What a difference a couple of days make. Monday the narrative was “Should Hillary pull out entirely?”
For party unity, Democratic elders whisper louder every day. Me? Who cares about unity? I care about me, my sanity, my state of exhaustion as I hop out of bed at 2 a.m. to check the latest polls on RealClearPolitics.com, like some cokehead desperate for a line, or some blow, as Obama-O-Perfect might say.
I care about my female friendships hanging by a thread here. You vs. Obama? It used to be a pleasant discussion. That’s over. Now, it’s vicious. It’s blood sport.
At my best friend’s academic office, they’ve established a golden rule: no political discussions, please, lest one of your rabid supporters wrestle an Obama supporter to the ground, screaming like a banshee.
“Very intense” is how my friend described the mood yesterday in Rhode Island, where she lives and works, where she’ll vote today. But we haven’t spoken in weeks because she was with you.
Note the informal Boston Herald poll in that article, 64% of folks though she should pull out, regardless of how she did.
But today it’s “Should Obama accept Clinton’s VP offer and be grateful for it?”
Since Clinton is 60 now and will be 61 in October, if she were to agree to serve as Obama’s vice president, she would most likely be 68 by the time she would be able to again run for president, assuming two successful White House terms for Obama. He, on the other hand, at 46 now, would be 47 when he became vice president with Clinton at the top of the ticket. Assuming the win of a second term for the team, Obama would be only 54 when he would start his next run for president.
A reasonable price for his agreement to serve as vice president would be Clinton’s pledge to run for just one term and give Obama (as vice president) responsibility for some major issue, as she was given control over universal health care during her husband’s presidency (and with better results, one would hope). Since Obama’s resume is most lacking in the arena of international affairs, additional powers as a roving international troubleshooter would add substantially to his credentials were he to run for president four years hence.
What the fuck is going on here? Why is Obama suddenly getting told to go to the back of the bus when he was driving a movement, massively energized youth voting, an exciting campaign, a positive message?
Why? The Village demands it. They hath spoken, and the long knives are out.
Even worse, now the Village is seriously talking about a mulligan for Florida and Michigan.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said the states can either come up with a new plan to choose a slate of delegates or appeal to the party’s credentials committee when the convention opens in August.
“Out of respect for the presidential campaigns and the states that did not violate party rules, we are not going to change the rules in the middle of the game,” Dean said in a written statement Wednesday.
The national Democratic Party stripped Florida — epicenter of the 2000 election debacle — of its 210 national convention delegates as punishment for the state’s decision to move its party primaries to January 29.
Michigan received the same treatment after moving its primary date to January as well, losing its 156 convention delegates.
On Wednesday, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican, and Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, called on the Democratic National Committee to seat their states’ delegations. They accused the party in a statement of silencing “the voices of 5,163,271 Americans” who voted in their primaries.
“It is intolerable that the national political parties have denied the citizens of Michigan and Florida their votes and voices at their respective national conventions,” they wrote.
And at a news conference in Tallahassee, Crist — who signed the bill that changed Florida’s primary date — pointed fingers outside the state.
“It’s unconscionable to me that some party boss in Washington is not going to permit the people to be heard,” he said. “That’s not what America is all about, and it’s wrong.”
Wednesday night in Washington, Democratic House members from Florida and Michigan met for about an hour to talk about possibilities that would lead to delegations from those states influencing the outcome of the Democratic nominating contest.
“Both delegations feel very, very strongly — adamantly — that our delegations be seated at the national conventions,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz of Florida.
Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan said he’s not sure of the best way to resolve the dispute but that voters from Florida and Michigan should have their voters counted.
“I think the key is the voice of Michigan and Florida is heard and there’s a procedure that is fair to the residents and fair to the two candidates,” he said.
Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan suggested Wednesday that his state could hold caucuses to select its delegates.
Participants declined to say whether there is general agreement on a way forward — for example, whether the two states should redo the votes there or use results from the previous primaries. They pledged to continue discussions, though no formal meeting has been scheduled.
In the space of 72 hours we’ve gone from closure to chaos. How?
The Village played its hand. For months now, the narrative in the Village has been Hillary vs McCain, the woman they love to hate versus the man they love to love. It’s a mediagasm race, filled with months and months of wags, wonks, and wire-writing warriors imparting their infinite wisdom to the chattering classes.
But something happened along the way: Barack Obama. People liked him. They voted for him in massive numbers. He won primary after primary, and the Village saw it slipping away from them one Obama win at a time. He didn’t play the game the same, and THAT is heresy to the Village.
So they knuckled up and went after him. Obama’s a cultist, a secret Muslim, a closet case, a Farrakhan racist, and he won’t answer the Red Phone at 3 AM because he’s Not Serious. And it worked. Obama won the delegate race, he actually kept the delegate lead the same if not a slight improvement, but the Village knew it was time for a epic comeback even before Tuesday’s results were announced.
The stage has been set for a Hillary Clinton comeback on Tuesday.
Nobody knows if she has the votes to do it, but the opportunity is ripe.
She not only is vigorously attacking Barack Obama but simultaneously portraying herself as a victim.
It is a nifty political two-step.
She is a victim because a male-dominated press corps has counted her out, she says, and has lavished praise on Obama without submitting him to any real scrutiny.
At a Clinton rally in Westerville, Ohio, on Sunday, one woman carried a sign that read: “DON’T LET THE PRESS BOY-CRUSH PICK OUR PRESIDENT.”
The irony on THAT is staggering, to stay the least. Don’t let the press boy-crush pick our President? And yet while the accusation is lobbed at Obama, the real boy-crush has been on Saint McCain for years.
Idiot. The press has been picking your President for decades.
It’s a love affair that the press is going to flog for all its worth, just as the press will flog Hillary because they enjoy hating her. It’s too much for them to bear to have Obama mucking it up.
Time’s Karen Tumulty noted: “Indeed, at Clinton’s first event of the day, there was almost an anger at the idea that the pundits and the press have anointed a winner before the people have voted.”
And Clinton told the crowd: “We’re coming back. … We need someone in the White House again who is a fighter!”
Clinton used the “victim who battles back” theme effectively in New Hampshire, where she scored the upset that allowed her campaign to continue after being whacked by Obama in Iowa.
Some very bright commentators have written recently that Clinton should have dropped out before Tuesday’s primaries in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island. I don’t get this at all.
Quitting before you are defeated does not encourage people to work for you, vote for you or give money to you in the future. And Clinton has not yet been defeated.
Not yet defeated? She can’t win the nomination and should have conceded. Defeat was inevitable and staying in is exactly what the Village types want. Only three groups benefit from this, the Village collective ego, the Clinton collective ego, and of course John McCain.
Keep in mind the Village wants two things: They want McCain vs Clinton to sell copy, and they want McCain to win because their masters want McCain to win, he’s Bush all over again and frankly that suits them fine.
In the last couple of days we’ve gone from Obama having this wrapped up to Clinton being Missus Inevitable again, and the only one not in on the joke are Obama’s supporters. In the last couple weeks Obama has been torched by the Village and he’s now paying dearly for it.
McCain is now marshaling his forces, and the Dems now appear broken, confused, and above all weak.
And behind it all, Turd Blossom is laughing his porcine ass off.
As exciting as Tuesday night was, the Democratic contest has not shifted to advantage Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Obama still has a healthy advantage. There are 611 delegates to be elected in 12 future contests, 349 superdelegates have yet to commit, and 12 delegate spots from Tuesday’s primaries are still not allocated. To win, Mrs. Clinton must take 58% of these outstanding delegates. That’s a tall order.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, it doesn’t necessarily all depend on Pennsylvania and its 158 delegates. A big loss there could put Mrs. Clinton out. But if she wins, there are five more contests with more than 50 delegates at stake in each, and Mr. Obama could regain momentum. On May 6, North Carolina and Indiana vote. They have 187 delegates at stake — more than Pennsylvania. Right up until the final caucus on June 7 in Puerto Rico, there are a string of contests that can revive or crush hopes.
Remember: It has only been eight weeks since Iowans voted in the first contest of the season, though it seems like a geological age has passed. There are now seven weeks until Pennsylvania, nine weeks until North Carolina and Indiana, and 10 weeks until West Virginia. Imagine how many twists and turns are possible.
Neither Mr. Obama nor Mrs. Clinton can win with delegates elected in primaries and caucuses. In a real irony, the Democratic Party will settle its nominee battle with the aristocratic device of superdelegates — party apparatchiks, interest group leaders and elected officials, many of whom gained their post years ago. What happens if a bloc of superdelegates remains uncommitted until the convention? And what will happen to Florida and Michigan, which presently have no delegates? The last convention with only 48 states represented was 1956.
Clearly the GOP smells the scent of victory in the air: a months-long fight that leaves a voting populace so disenfranchised, disheartened, and discouraged with the loss of either Obama or Clinton that McCain walks away the victor…and the GOP along with him. The Village is doing everything it can to make it happen, and Hillary Clinton is doing everything the Village expects her to do to make this happen.
The Dems are playing to lose again, and still nobody seems to be mentioning race in this race…but now of course it’s coming up as a negative for Obama.
The Ohio results also revealed a potentially serious problem for Mr. Obama if he wins the nomination, notably the erosion of the white support that was a major factor in his resounding primary triumphs in such states as Wisconsin and Virginia.
Exit polls tell us that Mrs. Clinton defeated Mr. Obama by more than 15 percent among white men, compared with his 30-point victory among that group in Wisconsin. She also expanded her support in the party’s traditional base by winning a majority of voters with family incomes up to $100,000 and doing well among those with less education.
That’s important because Ohio, unlike Texas, seems likely to be a major battleground state in the general election.
And while most voters said neither race nor gender was an important issue, among those who did, some 60 percent voted for Mrs. Clinton. Just last week, a Pew poll showed that one in five white Democrats said they would vote for Mr. McCain if Mr. Obama were the Democratic nominee, twice as many as said they would defect if Mrs. Clinton were chosen.
Yet the national numbers show that Obama would handily beat McCain and would continue to do so even after Tuesday’s results. Something doesn’t fit here.
It doesn’t fit because it’s all bullshit, Obama would break the system and protecting the system is what the Village and the GOP and the Blue Dog Dems are all the hell about. Yes, Obama is beholden to some of those interests. But not to the extent of Clinton or McSame As Bush.
And in the end I don’t even think you can totally blame Hillary, she does have 1,000 plus delegates, is a legitimate candidate, and as such she’s trying to win the nomination. She’s still light years better than McWar. It’s difficult for me to say “stop trying to win, you.” She is not the embodiment of all that is evil or anything and I respect her for the positive things she has done…or at least for the “Not Being a Republican Bigoted Homophobic Racist Assclown” things she has done.
On the other hand, the Village is doing everything it can to use Hillary’s comeback to destroy the Democrats, and it’s important to keep that in mind. Behind the Village is the GOP, and they want us at war forever, in debt forever, as serfs forever.
We can all go to the back of the bus with Obama as far as they are concerned. Let’s not forget that behind all this chaos and calamity are some truly nasty folks who want to make sure the Post 9/11 Nightmare of Fear and Unending War that is America becomes a permanent staple for generations.
Obama’s not perfect but for the love of the fucking universe he’s better than John McConArtist. Yeah, it hurts to see Hillary used this way by the GOP and Obama too. But the goal has to be to try to reinvent the system we have now, because the system we have in place is killing us one day at a time.
So the Village has us fighting each other instead of the real enemy…and I’ll be damned if it’s not working perfectly.