More Politics
This whole business with Florida & Michigan is really demonstrating to me how absolutely unfit Hillary Clinton is to lead anything, much less this country. Isn't one of the key components of a leader that they be a person of principle? It is in my opinion, but maybe that's just my opinion. But regardless of your opinion on the importance of a leader being a person of principle, it's hard to argue against that fact that the tack that HRC has taken on this demonstrates a complete and utter lack of principle. What I want to know at the end of this is how those of you who are Clinton supporters feel about her hypocritical stance here.
Clinton's current mantra is probably familiar to anyone who's still reading, but just in case let me remind you that she now holds the position that the Florida and Michigan delegations to the Democratic convention must be seated exactly as is in other words, based on the results of the primaries held in those states. Only problem is that the DNC acted in August of 2007 to strip these states of their delegations to the convention because the states violated DNC rules by moving their primaries ahead of the date allowed by the DNC. Accoridng to HRC though, the fact that these states elected to ignore the rules doesn't matter, what matters is that "every vote must count". I have heard her say that this is a matter of civil rights. Wow, civil rights, that's pretty important isn't it? Hillary, you must have been fighting this fight for some time right? I mean, surely as soon as you learned about this injustice you began fighting to correct it, right? Because if something is wrong and violates people's civil rights you're going to do everything you can to stop it right?
Except she didn't. Not at all.. It wasn't until it became clear that she badly trailed Obama in the delegate count that this issue becae important to Hillary. Could it be any more clear that this battle has nothing to do with Hillary standing up for people's civil rights and everything to do with her improving her position in the battle for the nomination?
The attempts of Clinton supporters and surrogates to justify this blatant hypocrisy borders on the comical. For example, yesterday, in a conference call with reporters members of the Clinton campaign staff were discussing the issue with reporters and of course arguing that Florida and Michigan must count. One of the people on the call was Harold Ickes. Harold was rightly asked the question of how he could be taking this posiiton when he voted in favor of penalizing Florida and Michigan in August of 2007. Apparently, old Harold is a recent convert to the every vote must count bandwagon. Harold's explanation was that it was necessary to impose a severe sanction back then to "send a signal" to other states so that they wouldn't move their primaries up. And, Harold argued, since that signal was successfully conveyed and no other states moved up their primaries, the sanction worked and now it shoudl be lifted. Ummm yeah, that makes a lot of sense. By the way, I hope you don't intend on making a rules for future primaries about them being moved up because you are now clearly "sending the signal" that any sanctions you issue for violating the rules are hollow. Another interview this morning with a Clinton supporter and delegate from Florida had her complaining that the problem with this whole thing is the DNC's system of apportioning delegates to the candidates based on primary votes and that if only the DNC used the winner take all system in primary elections that it wouldn't matter because HRC would already be the nominee. You may recall that the last time you heard democrats talking much about the winner take all system it was to argue how unfair that system was for allocating electoral college voters.
Here's the comical thing - even if Florida and Michigan count as is, the chances of Hillary winnign the nomination are almost nill. Looking at polling for the three remaining primary states, Clinton will probably pick up, at most an additional 50 pledged delegates. If her pledged delegate pickup is in that range then she still needs about 95% of the remaining superdelegates to support her at the convention in order to cross the threshold for the nomination. Even if she were to win all the remaining pledged delegates, she would still need over three quarters of the remaining supers to cast their lot with her. So, all of this civil rights talk is really not too likely to secure the nomination for Hillary. What it probably will do is cause some segment of her supporters to feel like they have been disenfranchised and take away from the support that Obama could receive from Democrats. In other words, Hillary could care less what's good for the country. Hillary cares aboout what's good for Hillary.
I'd like to hear the case from any Clinton supporters out there why none of this should matter and she still deserves people's support despite this blazing hypocrisy.
Clinton's current mantra is probably familiar to anyone who's still reading, but just in case let me remind you that she now holds the position that the Florida and Michigan delegations to the Democratic convention must be seated exactly as is in other words, based on the results of the primaries held in those states. Only problem is that the DNC acted in August of 2007 to strip these states of their delegations to the convention because the states violated DNC rules by moving their primaries ahead of the date allowed by the DNC. Accoridng to HRC though, the fact that these states elected to ignore the rules doesn't matter, what matters is that "every vote must count". I have heard her say that this is a matter of civil rights. Wow, civil rights, that's pretty important isn't it? Hillary, you must have been fighting this fight for some time right? I mean, surely as soon as you learned about this injustice you began fighting to correct it, right? Because if something is wrong and violates people's civil rights you're going to do everything you can to stop it right?
Except she didn't. Not at all.. It wasn't until it became clear that she badly trailed Obama in the delegate count that this issue becae important to Hillary. Could it be any more clear that this battle has nothing to do with Hillary standing up for people's civil rights and everything to do with her improving her position in the battle for the nomination?
The attempts of Clinton supporters and surrogates to justify this blatant hypocrisy borders on the comical. For example, yesterday, in a conference call with reporters members of the Clinton campaign staff were discussing the issue with reporters and of course arguing that Florida and Michigan must count. One of the people on the call was Harold Ickes. Harold was rightly asked the question of how he could be taking this posiiton when he voted in favor of penalizing Florida and Michigan in August of 2007. Apparently, old Harold is a recent convert to the every vote must count bandwagon. Harold's explanation was that it was necessary to impose a severe sanction back then to "send a signal" to other states so that they wouldn't move their primaries up. And, Harold argued, since that signal was successfully conveyed and no other states moved up their primaries, the sanction worked and now it shoudl be lifted. Ummm yeah, that makes a lot of sense. By the way, I hope you don't intend on making a rules for future primaries about them being moved up because you are now clearly "sending the signal" that any sanctions you issue for violating the rules are hollow. Another interview this morning with a Clinton supporter and delegate from Florida had her complaining that the problem with this whole thing is the DNC's system of apportioning delegates to the candidates based on primary votes and that if only the DNC used the winner take all system in primary elections that it wouldn't matter because HRC would already be the nominee. You may recall that the last time you heard democrats talking much about the winner take all system it was to argue how unfair that system was for allocating electoral college voters.
Here's the comical thing - even if Florida and Michigan count as is, the chances of Hillary winnign the nomination are almost nill. Looking at polling for the three remaining primary states, Clinton will probably pick up, at most an additional 50 pledged delegates. If her pledged delegate pickup is in that range then she still needs about 95% of the remaining superdelegates to support her at the convention in order to cross the threshold for the nomination. Even if she were to win all the remaining pledged delegates, she would still need over three quarters of the remaining supers to cast their lot with her. So, all of this civil rights talk is really not too likely to secure the nomination for Hillary. What it probably will do is cause some segment of her supporters to feel like they have been disenfranchised and take away from the support that Obama could receive from Democrats. In other words, Hillary could care less what's good for the country. Hillary cares aboout what's good for Hillary.
I'd like to hear the case from any Clinton supporters out there why none of this should matter and she still deserves people's support despite this blazing hypocrisy.