What Game Is Hillary Playing?

[babylonsister]

What Game Is Hillary Playing?

By Guy T. Saperstein, AlterNet. Posted May 24, 2008.

Nothing reveals the Clintons' lack of principle so clearly as their assertion that Dem Party rules should be abandoned.


Nothing reveals more clearly how utterly unprincipled the Clintons are than their assertion that rules set by the Democratic Party's Rules Committee, and endorsed by all Clinton representatives on this Committee, now should be abandoned. Nothing reveals more clearly that the only rules the Clintons follow are rules which favor them. Nothing reveals how exaggerated their claims are than Hillary's recent comparison of the votes in Michigan and Florida to the civil rights movement, the suffragette movement, the fraudulent election in Zimbabwe and the 2000 election in Florida.

The outlines of this story are simple and straight-forward: Two states, Michigan and Florida, sought to advance their Democratic primary elections ahead of other states in order to increase their influence in the primary process. If they had been allowed to do so, Democratic parties in other states could have done the same, it would have become a frantic, disorganized race to be the first, or among the first, state primaries, and the primary season could have been extended substantially. The Democratic Rules Committee reviewed this, understood that chaos would ensue if every state party could advance their presidential primaries unilaterally, and ruled that if Michigan and Florida advanced their primaries, the votes would not count in the delegate race.

Hillary Clinton had 15 representatives on the 30-member Rules Committee and every single one of Clinton's representatives supported this Rules Committee decision, which passed unanimously; Democratic parties in 48 states followed the rule, but Michigan and Florida chose not to. Subsequently, no Democratic candidate campaigned in either state and no Democratic candidate, except Hillary Clinton was even on the ballot in Michigan. The Clinton campaign now contends that these wholly undemocratic elections -- even the Stalinist one-candidate election in Michigan -- must count or democracy itself will be imperiled.

Harold Ickes, one of Hillary's representatives on the Rules Committee who voted for the rule barring counting the Michigan and Florida votes, and Hillary's chief negotiator of this issue, was asked recently on one of the Sunday morning political talk shows, "You voted for the Rules Committee decision, but now you are complaining about it. What has changed?" Ickes replied, "What has changed is that now we are behind." So, there it is -- there is not an ounce of principle in the Clinton position. When they thought they were ahead in the presidential race, they supported the rule, but now that they are behind, they don't like it. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the rest of us could act like the Clintons and support rules when they favor us and ignore them when they don't?

Two days ago, Hillary hyperventilated on this topic, comparing enforcement of party rules -- rules she earlier had agreed to -- to the civil rights and suffragette movements, Zimbabwe and Florida 2000, as though enforcing a reasonable party rule was comparable to 300 years of slavery, the disenfranchisement of racial minorities and women from voting for hundreds of years, the unprecedented action of a conservative Supreme Court and the tyrannical actions of an African dictator. The Clintons are desperate; they need boundaries.

Ignoring all rules established for the Democratic primaries, which all Democratic candidates, except Hillary Clinton, followed, the Clintons now also contend that the elaborate system of caucuses and primary votes which have been used for this and prior presidential elections should be ignored in favor of reliance only on popular vote counts. In other words, 48 states have been actively engaged in following established rules, but now, at the end of the process, the Clintons propose to jettison the rules and substitute their own new interpretation. Not only is the threshold proposal absurd on its face, the Clintons don't even count the popular vote fairly: They include votes in the Michigan primary, where Hillary was the only candidate on the Democratic ballot and Obama got zero votes, and exclude hundreds of thousands of caucus votes in the caucus states. If all votes are counted, Obama wins by every metric, including popular vote, and he currently is 180+ votes ahead in the delegate count.

more...

http://www.alternet.org/election08/86359/?page=entire

[boobooday]

1. Above all, democracy requires a transparent process

And that means that rules are made in the open, and followed by all the parties.

[mac2]

2. She's running for public office.

What is Obama doing but the same thing.

Propaganda.

[But....]

6. Where and when...

has he tried to change the rules in this contest? It's sad to continually hear the same excuse-"but that's what polities are about." :crazy:

[mac2]

7. Don't twist what I said.

The "rules" were re-enforced by him. No one forced him to not put his name on the ballot.

The rules are crap and the party knows it. It is battle of the small state conservative DLC against the larger state liberals (workers) in the party.

I as a party member have watched from outside and am horrified at all the manipulation and disenfranchising of our party members by the few.

[But....]

10. So it's bad...

that he followed, "re-enforced", the rules? And of course the rules are crap, and of course every one knows it, but you change them before or after, not during. But try to get even half the people on the same page with every state trying to expend it's own influence. Obama wasn't my first choice, heck he wasn't my second choice, but you know I can live with that. I even find myself becoming alittle excited about the fall campaign.:bounce:

[dmr]

13. What you are saying is akin to how the Bush* admin treats the Constitution.

Bush* took an oath to uphold the Constitution. How many times has he and his crew disregarded and disrespected it? If the rules and laws don't fit their agenda, they make their own rules and screw Constitution and everyone else! Throwing insult to injury, they find creative ways not to be held accountable.

Here we have a potential President who wants to do the same to something as simple as following Party rules they helped to create. And you're alright with that? Can you guarantee that she wouldn't take that same attitude and follow the same mistreatment of our Constitution? It all just seems so easy to do.

Did you read the full Saperstein article?

- snip -

Hillary Clinton had 15 representatives on the 30-member Rules Committee and every single one of Clinton's representatives supported this Rules Committee decision, which passed unanimously; Democratic parties in 48 states followed the rule, but Michigan and Florida chose not to. Subsequently, no Democratic candidate campaigned in either state and no Democratic candidate, except Hillary Clinton was even on the ballot in Michigan.

- snip -

Harold Ickes, one of Hillary's representatives on the Rules Committee who voted for the rule barring counting the Michigan and Florida votes, and Hillary's chief negotiator of this issue, was asked recently on one of the Sunday morning political talk shows, "You voted for the Rules Committee decision, but now you are complaining about it. What has changed?" Ickes replied, "What has changed is that now we are behind."

- More at link -

[tomreedtoon]

3. What are they doing? This paragraph explains...

From the article:

Hillary and Bill are not acting like leaders, they are acting like self-absorbed adolescents, thinking that if they whine loudly enough people will accommodate them. This is not leadership, this is petulance. They will go down in this race, but not without their own sense of righteousness and value intact. This conveniently avoids the unpleasant prospect of actually taking responsibility for why they lost.

And it's not surprising that they should act this way. I know many people of the same age, the children of the 1960's, who are also "self-absorbed adolescents" in their personal lives. Whining got a lot done for them, and seeing them doing it in the present day is sad.

[babylonsister]

11. Yep, that's the money paragraph. I also think

because politics has ruled their entire adult lives, they just can't let go, despite his now-tainted legacy and how bad it makes them both look.

[C_U_L8R]

4. There's nothing good that can become of this

It's all only about power at this point

[mac2]

8. Right.

[Clear Blue Sky]

5. The Clintons want to win, at any cost...

[mac2]

9. Doesn't matter who is what...our party is being taken over

and our votes stolen by a few globalists.

[Boo Boo]

12. Russian Roulette. /nt

[mishte]

14. can anyone describe a plausible explanation of how Clinton could win?

Legitimately? With details? I know its hypothetical, but I'm just wondering - since the math seems to make it impossible, the undeniable and unwavering superdelegate trend away from her and towards Obama, etc. does anyone have a start to finish synopsis of a feasible plan that would land her the nomination? Within reason?

From what I can tell, it seems impossible, which makes her insistence of delaying the process pretty destructive to all concerned, including her.