The Audacity of Nope
By Pamela Hamilton • Mar 12th, 2008 • Category: Politwix BlogsObama camp’s behind-the-scene attempts to deny primary revotes
Wow. Barack Obama’s supporters in the Florida congress have now gone on record categorically opposing a new primary, a mail-in primary, or seating the Florida delegates as they voted in the first primary. What happened to Obama’s much-touted ability to “reach across party lines” for the good of the people? Obama’s camp has been floating the prospect of seating Florida delegates 50-50.
Why wouldn’t that be fair? Where do I start? First of all, it would not be representative of the will of the Florida voters. How can Obama even begin to justify this position as democratic? In a primary where all names were on the ballot and neither candidate campaigned, Hillary Clinton won the state by a margin of 49.7% to Obama’s 33%. John Edwards received 14.4%. Splitting the vote 50-50 would essentially hand all of Edward’s votes to Barack Obama and ignore the will of the people, essentially wiping out the vote.
What would be so wrong with a revote by mail? Obama should be for a mail vote, especially because Obama co-sponsored the senate version of “The Universal Right To Vote By Mail Act”, which declares that not allowing mail-in voting in every state (28 do through absentee balloting) disenfranchises voters. The problem for Obama is that if a revote were to occur, Clinton would likely receive a larger share of those Edwards votes than Obama. It’s possible that she might chip away at some of Obama’s support as well since it has become obvious that he is trying to suppress the vote.
With all this backroom wrangling and foot-dragging by the Obama camp it becomes more and more unlikely that Florida’s (and Michigan’s) delegates will be seated. This will only serve to disenfranchise these important states further, and will spell disaster for the eventual nominee in November.
If Obama’s argument against seating the Florida delegates as they stand is that at the time that votes were cast, Clinton had better name recognition and that restrictions on campaigning in the state prevented residents from getting to know him, then his team should tromp down to Florida and start campaigning for a revote. But it obvious that a revote is not what Obama wants. He is trying to drag this thing out until it is impossible to do anything at all. His insolence is a delaying tactic that will draw this contest to a bitter conclusion. Eventually, the decision will become incumbent upon the Credentials Committee where all hell is likely to break loose.
No matter what happens in the end with the seating of delegates, the net result will be the appearance that the DNC and democratic party was willing to disenfranchise millions of voters in two states in an obvious attempt to swing an election to their favored candidate. This folly will come back to to roost in November – the lack of leadership on the part of the DNC makes a write-in vote for Hillary, a cross-over to McCain or third-party vote for Nader a viable option to the disenfranchised.
Florida and Michigan voters are not the only ones feeling unrepresented. The appearance that Howard Dean and other members of the DNC are in the tank for Obama is increasingly disturbing to the core of the democratic party, especially women. The reckless abandonment of democratic principles by the “democratic” party makes a mutiny to a third party candidate like Nader look very attractive.
It is amazing that the democratic party is about to give away what was to be the biggest “slam dunk” election opportunity in modern history by sheer arrogance and incompetence, again snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Pamela Hamilton is a freelance writer, corporate culture evacuee and vocational gypsy. She attended the school of hard knocks and graduated with a degree in satire.
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This is not surprising, Obama used the same greasy tactics in his run for the IL State Senate Seat. He had all the other candidates disqualified from the ballot, including his friend and mentor Alice Palmer.
This guy is so full of himself, and BSing people about “hope” and “change”, and then plays dirty politics like the best of them in Chi-town.
BO is the one playing the race card. It’s just like I suspected from the slanted media coverage he is getting- they’re afraid to dig into his background or say anything that even hints at negative, even though factual, because BO will pull the race card out.
That stinks.
So I’ll just sit here and watch him play his dirty politics. Everyday he exposes a little more of what he’s really all about and it’s not at all what he preaches. He is the great divider.
The truth will come out about this self-serving, ambitious, political neophyte in spite of the mainstream media’s obvious derelection of duty to report unbiased news and facts.
Not everyone is as gulliable as the Obamaniacs, there are millions of us and we will vote for Hillary Clinton.
imatwanger, I agree. It seems Obama will do anything rather than make his case to the voters on an open, level playing field.
The Alice Palmer story bothers me a lot. MIstakes were made on both sides — but Palmer is not running for POTUS on a ticket of sweetness and light and judgement, and her mistake was optomism and trust.
In 1996 he didn’t just run against his benefactor, Alice Palmer, he eliminated her from politics (by getting her thrown off the ballot for signatures collected under an old list but challenged under a new list) with a charge of ‘fraud’.
The Palmer situation was complicated with mistakes made on both sides. Imo Obama showed poor judgement and poor, non-presidential ‘instincts’ in more than one way. The simplest point is — for immediate short-term gain he did something nasty which, (like the ‘present’ votes) remains on his record indefinitely).
As for judgement, Obama should not have jumped at an offer that he foresaw at the time might become problematical. Palmer was giving up her safe state senate seat to try for a higher office, and gave Obama her blessing to run for her old seat. Obama foresaw the problem of what if she lost her bid for higher office — but he did not negotiate a constructive approach with her to settle that possible problem.
For one thing, he might have postponed investing in his campaign office and staff till they knew how Palmer’s higher bid turned out. Or, he might have gotten a very firm agreement from Palmer that she would not run against him if she lost the higher bid.
(Sure, Palmer should have been more careful too. But Palmer is not running for President of the US touting instincts and negotiation and courtesy etc etc.)
After Palmer lost her bid and the problem did arise, Mr. Kumbaya Negotiator might have persuaded HER to sit out one term, while their organization could have found a second vacancy for one of them, thus getting them both into the state senate at once and picking up an extra seat for their people.
At very worse, if he could not stand to run against her fairly, he might have shown her that he had the ammunition to challenge her signatures and given her a chance to withdraw without publically charging her with ‘fraud’ (to this day she’s described by an Obama supporter as ‘disgraced’). — Maybe he didn’t want to warn her because she might have put his own signatures to the same test?
Why does he have so little confidence in himself that he thinks pre-mature bumping people off is his ONLY chance?
More on the Palmer case at my research blog:
site:1950democrat.livejournal.com Alice Palmer
Hi; I hope you don’t mind me joining in! I am a Floridian and have written countless letters to different newspapers, the DNC, local television stations, not to mention posting on MSNBC, CNN, FOX… about my dissatisfaction with the Florida delegates being stripped.
I am so angry at the whole way the bill was railroaded through in the first place. The main thing that galls me is the fact that there were several other bills tagged onto it not the least of which was a “paper trail” bill. After the election fiasco in 2000 and probably 2004, the Fla. Legislature came up with an amendment, which I guess is what it really is, (I am not the politically savvy, but I’m mad as hell)that has provisions for the paper trail equipment to be used the type of paper that will be used, etc. etc. The dems are vastly outnumbered in our legislator, and I would think though, that anyone who voted against that bill on the merits of changing the primary dates, would be given bad press come re-election time that they voted against the “paper trail” bill.
I waded through the huge maze of the Florida legislature bills, and found what I think are the names of the legislators who sponsored and co-sponsored this bill - they need to be questioned further. I just think that there is more to it than Florida decided they wanted their primary early for the big boost in coverage it would afford them.
I don’t think I am making a mountain out of a mole hill about this, but seem to be at a dead end because not one single venue I have brought this up to has replied to me. I wonder why?
Any suggestions on where to go with this, or am I really making a mountain out of a mole hill?
Oh, and it is looking more and more dismal for Florida to even do mail out ballots. Too much oppsition, including from the Obama headquuarters.
FLSilkie,
Good points. Here is someone you might contact: Rosemary Regello editor@thecityedition.com She did a good piece on GOP influence on our primary: http://www.thecityedition.com/Pages/Archive/Winter08/2008Election.html#Florida I sent her a couple of minor additions and she emailed right back asking for anything more I might have (what I’ve got now is the flu, so I haven’t done much more).
Here’s something that sounds too crazy to be true, but Gov Crist has been quoted as saying he found some obscure law that would allow the GOP legislature to declare the Democrats are ‘not a political party’ and leave them off the Nov ballot no matter who they nominate! I’m not sure what the criteria is, this was in context of Crist claiming to be for the FL Dems vs the DNC.
What’s clear sfaik is that the DNC especially Brazile first judged that the FL Dems did not deserve an exception (like she gave NH, Iowa, etc,) because they ‘had not tried hard enough’ to protest the legislature’s change of primary date (and had maybe missed some DNC filing deadline?). Then she set the unrealistic punishment of stripping all their delegates. That is, instead of supporting the FL Dems against the FL GOP’s mischief, she increased it!
Now other re-vote scenarios in FL would require the GOP legislature to cooperate, perhaps passing a law to enable it! More chance for GOP mischief. Carville has a plan that would not need so much cooperation from the GOP.
Anyway one way and another, this simple GOP action of setting the primary date too early, may end up with the GOP controlling many details of a re-vote, or whether the Dems are on the November ballot at all. Way to go, Dean and Brazile!
Personally, I’m beginning to think a re-vote may be a lost cause, if Obama is determined to stall and nitpick. But we’ve shown that we are willing (Carville would even PAY for it) and it is Obama who is acting like Bush2000, so it might be just as well to consider our point made since the nomination is going to the Supers anyway. At least everyone knows what the Jan total votes were, official or not; in a re-vote he could claim the new totals favor him.
I got REgellos’s link from http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/ , a good site for digging into things as they are all ex-military-intelligence people.
And send everything you’ve got to taylormarsh.com too!