Clinton’s Taking it to the Convention
The Rules Committee meeting on the 31st doesn’t make a whit of difference. Here’s why
Democratic National Committee rules require that the two states lose at least half of their convention delegates for holding elections too early, the party’s legal experts wrote in a 38-page memo
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Because Clinton has mobilized her over-50-women base in Florida by comparing this situation to the 2000 election, despite the intellectual dishonesty of that idea, Florida will not accept anything other than full seating, despite their flagrant disregard of the rules.
There are two ways to seat 100% of the delegates:
- Give all delegates 1/2 votes
- Appeal to the credentials committee at the convention
]The analysis also said there is an option to restore 100 percent of the delegates — by a recommendation of the Credentials Committee that meets later this summer. However, that would mean a final decision would not be made until the first day of the convention in Denver since Credentials Committee decisions have to be approved by the full convention as it convenes — risking a floor fight.
The Clintons have pulled it out over and over and over again. They believe they can do it again this time, through a combination of stirring the FL/MI pot (despite the fact that Michigan’s election was ruled unconstitutional).
While I understand the Obama campaign’s desire to wait until South Dakota, Montana and Puerto Rico have voted before unleashing the alleged flood of superdelegates, I’d say it’s worth having some step out sooner might be better than later, not because I believe Clinton will win, but because the only way to focus completely on John McCain is to have enough superdelegates to meet the bar after Clinton forces the shift.
After Sunday, it won’t be 2025 for the nomination. It will be something between 2025 and 2210. Since it’s a given that the rules committee cannot arrive at a solution acceptable to the Clinton campaign, she will not concede, unless the superdelegates step up and speak.
Much is happening behind the scenes, I’m sure. The Virgin Island superdelegate who switched his endorsement from Clinton to Obama and then back to Clinton again yesterday is evidence of that, though I’d like to think most superdelegates are smart enough to not look like multi-flip-floppers.
We are now seeing the apex of the Clinton power play for the nomination. If she somehow manages to take it this way by some incredibly long-odds steal, the Democrats will lose to McCain.
At this point, I’m beyond even trying to be generous with her. I am grateful that my mother is an Obama supporter, because I am rapidly becoming rebellious and hardened toward women one generation away from me who are so goddamned determined to see a woman that they would elect an amoral, ambitious, greedy sociopath (thank you, Andrew Sullivan for framing it so well).
Obama is 48 delegates away from the nomination as it stands today. After Sunday, he will probably be somewhere between 48 and 233 delegates away. 86 pledged delegates remain. Assuming a 50/50 split, Obama will have 43 from Tuesday’s contests.
If you think I’m being paranoid, think again. Clinton is challenging the credentials for the Texas delegates won by Obama at the county conventions (see her website for info about organizing for these challenges…yes, it IS her campaign doing the challenging). Her surrogates strongarmed Obama delegates in Michigan (yes, THAT Michigan, the one that doesn’t count).
Either the superdelegates end it, or it goes to the convention floor, where Bill Clinton will be the number one goon acting for her.
I regret ever spending even a second of my life, much less several years, defending them both.