states will have the opportunity to vote in a primary in which all of the candidates have had the opportunity to campaign there beforehand. If there is some concern about how the primaries will be funded (because neither the states nor the DNC want to foot the bill), I see no reason why the state parties can’t set up designated primary funds — Democratic donors should be able to raise the needed amount in little time.
My thoughts exactly. The state parties got everyone into this mess, they can suck it up and get everyone out of it.
BTW – Nebraska local/county parties picked up the cost of the caucuses here and passed a hat around during the caucus to help pay for it.
.
Not really the case in Florida. The Republican controlled State house and senate insisted that the move up date of the primary, for both parties, was tacked onto an initiative for paper trails on voting machines. The voters approved the paper trails overwhelmingly, thus also moving up the primaries. So the Dems at national level punished the state dems by refusing to seat their delegates. . .clever huh?
Clearly Republican dirty tricks have contributed to the problem. Again, if a special primary fund is set up, donors from those states or nationally could contribute to it and try to make the best of a bad situation for the Democratic voters of those states.
Oops, my bad – on Florida. The DNC should’ve done everything possible to accomodate the situation.
However, my biggest problem, yet, is that ALL campaigns knew the rules, agreed to the rules, but now one campaign feels the rules should be changed after the fact. If Hillary felt so strongly about not excluding the voters in MI and FL, she should’ve fought like a tiger to fix the situation before the primaries occurred. Crying after the fact is crap and even her most ardent supporters wouldn’t give a damn about either state if she was ahead in the delegate counts without them.
Holding new primaries is expensive because it costs a lot of money to pay for polling locations, etc. Caucuses are much cheaper…and given that it doesn’t seem likely that the state governments will pick up the tab (and the DNC certainly won’t, at least for primaries), caucuses should be held to resolve the situation.
The least expensive and easiest method I’ve heard of is a mail-in primary where you send ballots to all democrats and also those independents who did not vote in the Republican primary. With $5 million or so per state, you could get the ballots printed and in the mail within a couple weeks and give a couple weeks time to receive them back. Easy stuff and you’ll probably get higher “turnout” levels than if you had a real primary.
Heard that they were floating the vote-by-mail idea in Florida.
I wonder how Obama’s on-the-ground organization would work for that.
Same as it did for all other states. Hit the streets and block walk and phone bank like hell!!!
I think Florida should be seated.
And candidates from hell think they deserve ice water…
I think that a primary where all candidates INCLUDING HILLARY CLINTON agreed beforehand would not count, and which the DNC ruled beforehand would not count, should not count.
By the way, Ohio and Texas SHOULD count, but the results should have an asterisk.
*Delivered to Clinton from Rush, Ann and FOX News.
One simple question here: Where was Hillary back when the whole Michigan and Flordia situation arose? Was she making the rounds on the talk shows demanding “fairness” then, or just later, after the majority of the country had told her to piss off, and she realized that she needed the results of those two states’ make-believe primaries?
But fine, hold new elections where both candidates are free to campaign on a level playing field without Her Highness getting to make an end-run around the rules she herself agreed to. Seat the delegates as is? No way. The office of president is too important to leave to a Soviet-style election in which one candidate runs unopposed.
In November and December 2007, when this was being discussed by the DNC, ALL candidates, INCLUDING CLINTON’S CAMPAIGN, agreed that the Michigan and Florida primaries would not count.
What changed? Clinton lost New Hampshire and she won the two faux primaries.
OT: Bill is now saying a Clinton/Obama ticket would be “unbeatable.” Yeah, Clinton wants the incompetent black guy on her ticket. Did she forget that she’s been ripping him for the last couple of weeks?
Clinton’s almost certainly been planning for this as an emergency escape solution from day #1. She was, after all, the only major candidate that refused to remove her name from the Michigan ballot, and she campaigned in Florida.
As for the Clinton/Obama ticket, I think we all know that the Clintons would never let it happen. They’d find some excuse to give the VP spot to someone else. They’re just trying to paint Obama as “uppity”, “not knowing his place”, “ambitious”, “uncompromising”, etc. They’re trying to make him look like he’s trashing the party in some mad crusade for personal power.
I don’t think it’s going to work, particularly since it’s 100% Republican scumbag tactics. We’ve seen it before: stab your opponent in the back, then stand there and scream loudly about how they’re going to stab you in the back while you’re twisting the knife.
As we say in my native South , Hillary needs to stick her opinion on this issue where the sun don’t shine .
The Michigan Democratic Leadership ,which has some notable Clinton supporters,created this mess.
It would be one thing if the party leadership had ask for party members input and they all had a hand in the route taken ; that would have been the fair and practical thing to have done – that ain’t what happened
Instead, Democrats were left with a process where none of the candidates came to the state , its issues were again an afterthought and only 592,000 of registered Democrats ,or 8% of registered voters in the state had a voice in the Democratic Primary .
That point needs to be driven home .
Funny, she is regularly called simply by her first name Hillary. The only people who are always called by their first name by complete strangers are royalty: Elizabeth, Charles, Beatrix, Maxima… I suppose it’s a way to differentiate her from her husband: Clinton and Clinton, a way to give supporters the feeling they’re in on the glitzy fun.
The opposite is also true – the help is always called by their first name by complete strangers…