The Political Fiend

It’s time that this stopped. Hillary Clinton has lost sight of the goals of the Democratic Party and has ventured off onto her own hubris filled path of destruction. This is the stuff epic poems are made of; the warrior so obsessed with with his own destiny that he falls into madness, destroying those around him in the course of a lustful pursuit of the end prize. Hillary Clinton, brilliant and capable as she may be, is essentially killing the Democratic Party’s chances of defeating John McCain come November. I’ll list my beeves:

1). Clinton has implied that McCain surpasses Obama with regard to national security know how; Nancy Pelosi has since pointed to Clinton’s statements on this issue as being the most telling sign of the unfeasibility of a joint-ticket.

2). Clinton made race an issue in the early states by claming LBJ was responsible for the Civil Rights legislation of the ’60s, essentially forcing an Obama response on the issue in an attempt to brand him as the ‘black candidate’.

3). Clinton has done little if anything to correct the statements of Geraldine Ferraro, who stated that Obama’s success is largely a function of his race. Though there is certainly an element of truth to this, Ferraro sounds more and more like a Republican as this thing grinds forward; her statements essentially dismissed all of Obama’s qualifications, making him out to be an affirmative action charity case arising from white liberal guilt.

4). Clinton has pushed for a redo of the primary elections in both Michigan and Florida after having campaigned there in spite of the DNC’s censure of both states for moving up their primary dates.

5). In a radio interview with NPR on March 13, 2008, Clinton did not outrightly support the notion that super delegates should pledge their votes to the candidate who garnered the most support throughout the primary season. When asked whether she’d be okay with the super delegates acting contrary to the primary results, she totally dodged the question.

HRC will no doubt hang on for dear life until the convention. It’s bad enough that this is costing Clinton and Obama tens of millions of dollars; does Clinton really have to cost the Democrats the presidency? Does she not see the fallacy of her ways; with so few states remaining, the likely result is an Obama nomination; after that then what? Will she make half hearted attempts to back him as the most qualified man for the job? Will anyone believe her if she does? Where is Al Gore, and when will he give Clinton a tap on the shoulder?

Photo by Barbara Kinney used under a Creative Commons license.

Now we’ve really got our hands full. Between the superdelegates and the situation in Michigan and Florida this is gonna be one for the history books–and maybe future constitutional law textbooks. Hillary’s big wins on Tuesday night did two things; 1) they complicated the superdelegate situation by giving her a credible argument for why the superdelegates should line up behind her, and 2) they reignited the arguments over what the DNC should do with the votes cast in Florida and Michigan.

The superdelegate problem always boils down to the same basic question. Should they side with the candidate that has won the greatest number of votes, or should they support the one who will likely have the greatest momentum going into November? Some would even argue that the role of the superdelegate is not a confirmatory one, but rather that of a steering committee, and that they should pledge to the candidate that they believe to be best for the party, regardless of what voters think. The safest bet would be to go with whoever’s leading the popular vote, anything else and we might have riots on our hands come convention time.

Onward. There’s no way in hell those Florida and Michigan votes are going to be counted. Not without major lawsuits being filed anyhow. Michigan and Florida were stripped of their delegates as punishment by the DNC for moving up their primaries. Now the DNC is paying for it. In punishing both states, the DNC managed to disenfranchise anyone who actually bothered showing up at the primaries, and now that Clinton has a shot at making a comeback she’s pushing for the votes cast in each state to count. Problem is that Obama and Edwards played by the rules, and in respecting the DNC’s decision, they pledged not to campaign in either state. Clinton did, and managed to win decisive majorities. So what are the DNC’s options, and with what results?

Option 1: Keep the status quo and don’t honor the votes cast in Florida and Michigan.

Option 2: Hold a re-do election, and allow the votes to count toward delegates.

Option 3: Try to translate the votes already cast in each state’s primaries into a delegate count.

Results: A flood of Equal Protection lawsuits based on systemic disenfranchisement a la Bush v. Gore, a whole lot of kicking and screaming from the Obama camp, and a whole lot of grins and high fives on the Republican side. If the DNC doesn’t drastically retool its procedures after this mishap, I’m moving to Canada.