Posted on 02/21/2008 9:01:04 AM PST by seanmerc
Barack Obama's victory in Wisconsin on Tuesday was just the latest sign that Hillary Clinton's desperate, anti-democratic moves to salvage her bid for the Democratic nomination are destroying her last chances to win a fair fight.
Loudly and publicly, the Clintons proclaim that superdelegates should feel free to ignore the wishes of the folks back home and jam Hillary's nomination through at the convention. They openly predict that they'll demand the seating of the Michigan and Florida delegations, totally contravening the party's rules.
Do they think the voters aren't listening to these authoritarian pronouncements, reminiscent of the days before the McGovern Commission reforms brought democracy to the Democratic Party?
The Clintons' approach is driving voters into Obama's arms in droves. What better example of what he calls "old-style Washington politics" than the use of superdelegates to nullify the will of the voters?
National tracking polls show Obama gaining almost daily - and all now put him in the lead. That reflects popular anger at the Clintons' tactics.
If the Clintons actually follow through on their threats, the uprising of rank-and-file Democrats will bring back memories of the 1968 demonstrations in Chicago's Lafayette Park, which forced the party to adopt democratic reforms in the first place.
But the fact that they're alienating voters so massively while voting's still underway makes it less and less likely that they'll be able to force the convention's hand.
Particularly pernicious is the Clintons' demand that Florida and Michigan delegates be seated at the convention. Obama and John Edwards went along with the party's request to avoid those primaries because the locals had dared to vault ahead of the states planning votes on Super Tuesday.
In fact, Florida's Democratic primary drew hundreds of thousands of votes less than the GOP primary - an unmistakable sign that many voters stayed home in obedience to party rules. But Hillary still wants to count their votes.
Reacting to the Clintons' threats, party elders like former Vice President Al Gore are reportedly waiting in the wings to adjudicate any issues before the Clintons split the party. He is, presumably, ready to administer the "Coup de Gore" - finishing off Hillary's political ambitions before she can resort to the kind of desperate scorched-earth practices her campaign is threatening.
Fueled by popular disgust with the Clintons' tactics - first their use of the race issue, and now their reliance on party bosses to thwart the popular will - voters are likely to hand state after state over to Obama. It's increasingly unlikely that Clinton will win even one of them.
Her vaunted lead in Texas, based on the huge Hispanic vote, has already vanished. Even if Clinton wins the March 4 primary, which choses two-thirds of the state's delegates, she'll falter in the primary-night caucuses that pick the other third. Obama's younger, more energetic and openly enthusiastic supporters generally dominate caucuses; he can likely count on nullifying any Clinton primary win.
In Ohio and Pennsylvania, she's based her hopes on her supposed lead among downscale, blue-collar voters. But much of her lead with this group is attributable to their lack of familiarity with Obama - and his near-weekly victory speeches on TV are filling in that gap. They'll will inch - or pour - away from the Clinton column.
Granted, some downscale voters are motivated by a desire to see a woman elected and others by racial prejudice - but many will desert to Obama the better they come to know him.
Hillary Clinton's chances are dwindling daily.
for later
Well, let’s see how Texas and Ohio vote on March 4th. Then, if Dick is right, we’ll see if the Clintons concede the nomination. Or, if they then insist that these states don’t count for some reason, as they have minimized losses elsewhere.
In that case, they will tell us to wait for the returns from Puerto Rico in June, and that Hillary will turn it around in Puerto Rico and clinch the nomination there.
Who cares?
Let us PRAY the Clintons are finally relegated to the tar pits of hell — where they belong.
If that doesn’t work, they’ll wait for delayed absentee returns from Western Samoa coming in by boat.
Don’t count them out even if she loses.
She’s young enough that she will run again.
Her line will be. You selected the wrong person. If he wins and is not strong we’ll hear:
We told you so....
If he loses to McCain well hear:
We told you so.
In either case watch for the witch to show again in 2012.....
Go, go hillarybeast destroy the democRAT party. I’m pulling for you & liarbill, you both deserve each other:-()
Lanny Davis made a good point about “super delegates” yesterday during the Sean Hannity show. He said that if super delegates should automatically vote with the “will” of their state, then Ted Kennedy will have to vote for Hillary instead of Obama since Massachusetts was won by Hillary. Ted should quit supporting Obama.
Get real, Clintons will never concede the Hildebeast nomination, they will cheat, cry, scream, change the rules impose martial law (if they could) to get the witch nominated and Slick willy back in our White House. I rather see Obama in WH than Clintons.
Seems a lot of posters on this board were in hibernation during Clinton years or have short memory span like most US voters, NEVER AGAIN Clintons nightmare, I rather stomach Obama "change" than Clintons corruption, crimes and treason.
1. Soros and his minions do the cold calculations as to who is the better horse to ride to defeat the Republican; or...
2. Soros flips a coin.
Its either one or two; then the money gets channeled appropriately to reach this decision.
Amen brother!
Especially since the Clinton machine will likely do everything it can to ensure GOP victory if Hellary is not the nominee.
-Eric
The “superdelegates” are Democrat politicos. In other words, the crassest, most self-serving form of political pond scum imaginable.
Anyone who thinks that they won’t go whichever way the political winds are blowing is smoking rope.
Don't forget the absentee ballots from the Peace Corps.
Good observation. They revel in others misery.........
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
What do you think it is?
This is her last shot and she knows it.
So let me get this straight....it used to be worse. There is nothing democratic about the democrat party. Superdelegates were created to thwart the will of the people so that the party insider, the one to be coronated, would always win. I shudder to think what that party was like before the (ahem) "reforms".
Maybe, but the rats won't make the Adlai Stevenson mistake again.
First, this is a change election. People are unhappy about the economy and high gas prices. There is a lingering feeling Iraq went wrong.
Hillary is not a change candidate, she's an establishment candidate. She represents the Bush/Clinton dynasty we've had since 1988. And people don't look back on Bill Clinton's years as as a golden age, but as a time of as much division and infighting as at present.
Obama, on the other hand, is a tabula rasa because he's so new and so green. With his gifted oratory and platitudes with few specifics, people can picture their ideal change candidate, or at least liberal Democrats can.
My prediction is that Obamamania will begin to ebb when the Republicans begin to define him as the far left, and in some cases kooky, candidate he is.
Even when she loses, she declares a victory!
Do you believe McCain can/will weather all the attacks and become the next US president.
I won't believe that she is not our next president until 01-20-2009 at which point someone other than Mrs. Bill Clinton is sworn into office. Unless it is Obama, and he is dumb enough to make her his VP...
I expect Hillary will continue fighting for the nomination even if she loses the Texas primary. She is already cooking up some dirty trick to steal the nomination from Obama.
I think this is going to be a tough, tough year for Republicans up and down the ticket, so I'd give any candidate a less than 50% shot.
Plus, the base is not excited about John-boy, so it'll be tough for him to duplicate the volunteer army Rove put together in 2004 to GOTV.
That said, I think it's do-able, if McCain brings in the right, tough-minded people, who can define Obama for what he is, a green, inexperienced, far-leftie, with some downright nutty associations like that church of his.
Plus, I'm not convinced the country is really ready for a black President, although that'll never show in the polls. Look what happened to Bobby Jindal in Louisiana the first time he ran. The polls overstated his support.
One, the Democrat Congress is very unpopular, although I see no chance for the pubbies to take it back this cycle. People may feel better about having a Republican in the White House to create a divided government to keep the crazies in check.
Two, if anyone in the Republican Party can duplicate what Sarko did in France, become a change candidate out of the incumbent party, it's McCain because he's clashed with Bush and the base so much.
Ideally, both candidates stay in with neither one having a majority of elected delegates by the start of the convention.
I want a floor fight, just like the one in 1968 when Dan Rather got slugged in the stomach on national television.
Don't forget rig the voting results. (You know - get a computer geek in all the major cities to hack into the computers and change the tallies.......)
I wouldn't put it past them at all.
Then, of course there is such a rumor as "Arkancide".
What do you think Morris means by that - does Al have some dirt on the 'Toons that he is prepared to use?
Then no matter how that comes out, our choice is between the winner of the Democrat dustup and McCain.
Sounds like a Chinese curse. "May you live in interesting times."
She'll have the stink of primary loser all over her, so she wouldn't have the adulation that Gore got when he won the popular vote and lost the EC.
IMO if she loses the primary, put a fork in her, she's done.
She'll have as much support for a 2012 run as Jena Francois Kerry did for this campaign.
Plus, what hurt Kerry this time is that he would have had to resign his Senate seat to run in 2008, just as the Beast would have to do in 2012. They can't actively campaign for POTUS and Senate at the same time.
Kerry got an exploratory team together, didn't feel the love, and decided to slink back to the Senate, where he'll do nothing for another 20 years then retire.
I agree with you, besides, what does she have to lose if they go nuclear and destroy the Democratic Party. As another Freeper posted on an earlier forum, “I will believe she is finally dead when I see her stocking feet curl up and the Ruby slippers pop off her feet.”
The Clintons can’t believe this is happening to them.
Well, Hillary’s campaign may go down in election history the way the Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg. And if it does end that way, I think entire books will be written about how a front-runner with many advantages was defeated.
The Beast aged another eight years? Guess again
at least somebody gets it. There seem to be a ton of freepers who have a loss of memory regarding those years and are actually going to cross over and vote for them. not me. see my tagline.
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