The Clinton campaign is taking on some of the characteristics of a vampire, zombie, or other undead creature that requires a stake through the heart or other special measures to kill.
“I swear it is not happening now, but as we get closer to the convention, if it is a stalemate, everybody will be going after everybody’s delegates,” a senior Clinton official told me Monday afternoon. “All the rules will be going out the window.”
What’s that ‘Clinton official’ talking about? He/she is talking about going after Obama’s delegates. No, not the superdelegates. He/she is talking about going after Obama’s pledged delegates…you know, the delegates that Obama won fair and square in the primaries and caucuses. But aren’t those delegates obligated to vote for Obama at least on the first ballot at the convention? Actually, no. There is no law that obligates delegates to respect their pledge.
Pledged delegates are not really pledged at all, not even on the first ballot. This has been an open secret in the party for years, but it has never really mattered because there has almost always been a clear victor by the time the convention convened…
“Delegates are NOT bound to vote for the candidate they are pledged to at the convention or on the first ballot,” a recent DNC memo states. “A delegate goes to the convention with a signed pledge of support for a particular presidential candidate. At the convention, while it is assumed that the delegate will cast their vote for the candidate they are publicly pledged to, it is not required.”
So, if all else fails, the Clintons will aggressively court Obama’s pledged delegates.
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign intends to go after delegates whom Barack Obama has already won in the caucuses and primaries if she needs them to win the nomination.
This strategy was confirmed to me by a high-ranking Clinton official on Monday.
Here’s the really remarkable thing. The Clintons assume the same bad faith from the Obama campaign and they think that it would somehow be less controversial to win the nomination by stealing Obama’s pledged delegates than it would be to win it by having the superdelegates overturn the verdict of the people.
Clinton spokesman Phil Singer told me Monday he assumes the Obama campaign is going after delegates pledged to Clinton, though a senior Obama aide told me he knew of no such strategy.
But one neutral Democratic operative said to me: “If you are Hillary Clinton, you know you can’t get the nomination just with superdelegates without splitting the party. You have to go after the pledged delegates.”
Winning with superdelegates is potentially party-splitting because it could mean throwing out the choice of the elected delegates and substituting the choice of 795 party big shots.
Right. Let’s review. The Clintons can no longer realistically hope to win the pledged delegate count and she knows that any attempt to win through the superdelegates alone would split the party. But they have somehow convinced themselves that it would not split the party if she won by getting Obama’s pledged delegates to betray the trust of the people that selected them to be their representatives at the convention. That, my friends, is delusional.
Imagine the disillusionment of rank and file Democrats, even Clinton supporters, if they see the Clintons pry the nomination away from Obama by cajoling Obama’s pledged delegates away from him. Under what theory of representative democracy would they justify such actions? But I have another question.
This stuff is just silly. It’s never going to succeed, and even trying would destroy the Clintons’ reputation, in both the party and the nation, irreparably. So, why are they pushing these types of stories in the press now?
One theory is that they need to provide some kind of rationale (a path to victory) to their financial contributors, no matter how implausible. Another theory is that it makes her look tough and willing to fight, and they hope that contrasts nicely with Obama’s (seemingly) more laid back attitude. One way to raise doubt about Obama is to play to fears that he isn’t tough enough to stand up to Republican assaults. Maybe stories like this are intended to feed that suspicion. I can’t really think of any other theories. I think these stories, overall, make the Clintons look bad. They feed into the negative storyline that they will do anything to get elected, and they suggest that they have no respect for the principles of representative democracy.
And don’t tell me that they are playing by the rules. First of all, the American people never signed onto those rules and will be dismayed to learn of them. Secondly, even the source here knows they aren’t playing by the rules.
“…as we get closer to the convention, if it is a stalemate, everybody will be going after everybody’s delegates,” a senior Clinton official told me Monday afternoon. “All the rules will be going out the window.”
It’s time to start boning up on the best way to kill off a werewolf, or whatever.
