By poisoning the wells in Michigan and Florida, Hillary gains leverage.

[hulka38]

This Democratic primary is unique in that it has become so heated and gone on so long that the veneer of a candidate's principles has become transparent and exposed what this contest is really about; win at all costs. It is one camp pitting strategy versus the other in order to win. The Democratic candidate should have unprecedented advantages over his rival in the GE and will likely become the most powerful person in the world. The winner will be the leader of the party for years to come and the party will change because of it. There will be the inevitable upheaval of long time elites falling from power and influence. By now there should be no illusion as to what's at stake and what the candidates will do to win.

By stirring up the ire of voters in the two states against Dean and Obama instead of toward the ones who were truly responsible, their own state legislatures, she is effectively helping to make Florida and Michigan very difficult if not impossible for Obama to win. And with Florida and Michigan out of the equation, winning the GE becomes nearly impossible. Is Hillary distraught that those voters may be disenfranchised? She wasn't a few months ago. And she isn't now. Clearly, this is a potent campaign strategy by the Clinton campaign, not a principled stand for democracy. If the strategy works, Hillary's message to the SDs is, "if you want a Democratic President, come to me".

[AtomicKitten]

1. "poisoning the well" is exactly right and why the Clintons are becoming pariahs to the Dem party.

No worries, though. Obama's path to victory isn't dependent on Florida, and most Michigan voters realize he wasn't on the damn ballot.

FREE RANDI RHODES

[Kahuna]

18. Riiiight. The SDs have taken notice as evidenced by their study dribble to BHO.

Keep up the good work billary! :toast:

[C_U_L8R]

2. Hasn't worked on a single super delegate yet

Unless you count the ones going to Obama

[billbuckhead]

3. Gee, like her opponent isn't using the black vote to hold the party hostage

[AX10]

4. Very True!

[AtomicKitten]

5. The Clintons had the black vote in their pocket until they decided to go ugly.

It's their own damn fault.

FREE RANDI RHODES

[billbuckhead]

9. No, their opponent swifboated them on race.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESsaVSTSYxQ>

[AtomicKitten]

11. Riiight! The black man is race-baiting. Ah, huh. Those pretzel machinations must be excruciating.

[billbuckhead]

12. What could the Clinton's have gained from race baiting?

Your candidate's campaign is founded on a lie.

[AtomicKitten]

13. You and the Clintons can take the redneck racist voters with you on your way out the door.

There will be a long overdue realignment of the Democratic Party.

[jenmito]

14. The white vote. They tried to turn him into the "Black candidate." n/t

[billbuckhead]

23. His wife did that here

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHzYl8Rg8C0&feature=related>

[jenmito]

28. Wrong. She was talking about Black people who liked Obama but were afraid to vote for him, thinking

he couldn't win just because he's Black.

[billbuckhead]

34. Here's what really happened

"A review of what actually happened shows that the charges that the Clintons played the “race card” were not simply false; they were deliberately manufactured by the Obama camp and trumpeted by a credulous and/or compliant press corps in order to strip away her once formidable majority among black voters and to outrage affluent, college-educated white liberals as well as college students. The Clinton campaign, in fact, has not racialized the campaign, and never had any reason to do so. Rather the Obama campaign and its supporters, well-prepared to play the “race-baiter card” before the primaries began, launched it with a vengeance when Obama ran into dire straits after his losses in New Hampshire and Nevada–and thereby created a campaign myth that has turned into an incontrovertible truth among political pundits, reporters, and various Obama supporters."
-------------------snip--------------------
<http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=aa0cd21b-0ff2-4329-88a1-69c6c268b304>

[Kahuna]

20. If you could count you'd know. nt

[rocktivity]

21. Michelle said this in November 2007? Wow!

But what does it prove? I heard her talking about how black voters felt about THEMSELVES, not her husband OR Hillary. But she also predicted that the black community would "wake up and get it" once they saw what a viable candidate Obama was--and that's exactly what happened!

The closest thing I heard to swiftboating was the commentators' suggestions that blacks weren't "obliged" to vote for Obama, or "maybe" they'd just liked Hillary "better." Well, maybe they've decided that they like Obama better, too!

:headbang:
rocknation

[Kahuna]

19. Har! You seem to have a problem with black voters being rewarded

for their loyalty over the years. We should be rewarded. We don't go running off every time the repukes wave a bright shiny new object in front of us like some in the Democratic party. Deal with it. We may not make up the largest segment in actual numbers, but we are the most loyal.

[billbuckhead]

29. So some Democrats are better because of the color of their skin?

[Kahuna]

46. Take it any way you want. nt

[billbuckhead]

49. What goes around comes around.

Don't whine when whites rally around their candidate.

[hulka38]

37. That you are. You also seem to be the least swayed by bull shit.

I'd bet that as an ethnic group, blacks were the most suspect of the claims that Iraq was a direct threat to America and that it needed to be invaded.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mudesi]

26. "Using the black vote"????????

Are African Americans incapable of thinking for themselves?

[cliffordu]

33. Goddam, Bill, that's the most vacuous thing I've read here yet.

And that includes some real world class bullshit

:hurts:

Congrats!!!

Completely value free!!!

[MonkeyFunk]

6. No matter you slice it

fighting to get people's votes to count isn't going to hurt her with the electorate.

[hulka38]

17. If more of the electorate understand the self serving political machinations behind the

facade of standing up for the disenfranchised it will hurt her, as it should.

[johnnydrama]

36. she's not fighting for people's votes to count

She's fighting for people's votes to count for HER

And people see through it a mile away.

You think people in Michigan aren't smart enough to realize that she shouldn't win the state that she says wouldn't count, and that Obama's name wasn't on the ballot.

I give them far more credit than that.

[MonkeyFunk]

38. Obama chose to remove his name from the ballot

So he deserves no votes.

Clinton won Michigan, as the polls showed she would. Even the exit polls that day asking how people would vote if Obama were on the ballot showed her winning.

She won Michigan. She won Florida. It's not going to hurt her to try to get those votes to count.

[johnnydrama]

39. nope

She vowed not to participate in Michigan, and said that the votes wouldn't count.

You can't say you aren't participating, and then accept it as a real contest and want the votes to count.

I'm going to take her at her word, you should too.

[MonkeyFunk]

40. The pledge

wasn't to take their names off the ballot. Obama et. al. tried to pander to Iowa and New Hampshire voters. It was their decision - they made the political calculation that pandering to those states would benefit them.

Therefore, they get no Michigan votes.

It will be political suicide to disenfranchise two large states in the GE.

[johnnydrama]

43. the pledge

Was to not participate in the primary. The time to say that she didn't want to disenfranchise Michigan was before signing the pledge.

If you pledge to not participate, you can't take back your word and accept the votes, it's as simple as that.

Seat them 50/50, and then Michigan is heard from.

[MonkeyFunk]

44. Wrong

splitting the votes 50/50 has the same exact effect as not seating them.

Obama didn't run there - it's ridiculous to think he should get ANY votes.

[johnnydrama]

45. ok then

We'll stick to not counting Michigan, like she promised to do, and said was going to happen.

[MonkeyFunk]

47. only if you want to throw away winning the GE

for the sake of making some nonsensical point.

And she never promised not to count MI.

[rocktivity]

7. But the problem is, Hillary WOULD have to "stir up ire against Dean and Obama"

in order for her strategy to work--a strategy that, by your own admission, would be based on a lie. She expects to command admiration because she's willing to win at all costs?

:headbang:
rocknation

[AtomicKitten]

10. The Clintons are suggesting disenfranchisement of the other 48 states vis-a-vis superdelegates.

Their "concern" for the voters being heard is heard loud and clear.

[Johnny__Motown]

8. I Live In Michigan, We All Know Obama Didn't Do Anything Wrong

We know damn well it was Hillary's supporters that wanted her to win some big states before the name recognition effect wore off.


Sorry, you can convince yourself that this will hurt Obama, but it won't.

[hulka38]

15. My concluding statement began with "If the strategy works..."

so I'm not convinced that it will work to the extent that Hillary needs it to work. I'm trying to expose what I believe to be the political strategy behind the Clinton rhetoric.

[Romulox]

50. You can only speak for yourself. I am in Michigan, and know several people angry about this. nt

[candice]

16. We can't let these two states participate in the nomination...

unless they are in the tank for one candidate over the other. it's the Republican way. And caucuses, which represent 2 percent of the voters are fair and accurate.

Also, it is totally fair that Obama gets more delegates in Texas than Hillary did because she got the popular vote, but the Texas caucuses, which were intended for activists party insiders to have a say, were instead used to allow double voting of those who could make it to them and stand in line for hours, regardless of whether they were party activists.

The whole Democratic nomination strategy needs fixing...and the only way it will happen is if the nominee is as unsuccessful as McGovern, which is why the super delegates were brought in to the process.

[MichiganVote]

22. Unbelievable. A facist approach to democracy. Yeah, that'll work.

[AX10]

30. It is sickening to hear such people like Randi Rhodes...

speak so highly of caucus's. It takes several hours to caucus. Most people don't have that kind of time. Rhodes mentality shows once again how easy it was for the GOP to paint the Dems as being the party of the "out of touch elites". By the way, the GOP has far fewer caucuses that the Dems do.

>>

[hulka38]

31. I don't like caucuses and I don't really like Randi but the fact of the matter is

these are the rules that everyone must play by until the rules are changed.
The rules can't be changed in the middle of the game.

[hulka38]

35. What's fair is when everyone knows the rules of the game ahead of time and then adheres to them.

Hell the Clinton's of all people should have had the advantage with caucuses given their experience, huge war chest, political ties to bigwigs who owe them and their vaunted political machine. They've run a bad campaign in a lot of respects. They underestimated Obama and he's run a great campaign. I'm not a fan of caucuses and I hope the states that have them consider changing to primaries by 2012. But please stop bellyaching about Hillary being treated unfairly.

[Zachstar]

25. I think Obama could win those states if they would just go for a 50/50

People are PISSED but at the wrong people.

After Clinton exits Obama needs to ask the people in those states to question why their leaders did such a move and then did this big faux outrage thing to blame the democratic party.

Yet if they want to vote for 100 year war McCain because their leaders not the democratic party screwed them over then that is their choice.

[IndianaGreen]

27. In other words, Hillary is doing McCain's dirty work

and the more reason we should reject her type of politics.

[zulchzulu]

32. I think most Michigan and Florida voters know who is the bullshitter with this nonsense

It should be exposed more that Hillary Clinton is on the record as knowing that the votes would not count in Michigan and Florida and that she is merely a phony and a liar to keep bringing up the blame against Obama and Dean and not the Democratic "leadership" in both states that were for being against the rules.

McCain is going to be old news by the time of the General Election, no pun intended.

[Kaleva]

41. Michigan

Is a battleground state and it's the black vote that overwhelmingly goes to the Democratic candidate that puts it in the blue column. In the 2004 election, 13 of the 15 counties in Upper Michigan where I live went for Bush. I dare say that if a significant percentage of the black population were to believe that the primary election was stolen from Obama, Michigan could go Red in the GE.

[Romulox]

51. LOL. But if a significant portion of the blue collar vote felt Obama was snubbing them?

Obama still hasn't spoken to Michigan voters about the economy.

Where's the rule against that??? :rofl:

[kwenu]

42. She thinks she has leverage. However, there is this thing called reality.

[Life Long Dem]

48. She refused to seat FL and MI, but Obama wanted them seated.

How can the people side with her over that one?

[Romulox]

52. Water is dry; up is down. nt