They are letting Dean be the scapegoat for actions of others in the primary.

madfloridian

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Fri Aug-15-08 01:17 AM
Original message

They are letting Dean be the scapegoat for actions of others in the primary.

I refer to my state Democrats, to the Clinton campaign, and to their supporters. The primary is said to be over, but too much still lingers. I will post this cautiously, and I won't post anything about the Clintons again to be on safe ground.

I have a couple of things to say on the topic that disturbs me so much. That Howard Dean was and is blamed by the Clintons and their supporters (whom many here say are not supporters). Many are, that is a fact. She has fundraisers with them often, she knows what they are saying.

The thing that will forever linger with me is the disrespect, dishonor, and utter contempt that the Clinton campaign showed for Dean over the FL and MI rulebreaking.

There has not been a single person in party leadership speak up against this recent ad. It is not the first ad, there have been others.

Ad accusing Howard Dean of not being fair in the primaries.

From August 7:

"The Denver Group placed a new ad today in The Lansing Journal and The Tallahassee Democrat.

They point out that as Senator Obama has now asked the Credentials committee to seat those delegates he previously argued against “(2 months after the Rules Committee hearings) The Denver Group thought it fitting to run ads in Tallahassee, Florida and Lansing, Michigan, each state’s capital, reminding voters as well as Howard Dean that the Democratic nomination is far from over.”

Here is the first paragraph of the ad. It actually accuses Dean of not handling the primaries fairly.

"Howard Dean as chairman of the DNC is supposed to be both impartial and objective. The feeling of most of Senator Clinton's 18 million voters is he was not. They believe he was not during the primaries and they believe he hasn't been since."

The Clinton campaign during the primary announced on a conference call that the rules of their campaign were not the same as the rules of the DNC regarding delegates.

The rules the party has put in place to choose its nominee are not the rules of the Clinton campaign and, just like the Obama campaign, we are doing what we can under those rules to secure the requisite number of delegates for the nomination. One way to avoid the situation described above is to figure out some way to honor the votes of Michigan and Florida, where there was record turnout. Counting the delegates in Florida and Michigan is a civil rights issue, and a solution needs to be figured out before the convention.

No, it had nothing at all to do with civil rights...it had to do with the fact that the two states worked together and broke the rules intentionally.

I won't even post the many journals I wrote about what went on here in Florida during the primary. There were lies told, there were horrible attacks on the chairman that still go on today. I will post this one.

Jeremy Ring (D-FL) said "relevance is more important than "partying" in Denver.

And Jeremy Ring, a Democratic state senator from Broward County and co-sponsor of the legislation, defended it.

"If the choice is Florida is relevant and has no delegates versus being irrelevant and having delegates, I'd choose being relevant with no delegates," Ring said. "We did this so 18 million Floridians could take part in the presidential primaries, not so a few hundred people can go to a party in Denver."

..."My hope is we've blown up the whole primary system," Ring said. "It would be the biggest legacy we'll get from this legislation."

But to me the worst two parts were these.

Hillary Clinton had an interview in April with the St. Pete Times

She made two comments that concern me.

"I don't think it's up to Sen. (Barack) Obama or me to dictate any resolution. I think it's up to the DNC to decide how to proceed, and I would hope that it would do so recognizing what's at stake,'' Clinton said in the interview late Sunday.

....".."The elected officials in Michigan were all united — let's revote. The Democratic National Committee decided to support a revote. The only person who didn't want to let people vote was Sen. Obama,'' Clinton responded.

"The cynical explanation is, no, Sen. Obama does not want people's votes to count. We're Democrats. I thought we believed in counting votes."

Hillary's superdelegates in FL were working AGAINST a revote at that time.

The worst of all was this.

FL and MI problems

What Bill Clinton said in May.

Today, at the first of five campaign events in Kentucky, just days ahead of the May 20 primary here, the former president said the lack of attention to the unseated Michigan and Florida delegates was proof that the party and the political pundits are trying to force Democrats to get in line behind Obama.

....."What did the Democratic National Committee do? They obliterated them. Who cares if you wanted to get up there with these other states because you've been broken by this economic policy of the current administration. We're gonna show you who's boss. We are obliterating you from the face of the earth and pretending that your voters did not vote. You just have to know, that is the position of your national party. Nobody quarrels with their right to discipline them. They made a decision they did not have to make. And do you seriously believe, if the votes had been the other way, that they would have made the same decision?" Clinton asked a crowd in Owensboro.

1. He accused the party of forcing delegates to get in line behind Obama.

2. He said that if the votes had been in favor of Obama there would not have been these problems with the DNC.

Terrible, sad statements.

The dangerous thing I have tried to point out is that it is not only the Clinton supporters, it is the Clintons themselves who have as much as said the primaries were not done fairly.

I have sensed some vibes here today when I tried to take up for Dean and the accusations against him. I don't have a grasp on those vibes yet, but I think I must not post about the topic for a while.

The danger is that they were still blaming Dean mostly, and Obama partly as late as May. The groups who support them are blaming him openly today.

When there is no party leadership defending the chairman who has done his job well, when no one at DU seems to get that he is the scapegoat....then something is wrong.

He does not deserve such treatment from the Clintons and their supporters. It is STILL going on here in Florida. The divisions are still there.

When a major couple in our party allows the blame to rest on someone who bears no guilt....we have a serious situation.