A clever video:
One wonders if it really would have hurt Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire if she had objected in advance to stripping Florida and Michigan, rather than agreeing to the plan at the time only to change her tune ex post.
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Seat Michigan!
07 Apr 2008 03:11 pm
Comments (29)
Why would she have objected beforehand? Her whole strategy was the Steamroller of Inevitability in Iowa and NH. She wasn't supposed to have to care about MI and FL. As Nicholas points out, there would have been a downside to taking that stand.
I think it would have been a smart move for any of the candidates to express concern over stripping MI and FL delegates, but none did, except Kucinich.
The rest agreed to the DNC rules without argument. Even if they had made an argument, I'm not sure it would have helped any of them during Iowa and New Hampshire given all the other issues being discussed during that period. However, it could have helped Clinton today; it would make her argument against disenfranchising the voters seem geniuine and principled, rather than selfish and hypocritical.
"One wonders if it really would have hurt Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire if she had objected in advance to stripping Florida and Michigan, rather than agreeing to the plan at the time only to change her tune ex post."
One wonders if it really would've hurt Obama in terms of the nomination right if he had allowed the legitimate DNC approved re-votes in Florida and Michigan to proceed, rather than acting like Katherine Harris and trying his damnedest to disenfranchise Democratic voters.
But you won't hear Matthew Yglesias argue that. Matthew is a trust fund scumbag who's happy to trade universal healthcare and Social Security for his own career advancement. After all, his daddy will take care of him if he gets sick or has problems.
And politics is all about Matthew for Matthew, not about the American people.
shouldn't the preferred candidate of the "trust fund scumbag" be the one with 50+ mil in the bank?
And politics is all about Matthew for Matthew, not about the American people.
Whereas Petey is not at all driven by private, masochistic compulsions to support losing candidate after losing candidate.
Seriously, grow up, dude. This 'my motives are pure, everyone else's are corrupt' shtick is a hallmark of deep political immaturity.
Petey,
I didn't hear of any "legitimate DNC approved revotes" here in Michigan. There was no taxpayer funding available, and a private-donor-funded primary would have led to the appearance of corruption.
The DNC disenfranchised Michigan and Florida voters (including me) when they allowed the contests to go on with no delegates officially at stake. The die is cast.
Petey, Obama is no longer a state legislator, and the state he represented was Ilinois, not Michigan or Florida.
WTF with social security? Obama's talked about raising the cap! So, that's the opposite of selling it out, it's making it more progressive. Also, Obama's health care plan is universal in that anyone who wants insurance can afford it, but in the event they cannot afford it, his plan, unlike Clinton's, does not require them to subsidize for-profit insurance companies.
Edwards. the Denver Nuggets. now Clinton. can you get anything right, Petey??
Petey_UHC:
One wonders if it really would've hurt Obama in terms of the nomination right if he had allowed the legitimate DNC approved re-votes in Florida and Michigan to proceed, rather than acting like Katherine Harris and trying his damnedest to disenfranchise Democratic voters.
You are so full of shit. And when Obama wins the popular vote, Hillary and Mark Penn et al. will argue in their lawyerly way that superdelegates should override the "will of the people." Cynical hypocrisy.
The DNC disenfranchised Michigan and Florida voters (including me) when they allowed the contests to go on with no delegates officially at stake.
It sucks that you got disenfranchised, but it seems to me the Democratic voters of MI and FL have their own state parties primarily to blame for disenfranchising them. They moved the dates up knowing full well the DNC would not approve. Once they did so, was it even within the DNC's power to stop the votes happening? What was it going to do, post rent-a-cops at the doors of polling places to detain would-be Democratic voters?
it seems to me the Democratic voters of MI and FL have their own state parties primarily to blame for disenfranchising them
The DNC is charged with thinking through the national implications of its actions (in this case, the potential for pissed off FL and MI democrats staying home in droves for the general election).
What you are saying is technically true, but I view our state party as I would a mentally handicaped relative: not really culpable for its drooling incompentence--they're doing the best they can, poor dears!.
Is that the real Petey gone over the top bitter and hateful or is that a fake Petey parody?
I mean, I've always read him to be an asshole but not this unhinged.
The main way it might have helped Clinton is that it would have made her loss in Iowa look principled rather than piercing the inevitable veneer. It probably hurts her some in Iowa, but she already came in third.
But it at least would have been a principled stand on something that cut against her political interest. But if she were capable of such stances, then she wouldn't be who she is.
If there were any doubt, you have to think the ROY race ended last night. I would have preferred the nomination being wrapped up last night, but at least something is finished.
By the time June/July rolls around, Clinton will be far enough out of the race that whoever in MI is in charge of certifying the identities of the MI delegates will agree to Obama's solution which is to send a delegation that is split 50/50 to the convention. If you're a Party official, do you really want to piss of the rest of the country's Dems by fighting for a Clinton dominated delegation that prolongs the fight through the convention without making it likely that Clinton will actually prevail?
What you are saying is technically true, but I view our state party as I would a mentally handicaped relative: not really culpable for its drooling incompentence--they're doing the best they can, poor dears!.
Hilarious!
The DNC is charged with thinking through the national implications of its actions (in this case, the potential for pissed off FL and MI democrats staying home in droves for the general election).
Well, the alternative was pissed off IA and NH voters. Not an easy call. Granted, there's not as *many* IA/NH voters, but it's not as if sanctioning the early FL and MI primaries would have been consequence-free for intra-party politics. In particular the *candidates* wanted no part of it (Clinton included) because pissing off IA and NH might lose them the nomination, on the assumption (which most people shared), that the early-voting states would be decisive. That, no doubt, was the DNC's overriding calculation, too -- the assumption that the race would be over by Super Tuesday, and that it would then be safe to validate the MI and FL results retroactively and let those delegates sit in Denver. If that had happened, everyone would have been basically happy and all the FL/MI unpleasantness would have been basically moot and forgotten.
Now the assumption turned out to be wrong. But I don't blame the DNC for making it. It took the path that it figured was least likely to blow up in its face. It took the safe bet. Occasionally, though, the safe bet loses and that's what happened here. Who could have predicted that two candidates would remain so evenly matched for so long?
In any case, blaming Obama alone for the disenfranchisement of MI/FL voters (which was the Petey charge that started this) is a willful distortion of events. Sad to see the decline into petulant bitterness of someone who was such an effective ambassador for John Edwards.
Are there actually people who are convinced that if the Democratic nomination were really in the hands of an idealized socialist proletarian base that it would lead to Hillary Clinton winning the nomination? This would be the ideal candidate of the revolutionary Democrats' workers' convention? What?
Is that the real Petey gone over the top bitter and hateful or is that a fake Petey parody?
I mean, I've always read him to be an asshole but not this unhinged.
At this point, it's gotten kind of hard to tell. I think Yglesias should look into it though, (you can check IP addresses, right?) b/c sock puppets are really not good for the integrity of a comment thread.
Clearly, NH would have killed Hillary if she had supported the early Michigan and Florida primaries. It would have cost her NH, no doubt. The "first primary" issue is as near and dear to NH-ites and the press there that she would have lost at least 10 points.
And Hillary knew this! That's why she lied...er changed her mind...because she does just about everything because of political expediency...
Which is what makes Hillary unfit for the Oval Office.
mpowell,
If I understnad the terminology correctly a sock puppet would mean Matt is posing as Petey and making the posts, I highly, highly doubt that.
I think what you meant was people posting parodies of Petey, not sure if there is even an official term for that.
With the way Petey has gone off the deep end here and at Tapped and Ezra Klein's I'm not sure anymore.
To add to his list of wrong predictions don't forget him saying Zach Randolph would be a porductive player for the Knicks, I think he might of even said borderline all star in the east. Last I saw they couldn't give him away to the Bucks.
In a sick twisted part of my brain I almost wish Hillary could win so Petey would see how fast she abandons all the populist positions stolen from Edwards that he seems to think are the real Hillary.
Ryan,
I'd say it goes even farther than that, if the DNC allowed FL and MI to pull up their primaries they'd be telling all states that they are free to do whatever they wanted and no longer have any control over the nominating calendar, states would be leap frogging each other to be first.
Stupid video. Doesn't apply to the situation at all. Obama participated in Florida as much, if not more, than the other candidates. And his supporters waged an active campaign to get potential Obama voters to vote for "uncomitted."
I'd have a lot more respect for Obama and his campaign if they didn't always pretend to be wounded innocents.
The last thing we need is to follow Bush with another passive aggressive self-pitying president.
It may well have dropped her to fourth in Iowa and to second or worst in NH. NV and SC probably wouldn't have cared as much, but by then the damage would have been done.
Obama ran a national ad that happened to air in Florida, General Jackson having annexed it back in the day. And, I distinctly recall at least one prominent Obama-backer urging dems to cross over and vote for Mitt Romney in Michigan. Look, it's a bad situation all around. But, Clinton does nobody any favors by playing like unless we do things her way, or incur the expense of a revote, it's subverting Democracy. This is like the only time Pennsylvania's ever had an effect on the nomination, so it's not like it's fundamental to representative government to have long, dragged-out primaries.
Fact is, the delegations will be seated as is, once the nominee is determined. Which is to say, Obama will get the nominee, and at that point nobody will give a rat's ass about Florida and Michigan, and hell, Quebec might seat a delegation for all anyone would care. These miscreant states just can't be decisive. Everyone knows this. Clintons are pretending otherwise so they can cling to their gossamer hopes of seeming sufficiently committed to democracy so that a crush of superdelegates will go against the outcome of the allegedly necessary elections.
Obama also does not pity himself. He pities the fool.
If Clinton cared about this, she would have fired Ickes for voting to strip MI and FL of its delegates. If she had actually won the number of contests that an inevitable candidate was supposed to win, nobody would be complaining about those two states right now. Besides, if both states had counted, Clinton would probably have won FL (with the wildcard of Clinton-hating Cubans up in the air), Obama would have probably won Michigan (to turn Bill in on himself, Jesse Jackson won there as well) and the difference would thus be split.
"I'd say it goes even farther than that, if the DNC allowed FL and MI to pull up their primaries they'd be telling all states that they are free to do whatever they wanted and no longer have any control over the nominating calendar, states would be leap frogging each other to be first.
Posted by Eric k | April 7, 2008 6:24 PM"
And then Texas would have held its in January. Of 2007.
why are the jews shaking in their boots because of Obama?. is it all about israel and palestine or the eventuall war to disarm Iran.
maybe it is because Obama's candidacy is the first in its kind for years to be supported by other then "new york money men"
i give you the point that my argument is over the top generalization by it appears to be so that the argument of Obama's electibility is being driven by Jews saying "he can't be elected" maybe they are saying he should not be elected in which case they must be said to be shaking in their boots for what reason.
jews i.e. white people with funny names
Matthew Yglesias is a funny place to propose that the Jews are "shaking in their boots because of Obama".
The rest agreed to the DNC rules without argument. Even if they had made an argument, I'm not sure it would have helped any of them during Iowa and New Hampshire given all the other issues being discussed during that period.
Iowa and New Hampshire politicians certainly consider this a big deal, and make big-time threats against anyone who doesn't endorse the concept that their states should go first for eternity.
It's impossible to know what would have happened if Clinton had decided to take on Iowa and New Hampshire (the real key here is how the media would have viewed the contests there if Clinton had decided to sit them out), but it's certainly not a simple issue, strategically.
Of course, morally, it is a simple issue-- Iowa and New Hampshire aren't entitled to go first in a process that usually disenfranchises the larger states who go later (even if it didn't this year).
Comments closed April 21, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
The Shaheen family would not have been for Clinton if they had trampled on the first-in-the-nation status of New Hampshire. The papers would have killed her for it. The debates too. She would have lost NH, Penn and Wolfson would have resigned, the resources would disappear faster, on Super Tuesday she'd lose one or two more states, and then at that point Obama's looking to roll. His lead would clearly have been FL-and-MI-proof (it will probably end up that way anyway).
Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | April 7, 2008 3:38 PM