NYT: Clinton advisers prepared to take a number of incendiary steps to build up her delegate count

[seafan]

This is getting very ugly.



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/us/politics/14delegates.html?_r=1&oref=login&pagewanted=print">Obama’s Lead in Delegates Shifts Focus of Campaign

By ADAM NAGOURNEY
February 14, 2008

.....

Neither candidate is expected to win the 2,025 pledged delegates needed to claim the nomination by the time the voting ends in June. But Mr. Obama’s campaign began making a case in earnest on Wednesday that if he maintained his edge in delegates won in primaries and caucuses, he would have the strongest claim to the backing of the 796 elected Democrats and party leaders known as superdelegates who are free to vote as they choose and who now stand to determine the outcome.

.....

With every delegate precious, Mrs. Clinton’s advisers also made it clear that they were prepared to take a number of potentially incendiary steps to build up Mrs. Clinton’s count. Top among these, her aides said, is pressing for Democrats to seat the disputed delegations from Florida and Michigan, who held their primaries in January in defiance of a Democratic Party rules.
Mrs. Clinton won more votes than Mr. Obama in both states, though both candidates technically abided by pledges not to campaign actively there.

Mr. Obama’s aides reiterated their opposition to allowing Mrs. Clinton to claim a proportional share of the delegates from the voting in those states. The prospect of a fight over seating the Florida and Michigan delegations has already exposed deep divisions within the party.

.....

Mrs. Clinton’s aides said the delegates should make their decision based on who they thought would be the stronger candidate and president. Mr. Obama argues that they should follow the will of the Democratic Party as expressed in the primary and caucuses — meaning the candidate with the most delegates from the voting.

Mr. Obama’s aides said they hoped to end the voting season with a delegate lead of more than 100,
which they would seek to portray as a decisive affirmation by Democratic primary voters of Mr. Obama’s candidacy. Mrs. Clinton’s advisers said they were looking to bring the margin down significantly below 100 in hope of arguing that the result was too close for delegates to consider in deciding how to vote.

.....

And this crucial bit of information is at the very end of this article. This is absolute news to me.

In Texas, Mr. Penn said Mrs. Clinton would be helped by the Latino vote — which he said could ultimately be as much as 40 percent of the electorate.

But Mrs. Clinton faces another problem there in the form of that state’s unusual delegation allocation rules. Delegates are allocated to state senatorial districts based on Democratic voter turn-out in the last election. Bruce Buchanan, a professor of political science at the University of Texas at Austin, noted that in the last election, turnout was low in predominantly Hispanic districts and unusually high in urban African-American districts.

That means more delegates will be available in districts that, based on the results so far, could be expected to go heavily for Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton, Dr. Buchanan said, “has got her work cut out for her.”

That is EXPLOSIVE information. Someone is actively tamping down this information, because it is obviously tremendously favorable for Obama in Texas.

[xultar]

1. From my perspective she shoiuld just five it up and ska-daddle.

[Yael]

3. What does that mean?

Old person here. :hi:

[xultar]

5. You don't know what ska-daddle means?

[Yael]

7. That one, yes

Whats "five it up"?

[xultar]

14. That's how us idiots, (only me) spell it.

[jkshaw]

9. I think it's because the word is usually spelled

skedaddle. And, right now, I wish she would. A sickening turn by Penn and her new campaign managers. It reflects very badly on her as a possible president, which is depressing in the extreme. Carries with it a strong whiff of the Bush selection in 2000.

[xultar]

13. That's how us idiots, (only me) spell it.

[saltpoint]

2. The more negative Sen. Clinton goes, IMO, the less chance she has to

be the next president.

[HeraldSquare212]

16. The superdelegates and her big supporters will punish her if she goes too negative

She's got a very fine line to walk. No one wants the candidate to be bruised from a bashing just before they win the nomination. I'm not saying people think Obama will be the nominee, just that there's a 50-50 chance, of course, so they don't want to see her go negative hard. The same would apply to Obama, but since she is perceived to be in the more desperate position there will be a lot of scrutiny of the way she campaigns from here on out.

[babylonsister]

4. There seems to be lots of enthusiasm for Obama in TX.

As for FL and MI, there's this little nugget:

Obama Leads In The Total Popular Vote — Even With Florida And Michigan
By Eric Kleefeld - February 13, 2008, 5:53PM


An interesting statistic coming out of the Potomac Primary: Not only is Barack Obama ahead of Hillary Clinton in the total popular vote for the primaries and caucuses so far, but he's ahead even if you factor in Florida, which wasn't contested, and Michigan, where his name wasn't even on the ballot.

Here are the numbers from NBC News:

States Awarding Delegates

Total Vote %
Obama 9,373,334 50%
Clinton 8,674,779 46%
Others 726,095 4%

With Florida
Total Vote %
Obama 9,942,375 49%
Clinton 9,531,987 46%
Others 984,236 4%

With Florida and Michigan
Total Vote %
Obama 9,942,375 47%
Clinton 9,860,138 47%
Others 1,249,922 6%

Notice that Obama's lead holds even without counting the "Uncommitted" votes in Michigan into his column — when in fact, the Uncommitted campaign was waged by supporters of his and to a lesser extent John Edwards.

Hillary Clinton could still retake the national popular lead with strong victories in Ohio and Texas, two very large states. But even then, there would be more contests on the calendar where Obama is favored to win, leaving Obama a good chance at the vote lead when all the contests are finally over.

With stats like these, one would almost think he's become the frontrunner...

But then there's this (yes, it could get ugly):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x337977

[jkshaw]

6. Thanks for these two posts

I think Hillary is going to suffer because of these tactics of Penn and her campaign. I've become very angry about both the super delegate thing AND the money raising from bigwigs. Surely I'm not alone? Surely the voters won't stand for this?

[ginnyinWI]

10. Personally, I've had it with the Clintons.

I'm supporting Obama, but if she should manage to win the nomination, she'll have to win the presidency without my money or volunteer work, both of which Kerry had last time. I need to believe the candidate is a good person in order to volunteer or give.

[beachmom]

12. Yep. Also, living in Georgia, I don't appreciate the way Penn

has dismissed red states "that don't count". This is how Bush viewed the U.S. To him, if you don't vote for him, you are invisible, and that's how he treated the blue states. I guess revenge does not interest me. I want a president that respects and values all states and all voters. That will go a long way in healing this nation. Clinton means just more of the same.

[Connie_Corleone]

8. What good does it do to win the nomination while destroying the Party at the same time?

I hope she doesn't expect to win in the general election if she uses these tactics.

[Occam Bandage]

11. The Clintons are literally willing to destroy the party to further their ambition.

[ORDem]

15. Holy crap - incendiary? What else can she do to shoot

herself in the foot? Nearly every twist and turn she tries to make to blunt Obama's momentum makes her look desperate and now this? I mean most people know that she is a fighter (and respect her for that), but this goes over the line. IOW, she will subvert the pledged delegate count, the popular vote, etc., just to grab power. Ends justifies the means for her.

If this doesn't peel off another layer of her base that turns to Obama, I'd be very surprised.

:puke:

[seafan]

17. Boston Globe: Clinton rejects notion that the party would badly suffer if insiders picked nominee.

Is this just a terrible dream? Or are we seeing this meticulously cultivated campaign for what it really is?



Clinton counts on superdelegates

By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff
February 13, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Hillary Clinton will take the Democratic nomination even if she does not win the popular vote, but persuades enough superdelegates to vote for her at the convention, her campaign advisers say.

The New York senator, who lost three primaries Tuesday night, now lags slightly behind her rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, in the delegate count. She is even further behind in "pledged'' delegates, those assigned by virtue of primaries and caucuses.

But Clinton will not concede the race to Obama if he wins a greater number of pledged delegates by the end of the primary season, and will count on the 796 elected officials and party bigwigs to put her over the top, if necessary, said Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson.

"I want to be clear about the fact that neither campaign is in a position to win this nomination without the support of the votes of the superdelegates,'' Wolfson told reporters in a conference call.

.....

Clinton advisers rejected the notion that the candidate -- and the party -- would be badly wounded in the general election if the nominee were essentially selected by a group of party insiders.

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