May 31
What’s Fair?
I was flipping around the stations this afternoon and landed on CNN’s live coverage of the DNC delegation dispute proceedings just in time to hear one of Michigan’s senators say this to one of Hillary Clinton’s senior advisors:
“You’re calling for a ‘fair reflection’ of a flawed primary.”
If that doesn’t qualify as a line of the week, I don’t know what does.
They have reached a compromise in Florida already: the state’s delegates will be seated, but with half the number of actual votes. The result will be the addition of 19 delegate votes for Clinton.
Michigan is a different story. Prior to the actual voting, when it was clear that Michigan’s primary wouldn’t be counted, the candidates were given the opportunity to remove their names from the ballot in a show of support of the DNC ruling that penalized the state for scheduling its primary early. Barack Obama and others removed their names from the ballot. Hillary Clinton did not, but a representative of the Obama campaign quoted Clinton in an NPR radio interview saying that Michigan would not count, and that she was only keeping her name on the ballot so as not to offend Michigan voters in November.
This representative makes an excellent point about the options left for Obama supporters in Michigan’s primary: they could either vote for their likely second choice, Hillary; write in Obama, which wouldn’t have counted; or vote in the Republican primary for their least favorite choice there, the only primary they were assured would actually count. Some, disgusted that their candidate wasn’t on the ballot, just stayed home. But in all cases, they made their decision with the understanding that the Democratic primary wasn’t going to count in mind, one that Clinton herself supported at the time.
Now Clinton wants to change the rules. Because she’s behind. And she wants Michigan’s votes, even though her chief opponent’s name wasn’t on the ballot. She thinks that’s fair. Her supporters think that’s fair. No one else, with any reasonable degree of common sense, can possibly think so. Not when Clinton herself was in support of the DNC ruling way back when.
Linda Hansen’s newest post over at Huffington Post says it very well:
“Whether he liked them or not, Senator Obama played by the DNC’s rules in Michigan and Florida. Senator Clinton thought the rules were just fine so long as she was front runner and destined to win the nomination. The specter of losing compels Hillary to change the rules.
Of course, she’s not playing this bait and switch game only because she has to win this thing any way she can–she’s the new, improved populist who cannot bear the thought of a single vote not counting for all it’s worth. Not a one.
Unless it’s a caucus state vote.”
They should either declare Michigan a draw, and give both candidates an equal number of delegates, or not seat the state. Even in grade school, when the results are too close to call, or there’s some big controversy that makes it harder to pick one clear winner beyond a shadow of a doubt, they call it a draw and everyone gets a ribbon as a “participant.” You can’t rewrite the rules of the game after the players have gone home.
May 31st, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Patrick, one real reason for shame here is that Barack Obama may actually be punished for having played by the rules as dictated by the DNC. Add to that, the Clinton camp has tried repeatedly (and with some success) to hang the responsibility for “disenfranchising voters” around Obama’s neck. She presents herself as the sole defender of the voter here and Obama as an impediment.
In FLA, it was a Democrat, Jeremy Ring (Broward County) who introduced the bill which included moving up their primary date in defiance of DNC rules. The HRC camp has also tried to pin the blame on FLA Republicans–when Dems voted for the bill.
I agree that the process is flawed. The world, every four years, should not begin with Iowa and NH having the power to end–or jump-start–campaigns. Caucuses are different from primaries. Maybe it’s time for standardization of the way votes are cast and a revolving state schedule.
But the Clinton Campaign using the “It’s not FAIR!” tactic at this late date smacks of naked ambition. She should have stood up for change (caucuses) or the validity of primaries even when illegally moved ahead of schedule (FLA, MI) long ago. The system suited her fine until she lost the mantle of inevitability along with the vote.
Bottom line: For good or ill, the rules are the rules. All candidates signed on. The hypocrisy here is galling.
May 31st, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Uhm, no one in the Clinton campaign had a dad like mine, who told me when I was 10 that life wasn’t fair, and we all have to do things we don’t want to. Look at the lay of the land and adjust your plans accordingly, but don’t bring in a bulldozer because you don’t like the way the mountains look.
Oh, and whining is unbecoming.
Good advice. Maybe Ms. Clinton should think about what her (and her staffers’) whining looks like to the American people.
[And by the way, this is the sort of thing that makes a lot of normal, sensible people HATE--HATE--politics and politicians!]
May 31st, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I’m watching the deliberations today, too, and I’m just flabbergasted that this can be going on like this. When one of the Clinton advocates stated that he wasn’t even sure this body had jurisdiction over such a decision, that clinched it for me. They’re ready to lose, ready to whine about it, and ready to drag it even further than it’s already gone. If they felt they would win, that same advocate would’ve been praising the wisdom of the committee - it’s just not pretty watching someone lose so disgracefully.
May 31st, 2008 at 7:24 pm
I watched a great deal of it today and just finished watching the last session.
The headline of the day: “On To Denver”
When Harold Ickes announced, during the deliberations over the Michigan compromise, that Senator Clinton reserves the right to take this to the Credentials Committee, I have no doubt that Mr. Ickes was referring to all of this, not just the Michigan plan.
So, we wait for August….