I love the smell of fresh desperation in the morning.

I wonder if they'd televise the lynch mob that goes after her if she pulled off some dirty trick like that?

OK, someone explain this, please. Just a week or two ago, we had people worried because Clinton supporters were being named as delegates, despite the fact that they're district voted for Obama. That happened in my precinct, too. We went 100% for Obama, since the few Clinton supporters didn't get to the 15% threshold, but the Clinton supporters volunteered to be delegates (there was never any election about that, but then, we'd never had a caucus before - and I'd never thought about it after a primary).

But some people here explained that it didn't matter, that pledged delegates were not allowed to switch votes from what had been decided in caucus or primary. Not so? TPM, straighten this out, please.

The Politico story does not name a source so....dear god...I hope it's not true. What would be more destructive to the party. I've lost faith in it in the past 8+ years, but I never wanted it to literally explode before our eyes which is what this would cause if it's successful.

Are people in her campaign like Singer *trying* to sabotage her.?Everything her people come up with (like yesterday's plagiarism charge) just seems to make her look worse..

"All the rules will be going out the window."

WTF?

My understanding is that elected delegates are bound to vote at the convention's first ballot for the candidate on whose behalf they were elected. They have no choice or discretion in the matter. Their votes are in effect pre-cast. (Otherwise tens of millions of voters in the states would have their votes nullified.)

Setting aside the rather huge matter of how insane and destructive it is for Clinton's people even to allude to, much less pursue, such a strategy -- can anyone explain how it could even work, theoretically?

And another point --

Imagine if, let's say, Bob Dole in 1996 had said, after the election, my strategy is to go after Bill Clinton's electors and get them to change their votes in the Electoral College. Or if our current boy king had said something similar during the recount in 2000 -- Florida looks iffy, so I'm just going to try to peel off some of Gore's electors from, say, Illinois.

How would that go over?

Yup. She's now officially that Kate Blanchett character in Lord of the Rings that goes freaking nuts at the thought of having the Ring.

Anyone else properly terrified?

But, but, but ... the TV's been sayin' for weeks that Obama's winnin' ??

Sorry, I just don't see this happening, campaign spokesman or no campaign spokesman.

In any case, wow, the next debate could be a real doozy ...

unbelievable...

that's all.

unbelievable

This is so over-the-top as to be suspect in my book. It's "reported" that they plan to do this; let's wait until it turns out to be real before crucifying the Clintons and the horse they rode in on, etc. I say that as an Obama supporter ... I just prefer not to heighten the bad blood any more than needed, any sooner than needed.

It used to be delegates could do what they want to after the first round of voting, didn't it? I don't know what the rules are now. I guess they will be whatever the rules committee decides they are.

Maybe I'm just too simple for all this, but the only thing that convinces me is the popular vote. The candidates have to find a way to win a convincing majority of the popular vote. Without that, neither is going to have a mandate going into November.

The biggest problem I have with the change message is that Obama can barely sell it to half the Democratic Party. He needs to do a better job of selling his candidacy, or get out of Clinton's way.

Wow. Talk about reading into it what you want to see. Obama is going after superdelegates just as hard as Hillary (harder--they are threatening support for primary opponents for some of them to make them switch), but she is the one doing something craven. Now some unnamed person on her campaign says that everyone (including Obama) will go after pledged delegates, and you conclude that your guy is just skipping through fields with flowers and bunnies and Hillary is beating up delegates grandmothers.

Your guy is ALREADY getting down and dirty and doing these things. He is just another do-anything politician, but you guys are convinced he is the second coming and above such things. If it makes you feel better to pretend that he is wholesome while she is craven then nothing will open your eyes. You just have to keep your blinders on through the general election, because if you learn he is human before then and get disillusioned, then we are all stuck with McCain.

But I guess we will spend another day blogging about how awful she is based on unnamed advisors' quotes and not about anything really happening on the campaign.

This sounds like the Bush team repeatedly doing things that are reprehensible and clearly over the top until people people grow so accustomed to it they stop recognizing the depth of the sleaze.

Pathetic........ just pathetic... so this is the kind of advice that $175 million will buy you. No wonder the campaign is going down the toilet. When you hire Mark Penn you deserve every bad thing that comes your way.

It's the money. Every hour, they've got donors and donation bundlers calling and asking,

"Why should we give you any more money? Show me some strategy where you've got a chance."

And they come up with this. They're not funded for TX and OH.

It's money that will end this thing, and judging from the Clinton campaign's having to pull out crazy shit like this, it will be ending soon.

We could interpret it, as BDN sort of does above, as a telegraph to the party leaders:
"Yes, I'm willing to burn the whole house down if I can't get it myself."

This does sound like pure desperation. She is clearly unconcerned about the damage such wrangling would do to the Democratic Party. At this point there is no realistic chance of her ever regaining the pledged delegate lead. If she were to wrestle the nomination from Barack at the convention she would be so damaged she would almost certainly loose the general election and would probably drag other democratic hopefuls down as well. Unless she can pull off an upset in Wisconsin and win Texas and Ohio she should bow out of the race.

My prediction is if Barack can win Wisconsin and Hawaii today and Texas on the 4th the remaining super delegates will overwhelmingly move to his camp and tell Hillary to turn out the lights the party is over.

The United States used to be a respected democracy. If there's any change, please tell the international community. This sort of things make me hate Clinton so much.

If so, she managed to get that gun around and shoot herself in the butt. With as hyped up as people have been about the superdelegates possibly subverting the popular vote *again*, why would any campaign not run by total morons put out a statement like this?

hard to imagine a president who doesn't believe in the rule of law.....oh yeah, what was i thinking?

Can we just "peel" Hillary and Bill away from this campaign?

Actually, reading the Singer attribution again, I'd bet anything the reporter just asked Singer "do you think the Obama campaign will try to go after your pledged delegates?" The whole article stinks.

I'm relieved that for once it's the better candidate who's going to benefit from this kind of crap, but that doesn't make it any less crap.

Look, let's not go crazy. This is an unnamed "senior official". I'm an Obama supporter, so it was easy to read this as a nefarious move. But re-reading it with an eye toward what is actually SAID, it's a lot less than it seems. If all the guy is saying is, "After the first round, we'll pursue Obama delegates" -- well, that's what Clinton's campaign is SUPPOSED to do. And Obama's will be doing the same. Otherwise a deadlock on the first ballot would just replicate itself on all subsequent ballots... calling into question the point of those subsequent ballots.

I suggest everyone take a breath, cool down the engines, and watch "2162 Votes" (West Wing Season 6) for an idea of what's being discussed.

Pledged delegates have changed their pledge AT EVERY CONVENTION THE DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS HAVE EVER HELD!
Christ on a Cracker!
Are the Obama fans totally ignorant of how political conventions have always worked? Are supposed to work?
How the ef do you think the conventions produce unanimous votes for the eventual nominee? Huh?
Think maybe "pledged" delegates switch to someone other than their pledge? Huh?
Ever followed a convention that went through many votes with different delegate counts in each? Huh?

Obama and HRC will both go into the convention without the pledged delegates needed to win.
That is why Obama is trying to invent a "rule" that super delegates have to follow the "will of the people" whatever the f*ck that is supposed to mean. Ultimately it just means vote for Obama.
And yes, Saint Obama will be going after delegates "pledged" to HRC.
He will have to if he wants to emerge from the convention with a convincing "win" of the nomination.
The knee jerk HRC IS EVIL stupidity shown on these posts defies belief.
Failing all else maybe you might just stop and think before running like the Obalemmings you are over the nearest HateHillary cliff. It really is becoming tedious.

Look people she's just showing she cares so much she doesn't want to see us fall back. Back from the Bush
years I guess is what she means.

yeah, rather than believe that the Clinton campaign would stood so low, let's just deny the article's sourcing. man it must be easy to be a Clinton supporter; anything you hear their campaign is doing that is disreputable or destructive, just pretend it's false.

Aren't the West Wing parallels getting creepy?

A bitter fight on the Democratic side. Brokered convention. In the end the young, inspirational minority gets the nomination and takes on the old establishment Republican.

The Clinton camp can't be this stupid. Can they? I think they are trying very hard to get a lot of press and attention that says to her supporters and to her donors "we're going to fight to the end, don't give up on us yet."

They want to convince people that they've got a plan to win. As we can see with Obama, voters and donors want to back a winner.

But no question, the Clinton campaign is not projecting strength with their comments and actions over the past week - instead it smells badly of desperation.

I keep wondering how their fundraising is going this month...they may be desperate because of a near empty bank account.

The Clintons are willing to burn down the Village, and to hell with saving the child, if that is what it takes to get their way.

They are now desperate, so they have decided to engage in the politics of personal destruction.

It will not do them any good. Even if they win the nomination, the African American community will not forget how the Clintons went about destroying the good name of Senator Obama, and they will not come out for Mrs. Bill Clinton in November.

That will have a ripple effect down the line, which will lead to the Democrats not gaining in the House and Senate.

The Clintons will have turned over the Congress to the Republicans once again.

The Clintons do not care about that. If they can not have their way, they will destroy the party, again.

Bill Clinton is trailer trash with a college veneer. His lecherous life style belongs more on Jerry Springer than in our White House.

Faustus and Gilroy0's calls for calm is right on. If you're inclined to rant in here, please go read the Politico's piece again. C'mon, it's the Politico, folks.

If the Clinton campaign is talking about "peeling away" elected delegates in the first round, I can see getting upset -- that would be a clear violation of the rules of play. However, superdelegates are fair game, including "pledged" superdelegates.

And starting with the second ballot, the Clinton campaign is right: There are no rules. It'll be Lord of the Flies time, folks. Gird up your loins; let's get ready to rumble.

Sorry - the Clintons willing to do anything to have their way isn't a Republican meme, it's a reality-based meme. I didn't get it listening to Repups, I got it watching how Bill operated in the White House. And before. And ever after.

Talk about drinking koolaid! The fact that Repubs hate the Clintons doesn't mean the Clintons aren't sleazebags.

And I don't hate them - I just don't want them back to screw things up again, screw interns again, lose Congress again, turn the WH over to the Repubs again and send us down the toilet again. Sorry, the '90s weren't that great to want to live them over.

the politico piece and kleefeld passing this on uncritically is just hackery.

saying everyone will be going after everyone's pledged delegates IF the race is still a stalemate going in to convention only translates to "a clinton STRATEGY to go after pledged delegates" if you want it to translate that way. terrible journalism. just terrible.

there is no quote that backs up the charge of "a clinton strategy". none. zero. zilch.

(and let's not overlook that it's an unattributed source.)

IF the quote is even accurate, at best it is an example of stupid things for anyone associated with a campaign to say. bad politics. doesn't the source know that dem voters don't like to know how the sausage is made?

and before anyone accuses me of being a clinton supporter for daring to defend the clinton camp against bogus attacks like this: i dislike obama a little less than i dislike clinton (even if i dislike obama supporters more than i dislike clinton supporters).

yuck!
i'm going to donate to Obama.

If they're talking about trying to peel off his delegates on a second ballot, this is a non-story. They're fair game at that point. If nobody moves, we never get a nominee.

However, if they're talking about doing this on the first ballot, it bears all the earmarks of a trial balloon. They send some unnamed staffer out to float the idea off the record, see how much blowback there is and then, if there's a lot, come back on the record and deny they were ever thinking of it.

If that's what this is, however, how utterly disconnected from reality does a campaign have to be to think there's a chance in hell that they could float this idea without everyone in the party except her most droolingly devoted minions going monkey-dung flinging crazy?

That said, its interesting to me that you can't tell from this article whether they're talking about stealing delegates on the first ballot or on the second. It's in a story by this guy who's supposed to be this big important Beltway insider journalist with thousands of years of experience is writing it and the central fact that makes the the difference between a big story and a non-story is oddly unclear. Either Simon is deliberately fanning up a nontroversey or he's cooperating in a carefully ambiguous framing that gives Hillaryland room to deny they were ever thinking about doing this on the first ballot if the monkey dung starts to fly.

When is Obama going to call her on this BS?

Is he just waiting for the right moment (debate?) or is he so committed to the high road that he'll just brush all this off?

I don't understand how or why the Clinton campaign keeps putting this stuff out there. Is such in such a Bush-type bubble that she has no idea how people are reacting to these veiled threats?

I'm really interested in what Hillary's defintion of "stalemate" is. If she's trailing by, say, 100 delegates after all is said and done will she concede? 200?

Prediction....Obama wins elected delegates and super delegates follow suit. Woohoo. The Clintons are vanquished to the history books.

The day after Hillary submits, ads will start appearing on TV suggesting BO may have done something illegal and immoral back in 1999. Various front groups will start paying off people to make up thinks about the Obamas. Anyone who ever crossed the Obama's path in the last ten years will be offered thousands of dollars to make up something. Pretty soon McCain and Obama will be neck and neck. Pictures of McCain hugging Bush, talk of 100 years in Iraq will prove insufficient to counter the fear and suspicion directed at Obama. All of the Obama supporters will grow wary of the relentless onslaught of negative press thrown at them by pundits who were once thought of as allies. The red states will fall in line with recent history, with states like Florida and Tennessee and Wisconsin going Republican. The Democrats will pick up a few senates and house seats, Lieberman will flip parties, and we end up with a President McCain and 4 more years of gridlock. The netroots community will grow weary of politics, and will be on to the next big thing.

"The more things change, the more they stay the same......"

It's a pretty stunning act of mental gymnastics people are using to contort this into criticizing Obama supporters.

Lets try to remember the difference between the nomination process and a general election. Working the delegates is NOT subverting democracy. The primary rules are made by the parties, not the Constitution, so before we all get a bad case of the vapors over this, take a minute and breath deep. Dont let your Clinton hatred overcome your common sense.

If HRCs people are actually thinking this, and not on crack, they are more disconnected with reality than I initially thought. My god.

Should they actually attempt this little shenanigan, the Denver convention will make 1968 look like a rotary club meeting.

V

Boy, reading the comments from Obama supporters reminds me of listening to right wing talk radio. Everyone is on the edge of their seat, just chomping at the bit to get outraged at every "despicable" move by the Clinton campaign.

So we go to the convention, and there's a stalemate. Neither candidate has the votes to win on the first ballot. Do any of you idiots know how conventions work? They go to a second ballot. Do you suppose they just keep balloting, with everyone voting the same way time after time? Or does each campaign work on the other guy's delegates, trying to get them to switch?

Obama has old line politicos like Daschle and Kennedy leading the effort. Do you really think they'll just sit back and let fate take over, out of fear that they might sully the process? Or do you think they'll start arm twisting and making deals?

For all of the cries about how Hillary will divide the party if she contests the nomination, I find it illuminating that it's the Obama supporters who are threatening to tear the party apart if their man doesn't get the nomination. Riots in the streets, sitting out the election, voting for McCain? You people could give a shit about the Democratic Party. You're all about one candidate, not the party. At least be honest about it.

And Ann H. you might want to check your facts before you correct people. Doug Wilder was the governor of Virginia, but he's now the mayor of Richmond.

Latest poll numbers for Wisconsin

Obama Clinton Date

CNN: 48 50 2/18

PPP: 49 42 2/18

ARG 52 42 2/19

Rasmussen 46 43 2/18

Greg DeLassus,

"Sen Clinton has not gotten to where she is by stupidity."

i don't know if you've been following her Presidential campaign....

Despite what we hear (or want to hear), Hillary will not allow herself to be the wedge that splits the Democratic Party. She has invested more of herself into the issues she cares about to let it all go to waste for some lust for control. I hope the same can be said for Obama. HRC is my forst choice, however I will be happy to vote for BO if he is my nominee.

However, the poo has already begun to be flung his way, and although most of it will miss its mark, some of it will stick long enough to warp the public perception. Remember what crooks like Rove can do with the public's perception. They got dimwitted GW into the White House because he was a guy you would want to have a beer with,(he doesn't drink), he is down to earth (medicated) and honest (lying scumbag).

So forget the polls that say BO can beat McCain in a walk. It will not be easy, and I suspect most of the shrill voices for Obama will burn out and fade away in the face of the coming onslaught.

I only say these awful things, because I have seen it all before, 72, 80, 88, 00, and 04. I hope not again in 08.

Wilder was governor but he's the mayor of Richmond now.

It get's worse. Have you seen this?

Report: Clinton Campaign May Try To Poison Obama's Pledged Delegates

Brianb, I see what you're saying, but the problem I see with it is this: Obama is in the process of introducing himself to the electorate. And it's certainly true that he is thus in danger of being redefined by forces outside of his control. But Hillary Clinton needs no introduction, meaning people have already made up their minds about her. So how much further up can she go? We're essentially arguing that Obama's support will slip, but Hilary's is already down. What is better, to vote for the candidate who might go down or one who is going to have to struggle mightily to go up? It's far harder to change people's minds, which is what she is going to have to do. I mean, my goodness, she is losing fairly handily to McCain in MINNESOTA, the only state to vote against Reagan twice. How is she going to climb uphill?

Billy Glad was arguing in another thread that if Obama has failed to convince half of Democrats of his message than he will not be able to convince the country. I see the point, but I argue again that Obama is the unknown, the challenger, the one who has to work to communicate his message to people--and as he does his support grows. Hillary was the presumptive nominee, the one everyone knows, and I think it's a far worse sign that she can't convince half the Dems to vote for her.

Eric, you fell hard for the Obama Oppo. TPM should at least cover both sides. This was kind of naive to take a political campaign´s oppo without checking the other regardless of which campaign it is.