Pledged delegates don't matter.

Only superdelegates who have passed the Commander-in-Chief threshold should be able to elect the next nominee for the Democratic Party.

Clinton/Sinbad '08 - Get our your Hammer pants!

nothing matters to the Clintons except the Clintons

Remmebr that people looking for the NY senator to deliver on anything she has promised

Like an Obama VP-
They say anything to get elected

as someone said
gives monsters a bad name

"Even elected and caucus delegates are not required to stay with whomever they are pledged to."

Honestly, I'm having a hard time thinking anything in response to this, except, simply, "Scum."

It's my understanding that elected delegates are free to choose who they want, but only on a second ballot. Senator Clinton isn't technically wrong, but she risks a significant backlash. If the voters of the upcoming primaries begin to think that she will ignore their votes, they will make sure to send her a message. There are many Democratic voters who won't stand for that type of disenfranchisement, no matter who they support.

I don't believe the Democrats have gone to a second ballot in many years, but it's a real possibility this year.

Incorrigable skank-biscuit? I'm not entirely certain what that means, but she sure seems like one to me ;)

The once and future Senator Clinton said: "This is a very carefully constructed process that goes back years, and we're going to follow the process."

Have your ears heard what your mouth has spoken?

I mean, you would think that the incalculable ironic force of those words coming from her mouth would strike either her or her conversation partners dead.

Unbelievable.

Her candidacy is starting to remind me of John Turturro's character in Miller's Crossing.

Tell me again how calling her a "monster" is inaccurate?

"Her candidacy is starting to remind me of John Turturro's character in Miller's Crossing."

"I guess you must be kind of angry. I'm supposed to be gone, far away. I guess it seems sort of irresponsible, my being here.... And I was gonna leave. Honest I was. But then I started thinking. If I stuck around, that would not be good for you. And then I started thinking that... that might not be bad for me."

Anyone who has honestly studied the numbers knows Obama will be the Democratic party's nominee. It's time to train our attention on how Obama can beat McCain. Linking the faltering economy to Iraq seems like a good place to start.

If Hillary Clinton is involved in anything it is probably crooked. Her only rule in life or in politics is "I win or I destroy."
How are so many fooled by her? Or is that merely another media myth? I note that her big victories in her Firewall States were brought about by a well timed false leak by the Neocons in Canada. Don't most people yet see how those crooks work? And our media joyfully jumped on the false story, discussed it loudly, but after the correction came out (the day after the vote) they have been as quiet as mice.

This makes perfect sense..by Clinton logic, it all depends on what your meaning of "pledged" is... not to be confused with what your meaning of "is" is. When will these menacing and uncouth characters leave us alone?

I teach people to think critically about language and even I cannot stand all of this semantic parsing. Ahem, depends on what the meaning of "is," is. When will someone step in to stop the madness?

Thanks for this anecdote. It would be good to hear more of these stories.

Pardon me that should say "I feel as if"

I think its time again for another fun game of spot out the hypocrisy.
Now compare those quotes up above to these.
''I have thought about this for a long time,'' Mrs. Clinton said at a rally in an airport hangar in Syracuse. ''I've always thought we had outlived the need for an Electoral College, and now that I am going to the Senate, I am going to try to do what I can to make clear that the popular vote, the will of the people, should be followed.''

''We are a very different country than we were 200 years ago,'' Mrs. Clinton said. ''We have mass communications, we have mobility through transportation means to knit our country together that was not conceived of at the time of the founders' proposals about how we elect our presidents. I believe strongly that in a democracy we should respect the will of the people.''

and for bonus points read the rest of the article and point out how she didn't live up to her promises.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9507E2D81538F932A25752C1A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

Considering all of the superdelegates who have switched from Clinton to Obama, and the zero delegates who have switched from Obama to Clinton, maybe Hillary should just worry about keeping the pledged delegates she has already. If she keeps talking nonsense like this, she'll begin hemorrhaging pledged delegates and Obama will hit 2025 well before the convention.

This is a bad move by Hillary imo. But it should be noted that it was Ted Kennedy who made it possible by changing the rules after his loss to Carter. He tried to do exactly what Hillary is talking about at the convention but the rules wouldn't allow it. After the election he changed the rules to allow it.

I have an idea for the next SNL opening. Obama is elected President and sitting in the Oval Office. Hillary is outside attempting to climb over the iron fense screaming "but I am the President, I am the President," as the guys in the white coats come to take her away. She obviously has absolutely no respect for the voters, the voting processs or democracy. It's all about her.

Also from the interview:

"His campaign then ran a very vigorous effort to try to defeat me with uncommitted delegates [in Michigan], and he lost. So it wasn't as though there wasn't a contest. There was a contest. And I won."

That's not the case. On the day of the primary, the Obama campaign sent out a memo about how the primary was meaningless.

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2008/01/team_obama_mich.html

"All of the Democratic presidential candidates publicly pledged not to campaign in Michigan, none have visited the state, opened offices, hired staff or communicated with voters through television, mail, phones or otherwise...Our position and the position of the DNC is clear – neither the Florida nor Michigan primaries are playing any role in deciding the Democratic nominee and we are not campaigning in either state."

I do hope the Obama campaign will make some hay of this. They need to respond to these sorts of things, use it to reinforce the narrative that Hillary will do anything to win. How would you do it? Something like, "While we understand that Senator Clinton has to come up with alternative strategies since she cannot realistically overcome our lead in pledged delegates, we cannot believe she would seriously attempt to overturn the will of the voters in her desire to be president. The principles of democracy are far more important than any one candidate, and we call on Senator Clinton to pledge she will not interfere with the pledged delegates."

Or...something?

Time to go on offense again.

Hillary Diebold Clinton strikes again. I tried to vote for Obama but somehow my vote ended up in the Clinton column!

I agree that analogy to the Turturro character in Miller's Crossing is apt. I had been thinking of an older analogy - Hillary as Mike Fink the tall tale teller of Ohio and Mississippi flatboat legend, especially regarding her claim to have had a hand in ending the violence in Kosovo and Northern Ireland.

It wasn't Obama's decision originally, but if you have listened to his surrogates over the past few days, it is painfully apparent that they do not want to have do-over elections in Florida and Michigan. Surely you would agree that's not being very democratic, as counting votes is THE core democratic principle.

She floated this once and it sunk. This time it will bob for a minute. A couple weeks or so and who knows.

She's just trying to normalize this nonsense by talking about it, then get the pundits talking about it, and the more they do, the less crazy it will sound.

Obama did not disenfranchise voters in Michigan and Florida. The state officials deliberately flouted the party rules trying to jump the queue and now the voters are paying the price. Perhaps this can all be sorted out so people in those states can still vote after both candidates have had a chance to campaign there. But if it can't be figured out so it's fair to all -- well, there are plenty of times that people in states with later primaries don't get to have a role in choosing the candidate, so Florida and Michigan would just be finding themselves in that same situation. If you're going to say those voters are "disenfranchised," you might as well say 1/2 of the states in the U.S. were disenfranchised in 2000 and 2004.

Not too long ago, I (embarassingly now)was a Hillary supporter. Now I'm an active and contributing supporter of Obama. The turning point came when I realized that with Democrats like Hillary, nothing would change; The Bush legacy would continue and the direction of American politics would continue along the same Busn-Cheney tracks, a politic that to me closely resembles the fascism of the past. We've got to change. The Dems cry that they can't perform because they have only the slimmest majority. But that's a lie on its face. They can vote down these Bush-republican bills, they can stop them cold in their tracks if they wanted to. They could vote to impeach if they wanted to They could hold them accountable if they wanted to. Aparently they don't want to. Well as small as my vote is, I'll use it for what is good and right for this country.
Hillary is one of them (the wimpy democrats); that's clear. When I realized that, I turned my attention to Obama and that's where I am now. Until last week, I would have voted for the democratic presidential candidate even if it was Hillary. But now, I can't vote for her. Any serious democratic contender who would essentially tells the electorate that only she and the republican candidate are presidential material is totally out of line. She is essentially telling all democrats that it is either her way or the highway. That sounds awfully like the Bush politics of compromise. She has the hubris to believe that she is the only one that we democrats can consider for president. Well she's wrong. If Obama wins the democratic nomination, I will vote for him. If Hillary wins, she's told us that McCain is as good as she is presidentially. I can't vote for him so, I'm grateful for Ralph Nader.

It doesn't help the Democratic cause for either Hillary supporters or Barack supporters to call the other candidate evil, ambitious or disingenuous. Obviously they both want to win and are willing to make all the arguments necessary to win. We should all be quite easily more frightened with a McCain presidency than for either of our two GREAT candidates to become president. I am sick and tired of Obama followers attempting to intimidate Clinton supporters into voting for him through the fear that if she is the nominee his supporters would rather elect McCain. Is fear really the bedrock of the audacity of hope? Of course not and during this primary we must keep our eye on the ball in winning the presidency which was stolen from us in 2000.

Good one Bro I like that RELENTLESS BITCH!!!How about her being the IRON BITCH!!!She will say or do anything to win an election or to make a MAD GRAB at Power and to keep it.OBAMA 2008!!!

I did not vote for Sen. Clinton, nor do I want her to be the nominee. Even so, it is hard to deny that the coverage against her has been biased in any number of ways. Aside from the pathological Clinton haters (e.g., Rush Limbaugh, Chris Matthews), you have the closet sexists, the snarky anti-Clintonites (e.g. Maureen Dowd), and the bizarre post-feminist Hillary haters (Andrea Mitchell). It's been disgusting, honestly.

But Hillary and her gang make it very, very hard to back them. Making it clear that they are perfectly willing to overturn the popular vote/delegate count via the superdelegates. Denigrating the states Obama has won. Comparing the Obama campaign to Ken Starr. Implying that McCain is a better choice for commander-in-chief than Obama. Trying to marginalize Obama by implying that he would make a fine V.P., but doesn't have the chops to be President. And so on, and so forth.

But this is simply jaw-dropping.

I have been very skeptical of folks like Andrew Sullivan when they insist that "the Clintons will stop at nothing to win!" But when Hillary openly advocates overturning the will of the voters . . . well, let's just say I'm less inclined to write off Sullivan's opinion on the topic.

This is disgusting, divisive, and unbelievably self-centered and short-sighted. It is everything her critics say is wrong with her. At this point, it truly is hard to see what she will not stoop to in order to win.

It's a carefully constructed process, says Hillary, developed over years. Except she keeps whining about the parts she does not like, such as caucuses. And despite her "35 years of experience," she never gave a hoot about the caucuses, which she now finds so undemocratic, because they never hurt her or Bill until this year.

Caucuses ain't perfect, but they resemble other kinds of democratic processes -- often favored by liberals -- that measure intensity of support and not just numerical support. Cumulative voting in corporate board elections is an example, as are New England town halls.

You mean like this one?

Obama's a swell guy. Don't believe me? Just ask me.

Yes, and democratic voters can switch to Maverick McCain, whenever we like. McCain is the most Democrat-like Republican to hold the ticket (sans this past primary campaign) for years. It's easier this year than ever for Democrats to vote Republican (McCain) if the Democratic nomination is "stolen" from Obama.

This is the third or fourth really gross Clinton news bit on TPM in as many days. I haven't seen any Clinton supporters via the comments say 'OY! That's it. I'm not supporting her.' I'm curious about why. Is it because her strengths outweigh this stuff (or his weaknesses)? Is it believed that these things are taken out of context? Flat out lies? How can this not be pissing people off?

I know comments can get sassy around here and I don't mean for this to be one. I would really like to hear what goes through a pro-clinton mind when reading this stuff.

Maybe I have the demographic of the TPM reader off. Perhaps any Clinton supporter who can live through this much Obama love/Clinton bashing is only here to keep fighting the good fight, unwavering.

fwiw, I'm not probama - I'm just anti all the rest.

Weren't the Hillary supporters claiming that the PLEOs should be bound to support the way their states voted?

And now these same people are supporting the idea that the pledged delegates are *not* bound?

Please, pick a side and stick to it!!!

There was a post or comment on TPM a while ago, I think, that mentioned that in caucuses after a caucus meeting had taken place and a certain decision had been made by the group (who would then leave), that the delegate was then actually free to choose whom he/she wanted, regardless of what had been decided that day.

This was mere conjecture at the time, but another commenter replied by saying that this could not actually be true, since the delegate was actually tied in to the decision of the group that day, and that it was recorded (and could not change).

Does anybody recall this?

Is this the case in all/most states, or are the delegates actually footloose and fancy free?

And if it is not true and it is as Hillary claims above ("they're all equal in their ability to cast their vote for whomever they choose"), then what is the difference between a "pledged" delegate and a superdelegate?

Hillary and her team seem utterly oblivious to how badly they are alienating many stalwart Democrats and even one-time supporters. Their disconnect with reality is making them seem like Bush Redux. Hope no one asks her about gas prices.

The remaining primaries are likely to play out on the same demographics the ones up to now have, which means Obama will win most of them, but Hillary has a more than decent chance to win Pennsylvania. If she can get do-overs in Florida and Michigan, she should take them. She'd be an odds-on favorite to win Florida because of the geezer factor, and she'd be at least 50-50 in Michigan with its big blue-collar vote and the support of Grantholm and Levin. It won't be enough to catch Obama in pledged delegates, but she can make her "big state" case to the superdelegates and see if it flies. It probably won't, because a consensus seems to be developing that having Obama at the top of the ticket will attract more voters and thus help them keep their jobs, which is what they really care about.

Then Hillary can go back to being a high-profile Senator from New York, which is not the worst fate that can befall a person, though you'd never know it to listen to her. I think her problem is she believed her own "inevitability" campaign strategy (echoes of Bush again) and now just can't get her head around the fact that it didn't happen. But "denial" ain't just a river in Egypt.

The Monster Mash! What a joy she is. So lovely, so smart, so pro-party. It really is refreshing to see an individual that has her head on so straight.

I think she's turning me on. Must....think......baseball.......

wah wah wah Obamcans wah ...

Again - this ended in Texas.

We're getting closer to a dictatorship...:(. Just think about it, Bush has subverted the democratic process so much, he's ensured that his successor has all means available to his/her rule as the Unitary Executive. Hillary has ignored or called to overturn the will of the voters, the rules of the game, the mandate of the Democratic party. Is there anything she wouldn't do??? I greatly fear for our future...

The more I think about this, the more I believe Obama has to take this crap and use it.

He has to have an ad asking if Hillary Clinton will disenfranchise voters who have already cast their vote.

He can make it a question mark. But after Florida 2000, this will resonate (okay, I hate that cliched politco phrase "this will resonate").

But he needs to do two things.

Two show he can stand up for himself (at this point it's becoming an issue).

And Secondly to say we as Democrats are here to stop the Republican gutting of this country. Personalities are secondary. Enough is enough.

Regarding which states count -- do you really expect Texas and Ohio to go Democratic in the general election?

This woman can't even manage a campaign, and people want her answering the crisis phone at 3AM?

"Quick! Where's my aides?!"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/us/politics/10clinton.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1205155000-SbeGRS3LCayi2+j3ujWJ1w

Why is Obama not calling on Hillary to abide by any popular vote in the primary? He could make reference to 2000 where Gore won the popular vote and lost the electoral college, and paint Hillary into the role of Bush. By making that reference, and pushing it, it would serve to force attention on the process and the methods Hillary, not unlike Bush, is using to try and circumvent the "will of the people". By pressing this, her Florida and Michigan chatter will seem as hollow as it really is.

JTBH, the rules say that you need more than half of the delegates to win. It doesn't say anything about any legitimate claims due to having a lead in the popular vote, or by winning the large states, or by winning the blue states.

If the Cheatocrats allow this, they're finished.

- All the young new voters will leave the party, throwing away our whole future

- Stealing the nomination from the first black nominee in US history, will be Jim Crow disenfranchisement on steroids

- AA voters will stay home guaranteeing a loss, possibly for a long time (and this was a community that already felt taken for granted)

- Republicans are gleeful to have HRC to energize their base

- Republicans hate her, Independents don't like her either, that's 33% + 33% = 66%

- HRC is a loser who can only manage to win 14 states through cheating, racism and even with the entire party machinery stacking the decks for her.

- How can anyone who has performed this badly with athe game rigged on her behalf have a ghost of a chance in the general election, when she won't be able to rig anything

I see the Clinton campaign workers have gotten their new thread crapping orders.

People were talking about John Edwards as reflection of Bobby Kennedy.

And he was, in a way.

But if Obama gets the nomination taken from him, I think he'll be remembered as a Bobby Kenedy figure in a more profound way.

Bobby Kennedy, for my dad at least, represented a lot opportunity. Whenever I asked about that period he'd say "Well, if Robert Kennedy would have been elected..." and trail off into loss.

Of course, Bobby Kennedy was a tragedy, and an Obama loss would be a farce. But isn't that how Marx predicted things?

When someone who you do not believe to be either a) crazy or b) stupid, is acting in ways that seem crazy and stupid, you should look at their actions from another perspective (before concluding that you were wrong and they are, in fact, crazy and/or stupid). In this case, I'm sure that a) Clinton can do the math and knows she will finish about 100 pledged delegates behind Obama b)she also knows that the party will not overturn the pledged delegate result because it would poison the party's relationship with African-Americans and young people for decades. So what's she up to with all this bi-polar behavior (Obama is not fit to command/he would make a great VP, we are all Democrats/I'll turn the convention into a fight that will make 1968 look like a tea party)? My answer: She knows she will not be the nominee (even with MI and FL redos), but she does not want to be Mike Huckabee, playing out the string hoping for a miracle. So how can she maximize her upside for this run and get the most out of a losing effort? By offering the party both the carrot and the stick. On the one hand, see how scary I can be, on the other, see how I can play nice if I want to. For this to work, she has to make the threat to create havoc at the convention credible. Hence, all the crap she's been floating. My guess is she wants either vp or majority leader of the senate (since either would establish precedents for women). Once she has assurances of getting what she wants, she'll bow out "for the good of the party," probably sometime after North Carolina.