06/02/2008
Clinton Wins Puerto Rico as DNC Votes on FL, MI Delegate Issues
The DNC Rules and Bylaws committee voted to resolve the Michigan and Florida delegate situation over the weekend.
Said Howard Dean at the opening of the meeting: "This is not about Barack Obama, this is not about Hillary Clinton. "This is about our country. This is about restoring America to its greatness. There have been very tough disagreements and ugly moments. Emotions have run very high. There have been blatantly sexist comments, particularly by some members of the media. And blatantly racist remarks. And we know that those comments have no place in our society... We need to come together."
Talking Points Memo reports: "In a huge blow to Hillary's hopes, such as they are, the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee has now voted in favor of a compromise measure for Michigan, giving 69 pledged delegates to Hillary Clinton and 59 to Barack Obama at a half-vote each. This effectively ends Hillary's bid to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations in full -- which she was hoping for in a last-ditch effort to close the delegate count and, more importantly for her campaign's moral arguments, to try to narrow Obama's unofficial popular vote lead. Still, Hillary's chief delegate counter, Harold Ickes, seemed to signal that there's still a possibility that she might fight on. In a harsh tone of voice, Ickes told the committee that Hillary personally informed him that she reserves the right to take the dispute over Michigan to the Credentials Committee in Denver, on the grounds that the committee had no right to transfer 'Uncommitted' votes over to Obama."
Ickes remarks at the DNC meeting, above right. Here's the Clinton campaign statement.
The decision upset many Clinton supporters, including this woman, who was thrown out of the rules committee meeting and whose ugly rant was widely published across the blogosphere this weekend:
AmericaBlog reports that protests over the DNC meeting have been overblown by the media.
Meanwhile, Clinton won an overwhelming victory in Puerto Rico over the weekend.
The NYT: "Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton won another overwhelming victory over Senator Barack Obama on Sunday — this time in Puerto Rico — even as many Democrats, including some of her supporters, suggested it would be best if she dropped her threat to battle on past the end of the primary voting on Tuesday. 'There’s nobody taking Hillary’s side but Hillary people,' said Donald Fowler of South Carolina, a former national party chairman and one of Mrs. Clinton’s most prominent supporters, referring to her campaign’s suggestions that she might seek to challenge the way the party resolved the fight this weekend over seating the Michigan and Florida delegations. 'It’s too bad. She deserves better than this.' In a telephone interview Sunday from San Juan, P.R., Mrs. Clinton still raised the possibility that she would challenge the party’s decision on seating those delegates. 'Well, we are going to look at that and make a determination at some point,' she said. 'But I haven’t made any decision at this time.'"
Despite the Clinton victory, Barack Obama gained 17 delegates in the Puerto Rico vote, leaving him just 47 short of the 2,118 required for the nomination.
Posted 9:29 AM EST by Andy Towle in Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Florida, Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, Michigan, News, Puerto Rico | Permalink
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Ignoring the pointless ridiculously still boiling rivers of Hillary Haterade, I address Anon's suggestions that 1. McCain ain't so bad; and 2. He can be convinced not to hurt us too much. I trust you mean well, but....
1. McCain ain't so bad...compared to whom? Compared to many other Repugs, true, but the choice is between a civil liberties affirming Obama and liberty limiting Troglodyte McCain.
2. He can be convinced not to hurt us too much? Sorry, Anon, but you've not really been paying attention—or for long enough. Gays of all stripes were moved by McCain's remarks at a memorial for 9/11 Flight 93 gay hero Mark Bingham:
"I know he was a good son and friend, a good rugby player, a good American and an extraordinary human being. He supported me, and his support now ranks among the greatest honors of my life. I wish I had known before Sept. 11 just how great an honor his trust in me was. I may very well owe my life to Mark and the others who summoned the enormous courage and love necessary to deny those depraved, hateful men their terrible triumph. Such a debt you incur for life."
How has McCain repaid that debt? NOT by appearing on the Ellen Degeneris show.
He's repaid it by revealing last year he didn't even know what the acronym "LGBT" means.
He's repaid it by being so indifferent to the AIDS epidemic that he couldn't answer whether or not he thought condoms were effective in blocking HIV.
He's repaid it by effectively publicly rimming Jerry Falwell and campaigning with some of the most homophobic pillars in the entire Religio Antigay Industry [until their OTHER excesses caused him to disown them].
He's repaid it by opposing adding gays to hate crimes legislation.
He's repaid it by opposing ENDA.
He's repaid it by not only supporting DADT but insisting discussion about repealing it shouldn't even be considered.
He's repaid it by denouncing "activist judges" [Repug code for "judges who support gay equality"].
He's repaid it by campaigning for an amendment to his home state's constitution that would ban gay marriage equality.
He's repaid it by denouncing New Hampshire's civil unions. "If I were a citizen of New Hampshire, I would oppose it. Anything that impinges or impacts the sanctity of the marriage between men and women, I'm opposed to it."
He's repaid it by saying that he could support an amendment to the US Constitution banning marriage equality.
You'll never get blood from a turnip and you'll never get genuine compassion from a Troglodyte like McShame who would never temper his opposition to gay equality in his first term because he would want to get reelected.
Obama/whomever 2008!!!
Posted by: Michael Bedwell | Jun 2, 2008 1:17:31 PM
You're not being serious, are you RRGG? The candidates agreed not to campaign in Michigan because it violated DNC rules by moving up its primary. Yet Clinton alone left her name on the ballot. This was a craven move, and it defies reason that anyone count that election as legitimate.
Posted by: adam | Jun 2, 2008 1:21:13 PM
well, 24PLAY, after the last two primaries today why would she not "suspend" her campaign? it stands to reason that she will. on the other hand, why should she concede? she is ahead in the popular vote, she beats mccain handily in the swing states and blue states, and she outstrips him in the overall national projected totals. meanwhile, obama is hemorrhaging support among women, the white working-class, latinos, and feminists of all stripes.
i am loath to admit that i agree with JOHNNY LANE, but he makes some valid points. obama's associations with people who espouse reverse racism, sexism, and yes, misogyny have damaged him. i am very careful with words. when i say misogyny, i mean misogyny. that word, strictly speaking, means the hatred of women. i invite everyone to think about this: most, if not all of us, freely accept homophobia as an epithet for people who hate homosexuals. in fact, the word means the irrational fear of homosexuals. i have yet to see a heterosexual who recoils and runs away in fear at the site of a flouncy queen. to be clear, while phobia might lead to hate, hate does not lead to phobia. in truth, that word (misogyny) is actually more accurate as it pertains to societal attitudes toward women, than homophobia is as it pertains to gay men and lesbians.
the clownish catholic priest (does he know he's white?) who put on that minstrel show at obama's church (his church until 24 hrs ago) is a case in point. the mocking, indeed, the tar-and-feathering-like ridicule of a public servant (hillary) who has done nothing if not helped amplify the voices of children, women, blacks, hispanics, and the otherwise disenfranchised in a supposed house of worship built for the glorification of an almighty white male god while the madding crowd whooped and hollered pissed me off.
it is in that rankled spirit that i previuosly said my support for obama would start and end at the voting booth in november. of course it won't. the metaphor of throwing out the baby with the bathwater is a frightfully graphic, but instructive image.
misogyny is the father of sexism, and homophobia is sexism's younger brother. it allows the berating of, and violence toward, women and permits the ridicule of, and violence toward, homosexuals.
there is a wound laid bare in the social consciousness of this country by our (the democratic party's) campaign that will not be repaired soon. i hope that there will be a way to stanch the blood-letting between now and november.
my years of following politics leads me to conclude that a democratic party victory cannot happen without an obama/hillary or a hillary/obama ticket.
Posted by: nic | Jun 2, 2008 1:28:30 PM
You're willfully misinformed, Adam. Kucinich, Dodd, and Gravel also left their names on the Michigan ballot.
Posted by: Michael Bedwell | Jun 2, 2008 1:29:33 PM
Johnnylane has a proven KKK track record here at Towleroad. Johnylane is KKK
The Michigan and Florida compromises were proposed by both states DEM parties. They both won (1 unanimously) with the help of Clinton supporters.
Fowler , former DNC head under Bill Clinton/ head of SC Clinton Campaign/ huge establishment old time Clinton supporter, himself said that michigan was not his prefered choice BUT it was the best compromise of a FLAWED primary. The Michigan compromise was presented by Senator Levin a Hillary supporter and aproved by Michigan's Governor another declared Hillary Super delegate.
Gov Rendell another huge Hillary supporter said that they were NOT taking a fight to denver.
Even if Hillary wishes to go to the credentials comittee she has a huge problem in that both compromises were proposed by their state dnc parties and accepted by the state dnc parties. Without state party backing in the comittee for Hillary contesting, the rulings will stand.
Is the system flawed? Hell yes and a total revamp pre 2012 needs to be done.
Has the media trashed BOTH candidates? YES because they have been goo goo ga ga over their darling "supposed" maverick mccain.
Remember that all media is 75% corporate owned by 8 companies who being corporations love the repubs. The 8 companies that own 75% of the world media donated to bush re-election and not one penny to Kerry per public records. The media owners like nobody but the repubs.
DC8stretch go to Obama's website where you can read all of his stands and policies. It really is too much to print here. Your answers are all there
Posted by: Jimmyboyo | Jun 2, 2008 1:32:27 PM
Does it make any sense to say that White voters will not vote for Obama, when the majority of votes he recieved in Indiana were from White voters, as well as the votes that he will recieve in SD and Montana on Tuesday?
It's also funny that Clinton wants to insist she leads in the popular vote, even though to come to that total she will have to exclude caucus states, and even then both she and Obama have over 17 million votes a piece, it's not like she leads him by a substantial margin, or a lead that would indicate that more people would vote for her. She would also have to discount the fact that no one in Michigan voted for Obama. I could see her arguement if she had a couple of million votes more, but the difference is only a few thousand.
The sad part is that she is making this popular vote lead not to the SDs, but to the public. This is all about psychology, and she is counting on the less informed among us to keep repeating that more people have voted for her, so if Obama gets the nomination it is not legitimate. She has pretty much sunk about as low as she can go.
Posted by: candence | Jun 2, 2008 1:37:33 PM
Obama can't win? How do you figure? Obama can take McCain easily. And he certainly doesn't need Clinton at this point. She would be deadweight at this point, though she could maybe be given a cabinet position. She has definitely proven unworthy of a VP shot at this point, plus, we don't need her to carry NY. That ones in the bag. There are many better strategic choices for picking a VP than Clinton. No self respecting liberal, democrat, progressive, etc. will be going with Jon McCain on the ticket. He is a paper tiger, and Obama can take this election without difficulty, unless democrats shoot themselves in the foot. But not this time, its just too important, logical, and easy. Just wait until they are standing eye to eye on the debate stage. I don't think McCain will even be able to hold up the opinions and stances he is taking now. Its gonna be a blowout. We shouldnt need to point out the glaring differences between McCain and Obama.
Posted by: Zach | Jun 2, 2008 1:42:17 PM
NIC,
if somehow something earth shattering should happen in the Obama Campaign and the super delegates turned to Hillary Clinton, I ABSOLUTELY no problem voting for her in November. Her campaign has taken on a new approach the last few weeks: no more saying Barack is unfit to be president. I appreciate that. Probably, the leaders of the Democratic Party appreciate that. It was getting ridiculous and frightening to have one Democrat say that John McCain is better fit to be president than the likely Democratic nominee.
As I've said, we've seen bitter Democratic Primary fights before, but this one is painful for any "yellow dawg" Democrat.
Posted by: Derrick from Philly | Jun 2, 2008 1:42:26 PM
NIC
Anderson Copper at CNN said there are a lot of caveats to the Clinton campaigns math. Pretty much everyone at MSNBC is saying the same.
The campaign's math is
- not adding in 4 caucus states who never published their official popular vote tallies
- also not adding in Guam, America Samoa, The Virgina Islands, and Americans Abroad popular counts
When these "caveats" are taken into account then Obama is ahead around 200,000 in the popular vote.
Hillary is currently surrounded by and shielded by campaign staffers who totaly failed her and lost her campaign.
A staff that took the Clinton brand, money , and connections and lost to a proverbial upstart.
Her staff are not presenting her with the facts because it is easier to blame others than to allow her to know the truth.
Her staff are trying to salvage something for themselves and not for Hillary.
Hillary is smart and resonable, but she (like anyone at that level) is completly surrounded and shielded.
I am saddened because I know Hillary would not mention the flawed popular vote thing if an honest and brave (rare to be both) person on her staff would present the actual facts to her.
Posted by: Jimmyboyo | Jun 2, 2008 1:42:28 PM
Can someone explain to me what Obama stands for? Cause it is beyond me what his political platform is. i did vote for him in the primary, but it was a last minute decision because of some bad advice I recieved.
I can't put my finger on it, but Hilliary deserves a more respect than people here are giving her. And let's all remember that as GLBT's NONE of the candidates are for our rights.
i will most certainly vote for Obama if he wins the primary, but I am still stumped on what he actually stands for. anyone?
Everybody interviewed in the exit interviews will say they voted for him because he represents change, but they cannot come up with what that means.
Posted by: Paul | Jun 2, 2008 1:47:59 PM
PS
If by some unforseen whatever = Obama gets snatched up by those aliens in that goofy pic and the SD's all turn to Hillary = I 100% would support hillary as nominee of the DEM party and POTUS as long as she puts some money into researching those damn pesky aliens . (run on run on sentence)
:-)
I wish to also state that the white priest guy = a melodramatic hyperbolic shim sham snake oil man who went way overboard. (Remember I am an atheist so any preacher priest whoever ranks low in my opinion no matter what) He went way overboard outside of just being your basic shim sham snake oil selling religous man.
Posted by: Jimmyboyo | Jun 2, 2008 1:57:12 PM
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/
All the issues, stands and platform
Paul and others. Way too much to even try to post here
Posted by: Jimmyboyo | Jun 2, 2008 2:03:26 PM
More from Politico:
Clinton Clue: Staffers Urged To Turn In Receipts
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/06/more_clinton_clues.php
Very important. After all, we Obama supporters can't be expected to pay off Clinton's $20 million in debt without seeing receipts. Fiscal responsibility begins with the campaign, you know.
Posted by: 24play | Jun 2, 2008 2:25:16 PM
24 play
It is also now being reported that Clinton is calling all her top donors to come to NY for a big speech tomorrow night.
It appears she is going to suspend her campaign.
I support her suspending vs conceding.
I doubt that anything major will happen before Obama is sworn in, but just in case having her in suspended mode is a comforting just in case "pull in emergency" option.
Posted by: Jimmyboyo | Jun 2, 2008 3:49:30 PM
According to the media and Obama supporters, this campaign has been over for weeks and weeks. So, my question is, why is he still losing primaries? Better yet, why is he still losing primaries by OVER 30 POINTS? I count three in the last few weeks. This is not good for the fall, whatever your feelings about Hillary or Barack.
Posted by: jmg | Jun 2, 2008 5:50:58 PM
The proverbial "winning every battle..." campaign.
Posted by: anon | Jun 2, 2008 6:11:17 PM
It's sad to watch the Democrats implode right before your eyes, isn't it? no wonder the Republicans continue to either win elections or dominate the national agenda. I mean, the Democrats won a majority in congress and have the chance to take the presidency back from the worst president in U.S. history, and they still can't get it together.
OTH, when you have the first African-American candidate and woman candidate vying for the same slot at the same time - it's like watching the traditional outsiders (African-Americans and women) fight with each other over a few crumbs while the historical insiders (white wealthy men of the Republican Party) look on and plan their next move.
It's sad (and pathetic), but the liberal/left in the U.S. has been tattered for a long time. And so it goes I guess...
Posted by: Joe G. | Jun 2, 2008 6:20:11 PM
I'll take a stab at answering that question, JMG.
Two of the three primaries you're referring to are Kentucky and West Virginia. I think the media's opined extensively on the factors behind Clinton's blowouts there. Racism (or racial resentment, if you prefer) is certainly a factor, as is the fact that many of the primary voters in those states are Democrats in name only. In general elections, a significant portion of those Democrats regularly vote Republican, and Clinton is viewed (not entirely correctly, I'd say) as more conservative than Obama.
As for Puerto Rico, it's essentially the 6th borough of New York City, and therefore Hillary's home turf. She has outstanding name recognition and, as in New York, Obama didn't do much campaigning there.
I should add that the Democratic nominee doesn't stand a chance of winning any of these three places in November. (In Puerto Rico, of course, neither does the Republican!)
In any event, I suspect the results in all 4 would have been about the same regardless of where in the primary season those contests fell.
But if it's blowouts you want to use as a guiding metric for who the nominee should be, we need to go beyond the past month and look at the whole season. Hillary won by a margin of over 30 points in the three states you've mentioned, plus just one more, AR + 43. Meanwhile, Obama has had 12 30-pointers (HI +52, DC +51, NE +35, VI +82, WA +37, AK +50, CO +35, Dems Abroad +34, GA + 35, ID +63, KS +48, and MN +34).
And what if we extend the criteria for a blowout down to 20+ points? (Humor me.) Hillary adds just one more blowout, OK +24, for a grand total of 5. Obama, on the other hand, adds 8 more (MS +24, WY +23, MD +25, VA +29, LA +21, IL +22, ND +24, and SC +28), for a TRULY grand total of 20 blowouts.
I'd argue Hillary's recent string of blowouts is just a vagary of the primary calendar. So maybe the question you should be asking yourself is Why did Clinton bother to hang in there for the preceding 4 months, when she was getting her ass kicked from sea to shining sea.
Posted by: 24play | Jun 2, 2008 6:34:59 PM
The difference in the last several blowout wins by Hillary is that everyone who is anyone has been saying for a long time that the primary race is over.
If everyone has known for weeks that there is no way that Hillary can win, why are all these people still voting for her?
Obama should be winning EVERY PRIMARY by massive margins, and this is clearly not the case. There is a solid resistance to him and an equally solid affinity for her, and neither will go away fast, in my opinion.
Posted by: jmg | Jun 2, 2008 7:28:53 PM
Sorry, JMG, but I just don't think the results in those 3 contests would be significantly different if they had been held 3 or 4 months earlier.
Yes, Clinton's tally has likely been elevated a few points by protest votes, as some Obama supporters stay home under the safe assumption that their candidate has already won. But based on demographics and NYCentricity, these would have been Clinton blowouts in any event. And we could just as easily have had DC, VA, and GA—or any other array of contests where demographics heavily favor Obama—heavily represented in this last month.
If Edwards and Clinton were the remaining candidates, with Edwards positioned exactly where Obama is in delegates, Clinton still would have clobbered him in PR. But Edwards would have fared much better than Obama did in KY and WV, maybe even beaten Clinton. That was never a possibility in those two states for Obama. In 2008, there's just no way in hell those voters would favor Obama. Maybe in another 20 or 50 years.
Fortunately, WV and KY aren't going to be battlegrounds in November.
Posted by: 24play | Jun 2, 2008 8:20:53 PM
Don't forget
operation chaos
3-6% is the going tally of operation chaos operatives voting Hillary to stretch out the primary as long as possible to protect oh so fragile as a tea cup mccain. 3-6% who are repubs and not repubs hating being repubs at the moment but repub die hards with no intent ever of voting for Hillary in the general election.
Posted by: Jimmyboyo | Jun 2, 2008 8:28:22 PM
So Obama gets up to 90% of the black vote, while Hillary gets a far lower percentage of the white vote, yet it's her supporters who are repeatedly being called out as choosing based on race?
Posted by: paul | Jun 2, 2008 9:05:02 PM
That woman is right. McCain will be the next president. Obama is too left and his radical bigoted church did him in. It's too late to quit the church now, the damage has been done. Oh, and he wants all votes to count, yeah right. I hope everyone reads the story on how he got elected in Illinois, by challenging every signature supporting his opponents candicy to run. Dirty politics. It is HE and his cronies who will do anything to win this contest. McCain 08 - Clinton 2012!
Posted by: Mike | Jun 2, 2008 10:46:35 PM
Let's see if I understand this correctly. We have the issue of hanging chads and the ability to dictate the intention of the voter right. Oh no, that was the dems slam on the repubs in FL over the 2000 election. Look, this is not going away. Basically the DNC has determined that every uncommitted vote in Michigan was "intended" for Obama! Slippery slope my friends. This is not a compromise, this is not legal. All anyone has to do is have ONE Michigan voter show up and say that his/her uncommitted vote was NOT intended for Obama and it is all out the window. The dem process is absolutely laughable. The entire concept of super delegates is ridiculous. The entire party is deeply divided and just like before cannot put up a unified candidate that can win.
Posted by: RB | Jun 2, 2008 11:11:03 PM
Juan Williams, a black journalist from NPR News, just spoke to Obama's laundry list of fatal flaws on Fox News. Williams has the ability to see things for what they are and render grounded opinions. The video reel of Obama's long term associations with terrorists, radical liberals, racists (including his wife), lunatics, flip flopping interminably on foreign policy matters, his association and legal representation of the Chicago based criminal Rezko who now has a warrant issued in Nevada for an $803,000 gambling debt while facing indictment in Illinois, leave a host of lingering doubts in the minds of sane American voters. As Williams continues to observe, none of these hard facts are qualities or resume builders for a Presidential candidate. And the Republicans have not even turned up the volume on these issues as of yet. The media has been doing a fairly good job of that except for CNN. And, there is a lot more damaging information about how Obama deals with problem people which has yet to come to the surface.
The DNC policies, rules and party leaders are as inept and broken as Obama which is the only reason why he is still in the race. The whole concept behind the creation of Super Delegates was to deal with candidates who because unelectable very late in a Presidential campaign. This is exactly what has happened with Obama. However, since the vast majority of these Super Delegates are politicians it takes an understanding of human psychology to realize why these people have not taken the corrective measures for which they were entrusted. Most of them are extremely jealous of the Clintons because of their ability to prosper in the face of extreme adversity. Men generally do not want to put any woman in the position of power. And many of them are afraid of a backlash from the blacks, many of which have a large number of black constituents. And the later should be the very least of their considerations. What is takes to get an electable Democratic nominee on the ballot should be their only consideration.
This country is on the verge of collapse socially and economically. Our distribution network, namely the trucking industry is hanging on by a thread and many have already gone out of business. Small businesses are closing their doors by the thousands. Millions are losing their homes. Over 6,500 homes are posted for foreclosure everyday. And now banks have frozen home equity lines of credit in the states leading in foreclosures due to rapidly declining home values. Small business people who depend on their home equity credit lines to run their home based businesses are now locked out of their working capital. And banks are not loaning money except with substantial collateral. The Mortgage Bankers Association reports that 65% of refinancing applicants owe more on their homes than the current market value. And millions are unable to afford the cost of gas to drive to work, perform critical volunteer work or even get their kids to everyday activities.
I have noticed a significant drop off in grocery store traffic. Fruit which is outrageously priced goes unsold and is rotting on the grocery shelves. Meat is priced out of reach by those with lower incomes.
Anyone who thinks Obama can fix any of this has not considered his practical work history, background or what his true agenda is. Obama wants to be the modern day Robin Hood for the blacks. Anything past that he will deal with on the fly. Fancy speeches won't solve anything. Right now, only those who posses real world experience and a working knowledge of how to get things done in Washington should even be in the running as a Presidential candidate.
Hillary Clinton is the only candidate of the three left who has both the energy, qualifications, experience and global connections required to occupy the Oval Office.
Posted by: Johnny Lane | Jun 3, 2008 1:06:26 AM