Posted on 01/07/2008 3:29:17 PM PST by Richard Poe
| by Richard Lawrence Poe Monday, January 7, 2008 |
Permanent Link Past Columns |
FORGET IOWA. Forget New Hampshire. Forget the Democratic primaries altogether. The fix is in for Hillary Clinton. When Democrats convene this August in Denver, they will nominate Hillary as their candidate for President of the United States.
The day after Hillary’s loss in Iowa last Thursday, her campaign chief Terry McAuliffe told reporters, “Listen, Hillary is going to be the nominee. There’s no question.”
McAuliffe was not indulging in wishful thinking. He was stating a fact. He knows things the rest of us do not.
One thing McAuliffe knows is that Hillary controls a decisive majority of the Democratic Party superdelegates. The superdelegates control 42 percent of the votes needed to nominate Hillary. They may vote for whomever they wish, for any reason, and may change their minds at will. In August, they will nominate Hillary.
Democrats started the superdelegate system in 1984, to give party leaders tighter control over the nominating process.
This was partly in response to the catastrophic defeat of George McGovern, the radical, anti-war demagogue who, in 1972, lost every state in the union except Massachusetts to Richard Nixon.
To prevent such maverick candidates from winning the nomination in future, party leaders rigged the system. State delegates were no longer permitted to nominate presidential candidates on their own. Henceforth party-approved superdelegates would also cast votes.
Superdelegates are party stalwarts, Democrat officials whose loyalties favor party over state. Their number varies from one election to the next. Currently there are 852 superdelegates, including 29 state governors, 232 congressmen, 49 senators, two “shadow” or non-voting senators from the District of Columbia, and 540 Democratic Party leaders and officials of various sorts.
At this year’s Democratic Convention, 4,049 delegates will vote. Hillary must get 2,025 votes to win the nomination. This is the so-called "magic number". The 852 superdelegates total 42 percent of the magic number. In a close race, their votes could prove decisive.
At this writing, CNN reports that 257 superdelegates have already pledged their votes: of them, 154 (60 percent) have pledged for Hillary; 50 (19 percent) for Barack Obama; and 33 (13 percent) for John Edwards.
Should Hillary falter in the primaries, the superdelegates will likely come to her rescue and nominate her anyway.
The Web site 2008 Democratic Convention Watch offers updated lists of superdelegates who have and have not pledged their votes.
Of course, Hillary cannot win from superdelegate votes alone. She must get a sizeable number of state delegates as well. This presents no problem for Hillary. Her political machine is deeply entrenched in America’s urban centers. These crowded cities can overwhelm rural voters, bringing entire states into Hillary’s camp, with large numbers of delegates.
The decisive date will be February 5, dubbed Super Duper Tuesday by political pundits. Twenty-four states will hold their primaries that day.
"These states include some of our largest and most delegate-rich states, such as California, New York, Illinois, Georgia, New Jersey and others," notes Steven Hill, political reform director for the leftwing New America Foundation. "Together these two dozen states hold enough delegates to nearly decide the presidential nomination all by themselves."
Hillary is counting on that. As Steven Hill explains, "Having a single primary day with so many states... gives great advantage to those candidates with the most campaign cash and name recognition... It creates a virtual wealth primary in which new presidential faces will be quickly eliminated."
In any contest of wealth, Hillary has the advantage. Her blue-chip backers include the likes of Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, wife of Sir Evelyn de Rothschild of the famed Rothschild banking dynasty.
“I'm always doing everything I possibly can for Hillary Clinton…”, Her Ladyship told Portfolio magazine. “I have been waiting for this since Bill Clinton left office, frankly.”
Married November 30, 2000, Lady de Rothschild spent her wedding night in the Clinton White House.
OpenSecrets.org reports that Hillary has raised $90.9 million, only slightly higher than Obama’s $80.3 million.
However, most of Hillary’s money is off the books. No one knows how many millions Hillary has laundered through George Soros’ “Shadow Party”, a network of Democrat front groups masquerading as non-partisan charities. These include Fund for America, the Democracy Alliance, America Votes and Media Matters for America, among others.
Republicans need to stop gloating over Hillary's every misstep and see the big picture. Hillary has the money, the machine, and the support of global financial elites. Unless we can muster a counterforce of similar strength, Hillary will win the nomination and the presidency.
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Richard Lawrence Poe is a contributing editor to Newsmax, an award-winning journalist and a New York Times bestselling author. His latest book is The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Siezed Control of the Democratic Party, co-written with David Horowitz. |
Looks to me like we win either way. If Her Thighness mounts a coup, the nutroots stay home or vote for a third party crackpot. If Obama wins, google the “David Dinkins effect.”
Clarity. This entire campaign is nothin gbut street theater. She Who Must Not Be Named is the presumptive heir to the nomination.
As for the “comeback kid” article, I say Feb 6th - The new GroundHog Day, where She will see Her shadow and Amerika will have four years of winter.
The flaw in this is if she loses the primary vote by a large margin. The RATs will have to jettison all their push for popular vote over electoral college in order to annoint Toonette. Once again, we’ll have the coattails of death.
your scenario would be ideal for us in my opinion.
Nah. She’s gonna get Obamasized! LOL!
Spread it around.....THE FIX IS IN....HILLARY is the NOMINEE....NO MATTER WHAT!!! Obama has NO...NADA...ZERO CHANCE!! It’;s all just a FIXED GAME by the Clintons!! PASS IT ON!!!
Soros has been donating to Obama, too.
Great analysis, as far as it goes. It does not discuss (because the topic is another article in itself) how blacks in the dem base will feel if their clearly strong candidate is “robbed” by smoke-filled room white party operatives. The “sit out” factor in the general is not to be overlooked given this scenario. Thanks for the more detailed information on the Super Delegates.
good for us.
ML/NJ
The final two sentences of Poe’s article says it all.
I am still very worried; the attack ads on Obama and Edwards start the day after tomorrow.
This is setting up for my dream scenario.
Hillary strong arms the nomination away from Obama, the rightful victor, and she does so in such a ham handed manner that she is irreparably damaged going into the general election.
I’m betting the ticket will be Hill/Bama. If not, then Bama/Hill. Either way, she WILL be on the ticket.
"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
Good. Anybody that get the party nomination through machinations while losing most of the states will horribly alienate their party’s base and get their asses kicked in the general.
It would be the first and last Democrat convention in the 21st Century.
Some kind of weird new unrecognizable party would emerge after the agonizing death of the old one.
Great point.
This would be a plausible scenario if Obama were not black. If the Dems took away the nomination from Barack thru Super Delegates, they would lose the black vote for a generation.
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