Hillary campaign says DNC delegates rules are not the rules of her campaign.

madfloridian

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Mon Feb-04-08 11:54 PM
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Hillary campaign says DNC delegates rules are not the rules of her campaign.

Does she mean that literally? Am I misunderstanding? And why aren't they the rules of her campaign?

There is a post at Open Left part of which puzzles me. Chris Bowers is speaking of a conference call with the Clinton campaign. They took his question and answered it. It was about the delegates.

I was rather alarmed at the campaign's response, as it seemed to me to say that they did not accept the DNC's rules about delegates. I am sure there are other interpretations, but it does bother me. BUT what bothers me the most is that they are trying to turn the loss of Florida's delegates into a civil rights issues, saying Dean and the DNC are disenfranchising minorities.

I despise that kind of ploy. I really do. It was not about constitutional rights, it was about the leaders of the state Democrats taking matters into their own hands.

Here is the post at Open Left

Here is Chris Bowers' question:

Do you think there is a meaningful difference in the democratic, lower d, quality of super delegates and pledged delegates, or that there could be a crisis of legitimacy in the Democratic nominee if he or she wins the nomination without the support of the majority of pledged delegates?

Here is the answer from the campaign, paraphrased by Chris. It sounds like the campaign is saying that the national party rules do not apply to them.

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.

Someone should tell them that Bill Nelson, Alcee Hastings, and Corrine Brown filed a lawsuit They lost.

Sen. Bill Nelson’s (Fla.) office released a statement Monday saying that Nelson, Reps. Alcee Hastings and Corrine Brown and a group of voters are planning to file a new motion in federal court in Tallahassee “seeking a quick decision by a federal judge that Dean and other political party bosses in Washington have violated the constitutional rights of millions of Florida voters.”

They filed it on those very grounds of the constitutional rights of Florida citizens. The judge reached his decision in favor of the DNC with hours.

Judge dismisses Bill Nelson's lawsuit against the DNC.

The Democratic National Committee can penalize the Florida party by stripping the state of its convention delegates because it is holding an early presidential primary, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ruled in favor of the DNC in a lawsuit by Florida congressmen Bill Nelson and Alcee Hastings. Nelson and Hastings had argued that state Democrats were being illegally penalized for the state having the primary earlier than national rules allow.

But Hinkle said that political parties have a First Amendment right to set their own rules and enforce them. The national party did that, which means that Florida will not have a say in picking the Democratic nominee.

Hillary is wrong to push this issue. I appreciate that Obama is standing down and respecting the rules his campaign agreed to honor.

This statement from her campaign is alarming.

The rules the party has put in place to choose its nominee are not the rules of the Clinton campaign

Why aren't they?