Confusion and hand-wringing; what to do?
The debate continues over those super-delegates; will they or won’t they go with the flow?
Should Michigan and Florida delegates be seated?
What’s the true tally? Will the nomination be stolen?
Something must give — or will the fight be stopped?
– From The Times, UK
The Democratic presidential contest is now between an unstoppable force and an immovable object.
Hillary Clinton is retrenching behind what her advisers call “a demographic brick wall” in Ohio and Texas — believing that Barack Obama’s recent momentum will be brought to an abrupt halt next month by the blue collar and Latino voters who have largely backed her elsewhere.
But Mr Obama still surges forward, putting his faith in the “fierce urgency of now” helping him to vault over the next big round of elections on March 4, when 444 delegates are at stake, just as he has already defied the laws of political campaigning – if not physics.
Something, or someone, has to give. And eyes are turning to the party leadership of 796 “super-delegates” to be a referee that stops this fight before it reaches the presidential nomination convention in August.
A senior adviser to Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, has suggested that she — along with other “party elders” — will step into the ring if they feel Democratic hopes of winning back the White House or maintaining control over Congress are being threatened. Ms Pelosi insists she remains neutral in the race and that her “focus is on re-electing a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives”.
But her voice would carry great authority among many uncommitted super-delegates on Capitol Hill — and she is said by one of those close to her to be “leaning” towards Mr Obama.
“The party establishment is not going to turn its back on a candidate who is generating this tremendous excitement and bringing all these new voters into the political process,” said an adviser. Mr Obama’s team are busy pushing the same message, telling members of Congress in districts where he has already won that they would be foolish to alienate their core vote in an election year.
But Mrs Clinton still has the edge among super-delegates, not least because her husband, Bill, is calling in all the favours he has done them over the past 16 years.
(emphasis added)
What to do with those MI and FL delegates sent to the corner for disobeying the rules? How about
A Do-Over? Democrats’ Fate May Ride on It echoes The Wall Street Journal((reg. required)
Re-do the Michigan and Florida votes with caucuses. Not likely.
From my perspective, Hillary Clinton signed a pledge but kept her name on the ballot in Michigan. In Florida, her surrogates campaigned for her and she flew into the state the night of the election. She has been advocating that MI and FL voters are being disenfranchised and that they should be seated. Who recalls Billy’s tricks in Nevada?
How good is Clinton’s word and why should she be rewarded for breaking the rules?
Hillary likes to have it both ways. Super-delegates don’t actually matter
as it depends on what the meaning of ‘super-delegate’ Is. We have a new spin from the Clinton camp:
TPM:Hillary Adviser Tells Surrogates To Refer To Super-Delegates As “Automatic Delegates”
“In a sign that the spin war over the significance of super-delegates is underway in earnest, Harold Ickes told assorted Hillary supporters on a private conference call yesterday that the campaign wants them to start referring to super-delegates as “automatic delegates,” according to someone on the call.
The person I spoke to paraphrases Ickes, who is spearheading Hillary’s super-delegate hunt, this way: “We’re no longer using the phrase super delegates. It creates a wrong impression. They’re called automatic delegates. Because that’s what they are.”
Automatic delegates huh? Now that they’re all equal, who will stop the fight? Betcha we won’t need a referee as
For years, Bill and Hillary Clinton treated the Democratic National Committee and party activists as extensions of their White House ambitions, pawns in a game of success and survival. She may pay a high price for their selfishness soon.
“If (Barack) Obama continues to win …. the whole raison d’etre for her campaign falls apart and we’ll see people running from her campaign like rats on a ship,” said Democratic strategist Jim Duffy, who is not aligned with either campaign.
Obama has won 23 of 35 contests, earning the majority of delegates awarded on the basis of election results. The remaining 796 delegates are elected officials and party leaders whose votes are not tied to state primaries or caucuses; thus, they are dubbed “superdelegates.
“And they are not all super fans of the Clintons.
Some are labor leaders still angry that Bill Clinton championed the North American Free Trade Agreement as part of his centrist agenda.
Some are social activists who lobbied unsuccessfully to get him to veto welfare reform legislation, a talking point for his 1996 re-election campaign.
Some served in Congress when the Clintons dismissed their advice on health care reform in 1993. Some called her a bully at the time.
Some are DNC members who saw the party committee weakened under the Clintons and watched President Bush use the White House to build up the Republican National Committee.
Some are senators who had to defend Clinton for lying to the country about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Some are allies of former Vice President Al Gore who still believe the Lewinsky scandal cost him the presidency in 2000.[.]
The fear inside the Clinton camp is that Obama will win Hawaii and Wisconsin next week and head into the March 4 contests for Ohio and Texas with a 10-race winning streak. Her poll numbers will drop in Texas and Ohio,
Clinton aides fear, and party leaders will start hankering for an end to the fight.
Clinton should find little comfort in the fact that she has secured 242 superdelegates to Obama’s 160.
And there are us plain folks who are not willing to walk the Clintons’ broken bridge back to the past.
