June 1, 2008
Jun 01 00:00 Florida, Michigan Delegations Second Class Citizens With DNC Jun 01 00:45 Second Class Citizens No More!!! Jun 01 03:47 Halliburton & Katrina Cleanup? Jun 01 10:52 Geraldine Ferraro Doesn't Heart Toy Messiah Jun 01 12:05 NY Times: As Delusional As Ever Jun 01 15:42 Obama Left For the Shut-Ins? Jun 01 20:25 No End To the Disunity
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May
Florida, Michigan Delegations Second Class Citizens With DNC
Earlier today, I said that it was ironic that Democrats had gone from the mantra of " Count every vote " in 2000 to making votes count little in 2008. Now it's official: the DNC voted to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations before ruling that each delegate's vote would count as 1/2 a vote. Here's what the AP is reporting:
Democratic party officials said a committee agreed Saturday on a compromise to seat Michigan and Florida delegates with half-votes after Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton failed to get enough support to force their positions through.It's predictable that Hillary wouldn't accept such a deal because it essentially cedes victory to Sen. Obama. That said, there's definitely merit to her argument. Here's what TNR is reporting on the unity front :
Clinton's chief delegate hunter Harold Ickes angrily informed the committee that Clinton had instructed him to reserve her right to appeal the matter to the Democrats' credentials committee, which could potentially drag the matter to the party's convention in August.
"There's been a lot of talk about party unity, let's all come together, and put our arms around each other," said Ickes, who is also a member of the Rules Committee that approved the deal. "I submit to you ladies and gentlemen, hijacking four delegates...is not a good way to start down the path of party unity."
Howard Dean may hope that the "healing will begin today," but two blocks away from the northwest Washington Marriott where the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee is meeting right now to try to figure out Florida and Michigan, the Hillary protesters are occupying an utterly alternate (and healing-free) universe : a universe in which one of the big lawn rally's speakers yells that the Democratic Party no longer is in the business of "promoting equality and fairness for all"; in which a Hillary supporter with two poodles shouts, "Howard Dean is a leftist freak!"; in which a man exhibits a sign that reads "At least slaves were counted as 3/5ths a Citizen" and shows Dean whipping handcuffed people; and in which Larry Sinclair , the Minnesota man who took to YouTube to allege that Barack Obama had oral sex with him in the back of a limousine in 1999, is one of the belles of the ball.Based on that report, I think it's a stretch to believe that healing is a priority with Hillary's supporters. Rather, I'd say that their mission is simple: winning isn't the biggest thing; it's the only thing.
I referenced the troubles within the Democratic Party in my earlier post. This is a perfect illustration of that divide. When they were deciding who would succeed Terry McAuliffe as DNC chairman, Eli Pariser made it known what the MoveOn.org wing wanted :
"For years, the party has been led by elite Washington insiders who are closer to corporate lobbyists than they are to the Democratic base[.] But we can't afford four more years of leadership by a consulting class of professional election losers...In the last year, grass-roots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the party doesn't need corporate cash to be competitive. Now it's our party: we bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back."It's an established fact that MoveOn.org hates the DLC wing. It isn't just that they see things a bit differently; it's that MoveOn.org sees things through a completely different lens. To people like Eli Pariser, the DLC is nothing more than GOP Lite.
Another troublespot for the DNC to deal with is the rift between the limosine liberal elitists and the blue collar Reagan Democrats. Remember all the exit polls showing Hillary supporters as unwilling to vote for Obama? Check this out:
Of the eight Hillary supporters I quiz at the protest (six of them women), only one says she'd even consider voting for Obama in the fall. "It's sad. I'm a lifelong Democrat and the party's been taken over by these Obama people who say they want 'change,'" gripes Linda of Horseheads, New York, outside the Marriott as a honking car decorated with a painting of Hillary, a glued-on bust of Cleopatra, and a tampon drives by. Linda, she says, has already gone to the state Board of Elections to learn how to write Hillary's name in in November. "So much has been stolen from her."That's got to worry the Obama campaign. If that's how Hillary's supporters see him, then he's toast. I'd be surprised if that is representative but even if it's halfways accurate, it's still awful news for Team Obama. If Hillary's Democrats stay home or Reagan Democrats vote for John McCain, then that makes Obama's job awfully difficult in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Posted Sunday, June 1, 2008 12:01 AM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 01-Jun-08 10:51 AM
The Democrats have a real problem here. They created the rules, but the minute they need to enforce the rules, they back away. So why have rules? Are Democrats just the party of "if it feels good, do it?" Oh, yeah, I forgot.
Comment 2 by Gary Gross at 01-Jun-08 10:55 AM
It goes deeper than that, too. I think they've reached a point where the two camps' supporters don't trust each other anymore.
Second Class Citizens No More!!!
This Hillary suppporter thinks that the DNC is treating Hillary's supporters like second class citizens.
To say that Harriet Christian is upset is putting things mildly. when she says that "the Democrats are throwing the election away", it was obvious that she didn't think too highly of Sen. Obama. By the time she called Sen. Obama "an inadequate black male", it was abundantly obvious that she wouldn't be cutting the DNC a check anytime soon. when se said "God damn the Democrats", I was fairly certain that she wouldn't be on Howard Dean's Christmas card list. When she said that "they think we won't vote for McCain. Well I've got news for you. McCain will be the next president of the United States", I'm relatively certain that Ms. Christian will be on John McCain's Christmas card wish list.
I said here that there's some serious divides within the Democratic Party. This is proofthat those divisions run deep and that they won't easily be healed. The next step is the circular firing squad.
Posted Sunday, June 1, 2008 12:46 AM
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Halliburton & Katrina Cleanup?
Barack Obama was asked by a young lady at a campaign rally in South Dakota what small businesses need. It was amazing to see him work Halliburton and Katrina cleanup into his answer. Here's the video:
That's alot of meandering if you ask me. How you get to Halliburton and Katrina cleanup during a question about small business needs is beyond me but that's why I'm thankful I don't 'think' like a Democrat. What's more disturbing is that they were eating this gobbledygook up like it made sense.
EARTH TO MOONBATS: Throwing in the words Halliburton and Katrina doesn't mean that Sen. Obama knows what he's talking about. It just proves that he knows liberals' happyspeak. That might sound nice but it's hardly a qualification for president.
Posted Sunday, June 1, 2008 3:48 AM
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Geraldine Ferraro Doesn't Heart Toy Messiah
Based on this op-ed , it's safe to say that Geraldine Ferraro won't be writing a check to the Obama campaign anytime soon. Here's how she tied into the Toy Messiah:
Here we are at the end of the primary season, and the effects of racism and sexism on the campaign have resulted in a split within the Democratic Party that will not be easy to heal before election day. Perhaps it's because neither the Barack Obama campaign nor the media seem to understand what is at the heart of the anger on the part of women who feel that Hillary Clinton was treated unfairly because she is a woman or what is fueling the concern of Reagan Democrats for whom sexism isn't an issue, but reverse racism is.While I think Ms. Ferraro is being a bit melodramatic, she raises a valid point about how Sen. Obama has used words to belittle Hillary. His use of words like petty, silly and others is flippant and disrespectful.
The reaction to the questions being raised has been not to listen to the message and try to find out how to deal with the problem, but rather to denigrate the messenger. Sore loser, petty, silly, vengeful are words that have dominated the headlines. But scolding and name calling don't resolve disputes. The truth is that tens of thousands of women have watched how Clinton has been treated and are not happy. We feel that if society can allow sexism to impact a woman's candidacy to deny her the presidency, it sends a direct signal that sexism is OK in all of society.
Certainly, Hillary is tough enough to withstand the shots. It's just that, at some point, people will take it personally after their candidate is hit with such words. It also isn't smart to continually use such negative words if you want to win over your opponent's supporters.
It should also point out that Sen. Obama has relied on that type of language partially because he's such an empty suit. He can't counter with anything incisive that rebuts Hillary's attacks.
That isn't Ms. Ferraro's only complaint, either:
Since March, when I was accused of being racist for a statement I made about the influence of blacks on Obama's historic campaign, people have been stopping me to express a common sentiment: If you're white you can't open your mouth without being accused of being racist. They see Obama's playing the race card throughout the campaign and no one calling him for it as frightening. They're not upset with Obama because he's black; they're upset because they don't expect to be treated fairly because they're white. It's not racism that is driving them, it's racial resentment. And that is enforced because they don't believe he understands them and their problems. That when he said in South Carolina after his victory "Our Time Has Come" they believe he is telling them that their time has passed.What Ms. Ferraro is pointing out is how frequently the Obama campaign has labeled their fellow liberals as racists. Based on this , I'd say they've reached a new stage of anger, which I'm titling the 'They're mad as hell and they aren't gonna take it anymore' stage. This group of liberals have always considered themselves as enlightened on racial and sexual issues. Now they're being called racists and it isn't sitting well with them.
Welcome to the world that Republicans live in on a daily basis. The media and other liberals have always thought that to be Republican is to be racist. They're so convinced of that that they accept it as an article of liberal faith. They don't need to even discuss it.
Isn't it ironic that the year when Democrats' top contenders are an African-American senator and a former First Lady, they end up with a shouting match with shouts of racism and sexism? (I'd use a stronger word than ironic if it existed.)
That's the price you pay when you play identity politics.
Posted Sunday, June 1, 2008 10:53 AM
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NY Times: As Delusional As Ever
After reading this article , it's safe to say that the NY Times is delusional. Here's the opening paragraphs of the article:
The big drama now facing the Democratic Party in the presidential contest is how, when and even whether Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will depart the race.The key to deciphering whether Hillary was planning on getting out is found in this paragraph:
The contest is coming to a close as Puerto Rico votes on Sunday and Montana and South Dakota on Tuesday, finishing a process that began five months ago in Iowa. Even if those results do not put Senator Barack Obama over the top, aides to both Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton said they expected enough superdelegates to rally behind Mr. Obama in the 48 hours after the final primaries to allow him to proclaim himself the nominee.
Mrs. Clinton has kept her counsel about what she might do to draw her campaign to a close. But when the rules committee of the Democratic Party divided up delegates from Michigan and Florida on Saturday night, Harold Ickes, a committee member and Clinton adviser, said she was reserving the right to contest the decision into the summer.Anyone who thinks that Hillary is now satisfied with the DNC's ruling and will now ride off into the sunset is kidding themselves. It's more likely that she's upset with the decision and that she'll fight onward. I certainly wouldn't rule out Hillary taking the fight to the Credentials Committee.
People have said that this won't happen because it would hurt party unity. forget that nonsense. Party unity has been greatly diminished, if not destroyed. Anyone thinking that the Democratic Party will be united after Denver isn't paying attention to the fierce fights that've happened .
As I pointed out here , the Democrats have some serious issues to resolve. how those problems gets resolved will tell about who the next chairman of the DNC will be. I'm betting that the Deaniacs' scorched earth patterns won't earn them much applause. That's why I said the first thing that'll happen after the election is the obligatory circular firing squad.
Don't be surprised if Dr. Dean is the guest of honor at that event.
Posted Sunday, June 1, 2008 12:06 PM
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Obama Left For the Shut-Ins?
If you read Sen. Obama's quotes in this Politico.com article , you'd swear that the only reason he left TUCC is for the shut-ins. here's a specific quote I'm referring to:
Obama said he also regrets "all the attention that my campaign has visited on" the church.Puhleeze. Sen. Obama left TUCC because it was the only viable political option after Father Michael Pfleger unleashed a racist diatribe against Hillary that would've made Jeremiah Wright proud. It's insulting to hear Obama spin his leaving TUCC as anything other than politically expedient. This wasn't a profile in courage. This wasn't proof of Obama being the post-racial, post-partisan politician. This was Obama being who he really is: a typical Chicago machine politician that had the misfortune of living in the YouTube era.
"We had reporters grabbing church bulletins and calling up the sick and the shut-in," he said. "That's just not how people should have to operate in their church.
This paragraph will give you mental whiplash:
Obama said he has "tremendous regard" for the church community, but said he could not live with a situation where everything said in the church, including comments by a guest pastor, "will be imputed to me, even if they conflict with my long-held, views, statements and principles."why would anyone have "tremendous regard" for a church whose guest speakers create conflicts that "will be imputed" to Sen. Obama? That's the type of doublespeak that gets liberals in trouble. It gets them in trouble because people perceive, correctly, that they're being talked down to.
Obama, who could clinch the nomination as soon as Tuesday, said he hopes to join a new church soon.Obama had best get out his Chicago directory because that's where he'll be headquartered.
"I'm confident we'll be able to find a church that we're comfortable with," he said. "We probably won't make any firm decision on this until January, when we know what our lives are going to be like."
Posted Sunday, June 1, 2008 3:42 PM
Comment 1 by Lady Logician at 01-Jun-08 09:52 PM
I'm surprised you didn't pick up on his remark about how surprised he was that his "mainstream Christian beliefs" became a campaign issue...
LL
No End To the Disunity
Time Magazine's Jay Newton-Small is noticing that the (not so) Democratic Party isn't having an easy time uniting. Here's a captivating two paragraphs that capture the Democratic Party's dysfunction perfectly:
Suddenly it dawned on the Hillary Clinton supporters in the audience that the committee was not going to go their way. "I was incredibly proud to come down here as a student on the mall and listen to Dr. Martin Luther King talk about civil rights," said Germond, as the crowd simultaneously began to hiss, cheer and shush, her voice being drowned out by the roar. "We are not the current administration who plays lose with rules," Germond continued, her voice rising a little desperately to dampen down the onslaught of outrage that was just beginning. "I'm feeling very badly that we can't seat Michigan and Florida in full," she virtually yelled over shouts of "Shame on you!"In her Boston Globe op-ed , Geraldine Ferraro talked about the embarrassment of riches Democrats had starting the nominating cycle. I'd argue that what they really have is an embarrassment. Barack Obama is an embarrassment because he's got tons of skeletons in his closet and because he's a lightweight. Smooth talker? Definitely. Gravitas? You're kidding me. He'd likely have to look in the dictionary to learn how to spell it much less define it.
The noise they made was the sound of the Democratic Party fracturing: one third for Obama cheering, one third for Clinton booing and the rest, including the chagrined members of the panel, frantically hushing both sides as if to say, 'Don't go there, don't show the Republicans how dysfunctional we are.' It was also a cry of desperation, because the panel's ruling virtually ensured that the door was slamming on Clinton, who with three races to go now has little chance of overcoming Obama's lead. The meeting only went downhill from there, with committee co-chair Alexis Herman pounding the gavel in a vain attempt to restore order and Harold Ickes, a senior Clinton advisor and member of the committee, claiming the panel was "hijacking" democracy and threatening to appeal the ruling well into the summer.
Hillary? She's the woman everyone learned how to distrust. Republicans learned that in the 1990's. Democrats are just finally figuring it out. What's new? They're just figuring it out because she's set her sights on their Chosen One who's supposed to deliver the White House into their clutches. NOW they've figured it out that the Clintons are shameless and that they play hardball politics with brass knuckles and bazookas. If there's a Republican standing in their way, then it's time to set their sights on the Republican and demolish him.
Democrats thought that they were exempt. That's because they never stood in the Clinton's way before. Now they know. Hillary still hasn't answered this important threshhold question: How do you unite a group when half of them hate you on a personal level?
The answer is that she can't unite the group because the MoveOn.org types aren't the compromising types. After all, it's their party . They bought it. They aren't about to give it back without a bloody fight, especially to a DLC 'Republican Lite' type like Hillary.
Does this sound like the sound of unity?
Instead, the panel's lunch turned into a three-hour closed-door session, during which the members finally agreed on a compromise - though it was basically the position taken by the Obama campaign, not to mention the one Republicans smartly came up with for their side long before the disputed primaries took place: seat both delegations but grant each only half a vote per delegate as a penalty. In what the Obama campaign called a "gift" to Clinton they agreed to seat Florida's delegates based on the results of that state's January 29th primary, yielding Clinton a net gain of 19 delegates. "A concession? Give me a break. Under their formula Hillary Clinton loses delegates,"scoffed Ickes. "It's just a perversion of words to call it a concession."Rest assured that Hillary won't go gently into that good night. So much for blessed unity.
UPDATE: More articles are being written about the Democratic Party's strife. Here's what Michael Tomasky wrote about the Democrats' strife:
So this is what party unity sounds like. Alice Huffman, a member of the Democratic party's rules and bylaws committee, which met on Saturday to decide the fates of the Florida and Michigan delegations, was explaining herself. She had just sought to allow all of Florida's delegates to vote at the Democratic convention in August, despite the disputed scheduling of the state's presidential primary. But that motion failed, and she was explaining to her 29 fellow committee members and the rest of us in a Washington hotel ballroom why she was now, in the interest of party unity, going to support a second motion that would seat the delegation at half strength.Here's what Texas Demomcratic Party Chairman Boyd Richie said about this weekend's Texas Democratic State Convention:
A woman in the audience yelled: "You just took away votes!" Huffman: "We gave you some back, too. We will leave here more united than we came."
The room, or that portion of it dedicated to Hillary Clinton's advancement to the White House, burst into mocking laughter. She tried to keep talking. A man yelled: "Lipstick on a pig!" Huffman countered: "Please conduct yourselves like proper men and women."
At a later point, committee member Everett Ward was trying to speak. A woman in the audience yelled, apropos of what I'm not sure: "What about Iowa? New Hampshire? South Carolina?" Another woman countered: "Shut up!"
Texas Democratic Chairman Boyd Richie, who endorsed Obama last week, said he expects a spirited rivalry to exist between the delegates if the presidential race is continuing. "Politics in Texas is a full-contact blood sport in some quarters," Richie said. "People are passionate about their beliefs and their candidates."This stuff won't be settled anytime soon.
Richie said his goal for the convention is to get delegates focused on putting the internal rivalries aside to look ahead to winning the White House in November, instead of continuing to argue over Obama and Clinton.
"You're going to have a lot of people who are disappointed. You're going to have a lot of folks who are elated," he said. "We've got to find a way to get those to mesh and understand our common goal is not to be fighting with one another."
Originally posted Sunday, June 1, 2008, revised 02-Jun 3:12 AM
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