Obama's attempt to deny Floridians and Michigonians a voice in the 2008 Democratic Nomination shifted into overdrive today.
The Clinton campaign continues to say that there are only two options. One, seat the delegations as they voted in January, or two, hold another vote. A mail-in vote plan looks like it is about to be proposed by the Florida Democratic Committee. Obama himself and his surrogates flatly reject a mail-in revote. Further, the Obama campaign says that the Bush Justice Department has to approve any revote plan. And, Obama surrogates continue to suggest that the delegates should simply be split in a meaningless 50%-50% split.
If the Democrats do not revote Florida and Michigan John McCain will be the next President of the United States. The electoral votes of these two large swing states are critical to victory in the fall. Florida has 27 electoral college votes. Michigan has 17. That is 44 out of 538, a swing 88 votes, more than 15% of the total. It is a virtual certainty that these states will go to John McCain if we do not allow them to participate in the nomination process, so we are talking about a 15% handicap before we even start the race. This is like going into a fight with an even opponent with one hand tied behind your back.
It's even worse. Other voters all over the country will be turned off by the chaos and undemocratic practices of a Democratic Party. There will be some swing voter fallout against a party that nominates a candidate without including all the voters from all the states.
Right now, as everyone knows, furious discussions are underway about how to fix this problem. The options are to have a revote of some sort, or to stiff the delegations of FL and MI. The Clinton campaign is for a revote, and the Obama campaign wants to stiff FL and MI.
James Carville went on CNN yesterday and faced off against David Wilhelm calling for a revote in MI an FL. He dismissed any of the arguments against the cost of a revote. He offered $15 million from backers on the Clinton side to help fund the elections and challenged the Obama side to pony up and get it done.
Wilhelm was startled and speechless. Carville was having a great time daring the Obama camp to move off their stalling tactics and do the right thing for the Democratic Party. It was a very entertaining exchange, and it clearly exposes the Obama camp's goal of running out the clock and not seating Florida and Michigan.
I have no experience in this area, but I would think that this is something we can accomplish.
In the last month the Clinton and Obama campaigns have raised a historic 80 MILLION dollars. I would think that we could help with funding a revote in FL and MI
Anyone here know of the viability of setting up a donation pool that could be controlled by the DNC for the purposes of funding new Primaries or Caucuses in Florida and Michigan. This would help allevialte the contentious issue.
Who do we need to contact to get the ball rolling?
Can somone cross post this on Kos, Open Left and other websites once we have a plan of action? I only have an account here..
Questions? Comments?
I think it is an interesting idea. What say ya'll?
If you have an hour this is perhaps the best speech I have ever seen Bill Clinton give. It's a stump speech from today in College Station, Texas. I doubt anyone can watch this entire thing and not end up being moved by his committment and belief in Hillary Clinton, her competence and ability to lead our nation out of the mess we are in.
After the introductions Bill Clinton starts at 11:00.
CSPAN VIDEO - Fmr. Pres. Bill Clinton Campaigns in Texas (March 2, 2008)
[You need Real Player and C-SPAN doesn't do permalinks, and DKos doesn't allow embedded rtsp links but is on top of their recent programs right now C-SPAN]
There is now more coming out of CTV on the Obama NAFTA matter.
The Obama campaign told CTV late Thursday night that no message was passed to the Canadian government that suggests that Obama does not mean what he says about opting out of NAFTA if it is not renegotiated.
However, the Obama camp did not respond to repeated questions from CTV on reports that a conversation on this matter was held between Obama's senior economic adviser -- Austan Goolsbee -- and the Canadian Consulate General in Chicago.
Do we hold the line on civility and respectful discourse?
It is a tough thing to discuss. It is the achilles heel of open blogs. Censorship goes against the very idea of this new form of media, but these forums are also vulnerable to a sort of playground rules mentallity.
When a concerted group of rough elbowed advocates show up and start posting and voting up mean spirited comments, the entire community is assaulted, but what can you do about it without coming down in some sort of heavy handed way?
Instead of listening to Chris Matthews and Jack Cafferty yell and scream. I propose that we have a responsible and civil DO Over Debate.
Here's the issue: Due to an incredible mess up on the part of the DNC Leadership both Michigan (MI) and Florida (FL) delegates are currently not counted. Both states moved up their primaries in violation of DNC edict and they were then disqualified. The details are a little different. In MI it seems it was a local Dem power play and in FL the Republicans had a lot to do with it. Never the less here we are.
Clinton won both these highly flawed contests and it would give her about 75 delegates more if they were counted. As things stand these delegates will not be counted at all.
The Clinton Campaign is saying they want to seat the delegates and have them count. And, of course, Obama says they should not be counted. Currently, the decision officially is in the hands of the DNC leadership.
Instead of just letting the future play out with these DNC insider folks making some sort of politically supercharged decision sometime this summer, it is clearly time, while we still have the time to engage in a Do Over Debate.
The has certainly been a lot of concern registered on this blog and in the media in general about the role of the superdelegates in the Democrats nominating process.
MoveOn summarizes the concern:
"The Democratic Party must be democratic. The superdelegates should let the voters decide between Clinton and Obama, then support the people's choice."
So here's the question (please bear with me):
Let's say that Obama wins pledged delegates by a small margin. Something under 50 delegates. Florida and Michigan combined would have had 366 delegates. If the superdelegates believe that Clinton would have gotten more than a 50 delegate advantage out of these states, giving Clinton the lead in pledged delegates, should they then vote to give the nomination to Clinton?
In the grand style of the 2004 swiftboat campaign today George Stephanopoulos put the screws to Hillary Clinton over the question of whether her universal healthcare plan would "garnish" the wages of those who don’t pay in.
Predictably, (on this site at least) Obama supporters have jumped on her answer and we now have a top recommended diary tearing into Clinton for "garnishing" peoples wages.
Does anyone here remember how the Republicans killed universal health insurance in the early nineties? Does this seem familiar?
It is truly amazing how these demons get us average citizens to vote against our own best interests.
This diary won’t get recommended, but it should because you guys are falling into a trap and you should snap out of it. If Obama does win the nomination these kind of disingenuous swiftboat attacks will come fast and furious, and they will be directed at him. As Democrats we will not win by playing the game this way. We need to win by telling the truth.
So, instead of a few rabble rousing sound bites, let’s talk about universal health insurance.
Can we just stipulate that Hillary Clinton knew it was a vote for the war and she made it as a political calculation given the political climate at the time which we all remember well?
Barak Obama was not in the Senate at the time. He did speak against the war early on, but that is not the same as voting against the war in the Senate, with all the political risks that come with the job. Since he has been in the Senate he has voted to fund the war every time except this last time when he absented himself.
Sexism is rearing its ugly head. As we get down to the last moments before the NH primary it is clearly in the air. Chris Matthew's week long snarky rampage against Hillary. All the media hype about her crying today. Stern faced men all worrying.
Here are some comments lifted from FACEBOOK a few minutes ago....
This is what the kids are saying....
Do you think Hillary Clinton's emotional moment in New Hampshire today will help her or hurt her?
Hurt: 64%
Help: 18%
Neither: 18%
Aaron R.
Position: It will hurt her
"Overall it shows that a woman can not lead a country. You can't start off by crying it just shows that whens she's in a tough situation she's gunna break down. No offense to women, they're just not ment to lead a country, Sorry bitch."
UPDATE: Here's the video from today. Watch it and judge for yourself.
At first there was strong condemnation of Pelosi for turning a blind eye to torture back in 2002, which now seems to have moderated by some to a view that the WaPo story was a Republican (I'll use Thug from now on) hit piece and that we need to stand together against this kind of attack.
AP
Posted: 2007-11-10 19:17:00
LONDON (Nov. 10) - Chelsy Davy has broken up with her boyfriend, Prince Harry, a newspaper reported Sunday.
The News of the World said that Davy, a Zimbabwe-born woman who has been studying at a college in England while dating the prince, ended their three-year romance this week after losing patience with his playboy lifestyle and lack of commitment to her.
Chelsy Davy, 22, here with Prince Harry, 21, at the Cricket World Cup in Antigua in April, has reportedly ended their three-year relationship.
Clarence House, where Prince Harry lives with his father, Prince Charles, and his brother, Prince William, declined to confirm the report, saying it doesn't comment about the royals' private lives.
Prince Harry, 21, graduated this year from Britain's elite Sandhust military academy after training to become an army officer. He hopes to one day serve on the front line alongside his colleagues if called to wars such as the one being fought in Afghanistan.
Today the House Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties held and hearing titled: Oversight Hearing on Torture and the Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment of Detainees: The Effectiveness and Consequences of "Enhanced" Interrogation.
Apparently shortly before the hearing the Pentagon ordered a Marine Corps prosecutor who was scheduled to testify not to attend.
It was an astounding hearing that began to give some indication of the pervasiveness of torture by the US Government.
What is truly fascinating given what was revealed by the other witnesses, is what the Pentagon must have been so concerned that this Marine would have said if allowed to testify.
This is one of the most interesting interviews I've seen all year.
It seems that the former chess champion Gary Kasparov is running for the Russian presidency against Putin's goons, and Bill Maher had him on his HBO Real Time show last week, with Hardball's Chris Matthews on the panel. full transcript
After briefly discussing the potential for personal danger that he faces as an opposition candidate Kasparov delivers his opinions on a range of political issues.
What is amazing is his clarity and the unambiguous super intelligent positions that he takes. His honesty and bravery had everyone in awe.
If you haven't seen this clip yet, I would highly recommend that you watch and consider Kasparov's words.
