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. |
#7 True to a point, but consider this..In a way Iowa, NH, Mich, SC are kind of low ball filters for the Dems...yes, it may show more Dems leading towards Obama...But the big smokescreen comes out on Super Tuesday when the MSM, the lib pundits, Hillary Bill and her followers will all say ‘ See, there is no clear trend, and she alone can beat the Reps’,so nominate her...and the delegates will !
She and hubby and Terry McAuliffe are Masters at obfuscating and they will befuddle the Dem masses,the MSM and many American people...Watch- she will be the Dem nominee on maybe the 2nd ballot, after giving due consideration to her most worthy opponent Obama...and then she will be coronated by unanimous acclamation of the delegates..Yes, the Fix is in...
“Not a chance. If Obama is visibly robbed, the nomination won’t be worth anything.”
Yeah, but it’d be FUN to watch!
“Not a chance. If Obama is visibly robbed, the nomination won’t be worth anything.”
That’s what I was thinking. If the rank-and-file (or rank-and-vile, in their case) RATS want Obama and feel robbed because of some backroom shenanigans from the Clintons, they’ll simply stay at home on election day.. and we’ll win!
Intellectually, this would be the best thing to have happen. Emotionally, though, I can’t help feeling that the sooner her-highness is out of the race, and the chances of her becoming President are 0, the happier I’ll be.
But we must learn to postpone gratification.
Don’t you think that would piss off some people, if Hillary lost in the primaries but still won the nomination? That would be really destructive to the country. But of course, I know that die-hard democratics don’t care about that. They wouldn’t mind causing lots of ill-will. In fact, they seem to like to be in everyone’s face about causing ill-will and then complain about a vast-right-wing conspiracy.
“rank-and-vile”
Nice phrase!
“Superdelegates are Hillary’s secret weapon that nobody talks about.
Her opposition would have to win an overwhelming majority of elected delegates to take her out.”
And people wonder why she is called Hitlery? I don’t want to hear Bill O’Reilly complain anymore about Hillary being called the spawn of the devil. Hillary, along with her die-hard supporters have earned her those titles.
If Obama wins the primaries and the party nominates Hillary.... there will be race riots in the streets. It will be the 60’s all over again.
I’m not sure I’m buying this theory, but it’s no secret that the Democrat elites want blacks on their plantation and not calling the shots.
So, I’ll concede this is a factor, but I don’t agree that Hillary will be the nominee if she doesn’t get the most votes in actualy primaries.
I don’t think Hillary or her die-hards would mind seeing riots in the streets, she and her brown-shirt thugs seem to like that kind of thing. In fact, if elected President, I am sure Hillary would like nothing more then to see riots, then she would have the excuse to enact the executive orders that she wrote while the her stooge of a husband was president. I am sure that Hillary would love it if she could divide the country into 10 divisions and take away all rights, all in the name of maintaining safety.
BUT, Oprah is Obama’s Gatekeeper. Hillary can knock all she wants. She’ll be talking to THE HAND.
After she steals the nomination, the Americans will ALL be so appalled that they will refuse her.
The BIGGER PROBLEM, though...
clintons CHEAT,
and each step closer to the presidency puts us one step closer to the danger of her being able to steal power.
I know that it's not popular to compare anyone to Hitler anymore; but I must remind everyone that he stole his power in Germany.
I don’t care if she wins or loses the Dem nomination. I want to see a bloody fight.
It irks me the way it seems that the Democratic Party leadership are some of the biggest racists. The only reason why they suck up to the black leaders like Al Sharpton is because Al is against Americans with traditional values. The biggest secret of all time is that Democrats tend to be uppity elitists who have no tolerance for the values that represent the real America. They are the biggest group of snobs this country has ever seen and they are usually educated at the most elite schools. They are a bunch of snobs. They have been the ones most likely to deprive people of freedom from the nanny state laws. It doesn't surprise me at all that this elitist group would consider depriving America of the right to vote. They don't respect this country, it's traditions, or values.
Maybe not if she threatens to have their grandchildren killed.
I hear that she's a mighty "persuasive" old hag.
This is great news! Watch the Democrat Party implode as it dis-enfranchises it’s own members.
If obama wins the primaries, and the dems nominate Hillary.... she won’t win more that two or 3 states. And the democrats convention will look like 68 again.
If Clinton continues to lag in the primaries and the super delegates still nominate her, I suspect there will be a mass defection of the non-Hillaryites, along with calls for a third party run by Obama (unless she puts him in as VP) and probably a lot of stay-at-homes on election day.
Second, If Obama wins most of the primaries he will certainly overcome the deficit that Hillary Clinton will have in the Super Delegates, if she has such an advantage by convention time.
Third, those Super Delegates are not stupid and no matter how powerful the so called Clinton machine is, they are not going to rob Obama a fair win from the popular vote, it will 100% ensure the defeat of Hillary Clinton in the elections and the defeat of many of them this coming November.
Regardless, Hillary Clinton is going to lose the elections even if she ends up winning most votes in the primaries vote, she is the most unlikable and meanest candidate to run for President in decades and because of this alone she is not going to be elected President. Neither her, nor her husband, nor the media can do anything to change this fact.
This is the modern version of “smoke filled back rooms”.
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