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.
Sweet. Jesus. This is disgusting. Am I the only one whose stomach turns at the prospect of having to vote for Hillary if she somehow ends up with the nomination? She’s making herself less appealing to me all the time.
Unfortunately, werewolf movies always have sequels.
Burning all bridges and a scorched earth strategy. She really is making herself distasteful – no spin required.
A recent comment at Orange sticks in my mind (don’t ask me where and when and by whom). Something to this effect, similar to what BooMan suggests as an explanation for the bizarre behavior:
Her vow to fight it out on the convention floor shows she has the gutsy stamina and determination to be president.
The supposed strategy of poaching pledged candidates from Obama has the stink of gangsterism, mafia shenanigans, no matter how permissible it is under Democratic Party rules. The Clintons are making complete asses of themselves. Like the ‘invincibility’ shtick, the aura of ‘charisma and charm’ of the former president is fast going out the window. To my mind, she is bound to lose the GE big time, giving at least one chamber of congress (Senate), maybe both, back to the repugnants, like the white house. Then the Clintons can ensconce themselves behind their millions upon millions which seem to reproduce like rabbits, she in the senate, he in his palace, the daughter at her hedge fund or whatever, and thumb their noses at the whole Democratic crowd who failed to support her: you see, it was all the fault of Barack Obama and his supporters anyhow because they refused to let her have her way in the first place. Never will they publicly recognize their humiliation and the harm they will have done. In short, the Clintons are all about personality.
“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?”
Destroy the Clintons’ reputation? What reputation?
Let’s face it. Desperation! Entitlement! so they’ll cheat.
I’m not at all surprised. Long ago they ignored the rules set by the DNC for the cycle-rules her adviser Harold Ickes voted in affirmative. Hillary Clinton threw out her signed pledge to adhere the rules of the primaries. – not to campaign in MI and FL. Clinton unlike other candidates, kept her name on the MI ballot…had her surrogates campaign heavily for her in FL and flew into that state on the night of the election promising the delegates would be seated.
I hope the unpledged super delegates and party elders open an inquiry or at a minimum speak up on this ruthless, dodgy business.
view the most recent video and say “No, You. Can’t.”
Note to Clinton supporters: here’s one more reason for the high negatives. They cheat.
I am REALLY starting to think that this is why so many high-ranking Democrats are not endorsing candidates yet. They know that The Clintons will try to win at all costs and try to pull shit like this. If it comes down to it, people like Pelosi, Gore, Edwards, Reid and Dean could come out and publicly ridicule the Clintons if they refuse to back out. Imagine the burning torches and pitchforks chasing the Clintons after that.
The Clintons are fooling themselves. After tomorrow morning when we know the results of (them losing) WI and HI, we should start the rumbling for them to give up on the third term in office. The political leaders will follow. If they proceed beyond losing Texas or Ohio, they will get the boot from the party leaders.
>>Clinton Campaign Resembles the Undead
They want brains?
Maybe if they had put half the energy into winning primaries and caucuses as they are into grabbing superdelegates and now targeting pledged delegates they would have a lead right now.
Then again, I’m sure their attitude is more along the lines of “God forbid we let the voters deny Hillary her Presidency.”.
Whatever happened to “…work hard and play by the rules?” Oh yeah, I guess that’s only for the little sheeple.
This is the kind of Nixonian crap that kept a generation of Republicans voting democratic for 20 years.
If there was any integrity in their campaign, they would at least repudiate these remarks, and preferably fire the person involved.
The kick will be an Obama win today in WI. Polls are varied in size of lead.
Some see it as a crucial test of Clinton’s support.
Delegates are vetted by the campaigns themselves to verify that he/she is a strong and open supporter of the candidate (and probably also to make sure various skeletons are not horrible giant things that could bring a heavy does of negative attention).
The likelyhood that any campaign could ‘turn’ a significant number of pledged delegates is, in my estimation, very small.
How exactly would a campaign entice them? Financially? With positions in a potential administration?
Additionally, by already refering to the states where the Clinton campaign would most need to ‘turn’ delegates as insignificant, I’d guess that few of Obama delegates would even deign to discuss such matters with the Clinton campaign.
This smacks of pure, unadulterated desperation; a tactic that should never have left the tiny conference room where it was initially proposed and should have been shot down.
They look like fools and amateurs.
But the core of their organization is like a political mafia. I would put nothing past them in their efforts to win, by either hook or crook. It’s all about the winning.
Maybe someone in her organization is trying to bring her down. For her own good and the good of the party of course. 🙂
Wow. Just…wow. Hillary Clinton is rapidly turning from a mere terrible candidate to an actual and complete nutcase.
And, by the way, I say “nutcase” for a reason: Is this the sort of person we should let anywhere near the red button? People this obsessed with power shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the White House.
A Clinton coup at the convention would leave me in a rather difficult position. I could not, of course, vote for Clinton in the general election, because the only legitimate candidate would be McCain. And I’d rather drink a barrel of hog piss than vote for McCain. On the other hand, by abstaining from voting, what am I saying about the importance of representative democracy?
I’ll give this much to Hillary Clinton: it took her husband the better part of two terms to create a crisis where all of the options left me feeling unclean, but she’s on the road to doing it before she’s even elected.
I hope someone brings this issue up as a question to Clinton in the next debate.
I would like to see Howard Dean make some statement about this. That even if it is “technically” following the rules, it would be really bad for the party and for America. He might mention the way there were huge turnouts in the primaries on the Democratic side, and that bodes well for us in November. But that could be thrown away if the people are convinced that their votes don’t matter.
I’ve been wondering how she’ll deal with this in the debates too. Because I just don’t see how she looks good doing it. Even if she manages to bamboozle her way throught the answer the media will be all over it. As they should, for once.
If I were in the Obama camp I wouldn’t be too worried about these statements right now. I would be ecstatic and would be putting together a plan to use them against her in the next 2 weeks.
I’ve thought for a while that all of this talk is just evidence of how much in disarray her campaign is and how desperate they are for money. Also, what is she going to say to her donors and to the voters as she campaigns in Ohio and Texas? “Gee, things look not so good for me and if I don’t win this state I’m going to probably have to drop out. But please come vote for me anyway! And give me lots of money!!”
No. Just like every candidate including John Edwards she’ll say she’s in all the way to the convention. And then one day she’ll drop out. But unlike John Edwards she’s going to get called on it and asked for her plan. Hence … these ridiculous plans.
Her campaign is in total disarray. She even screwed up getting set up with a slate of delegates in Pennsylvania.
I’m not taking any of this seriously at this time. The only thing it’s doing right now is potentially driving her negatives. Which is good.
We were talking about that PA delegate screwup this weekend…seems like that wouldn’t have been so hard to do on time, but of course, Eddie Rendell had to rescue her with a deadline extension with the weather for an excuse.
The rules are for everyone but the Clintons, I guess.
I know this will not sit well with many but this is the same bent the Clinton’s showed during their first two terms. No matter how much embarassment they brought on themselves and the nation they will lie, stonewall and manuever at all costs to win.
Then it was the Republicans (no apologies to them) they were fighting, now it is their own party. Its never about what’s best for the nation or even the party. It is all about them. Aty best humility and contrition is saved for calculated media moments.
By brutally attacking their ‘strengths’: