Hillary Nabs A Super-Delegate
Hillary gets a super-del -- Ohio Rep. Betty Sutton, her campaign announces.
"On March 4th, the majority of Democratic voters in the 13th Congressional District and Ohio chose to support Senator Hillary Clinton with their vote," Sutton said, according to Camp Hillary's release. "As the Representative for Ohio's 13th Congressional District, I am pledging my support to her as well."
Okay -- this is as good a time to make this point as any.
One thing that's polluted this whole debate badly has been the constantly shifting definitions people have been employing for "will of the people." The Obama campaign has actually been largely consistent on this point, saying that the super-dels should follow the winner of the national pledged del count.
But many super-dels have decided whom to support based on other metrics. Some have backed the candidate who won his or her state. Others have endorsed the one who won a majority of his or her Congressional district. The super-dels are obviously free to employ whichever metric they wish. But this constantly shifting definition of "will of the people" has only contributed to the messiness and confusion surrounding the process, which is already screwed up enough as it is.
Why does Sam Nunn have no respect for Irish Tea Pots?
Call Sam Nunn and tell him to respect Irish Tea Pots.
I am Hillary Rambo Clinton, The Queen of Ulster,
and I approve this message.
April 18, 2008 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
They should switch after the last debate.
April 18, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right, Katie bar the door before they all head for the exits. It's a veritable Hillary stampede!
April 18, 2008 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not only that, but even more asinine is that she claims to have followed the will of the people a full 5 weeks after they voted. If the will of the people of her district were truly the rubric, then she would have endorsed the day after the election, no? This has irked me with superdelegates for both Obama and Clinton. Better to say I will wait to see how my district/state votes, then cast my support behind that person, like what Feingold did in Wisconsin.
April 18, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just to be clear, I don't recall Feingold saying he was following the majority of Wisconsin Democrats. He was asked how he, personally, had voted and averred that it had been for Obama.
April 18, 2008 5:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eh, considering how decisively Clinton won Ohio, I can hardly blame her.
Really, can we just start getting superdelegate endorsements in rapid succession now? I don't care which candidate gets them (actually, I'd prefer the majority go to Obama, but whatever), just pick someone so we can hurry this up!
April 18, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Time is running out on Hillary Rodham Clinton, the long-ago front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination who now trails Barack Obama in delegates, states won and popular votes.
Compounding Clinton's woes, Obama appears on track to finish the primary campaign fewer than 100 delegates shy of the 2,025 needed to win.
Clinton argues to Democratic officialdom that other factors should count, an unprovable assertion that she's more electable chief among them. But she undercut her own claim in Wednesday night's debate, answering "yes, yes, yes" when asked whether her rival could win the White House.
There's little if any public evidence the party's elite, the superdelegates who will attend the convention, are buying her argument anyway.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20080418/delegate-challenge/
April 18, 2008 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's so cute! Hillary gets "A" superdelegate. Hahahahahahahahah
It's so sad for her.
Please take note this superdelegate owes her job to 'Emily's List"... was there any doubt who she would support?
Gee, any more Hillary? No? Didn't think so.
April 18, 2008 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not gets, she 'nabbed' the delegate. By crook or by hook, i guess.
April 18, 2008 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
The woman represents a district that was won by Hillary, so she has cause to endorse Hillary because the voters in her district voted for Hillary.
I do want to mention that I don't particularly care for the stance of Emily's List, which endorses only women candidates for no other reason than they are women. NOW might also do that -- I'm not sure. This is no different from an other one-issue voting.
April 18, 2008 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama also got one of Hillary's pledged delegates from Ohio, giving him a net of two (counting absentee ballots is fun!), thus she is still down in Ohio for the day. :P
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/17/20252/2491
April 18, 2008 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
You don't really mean getting one of her pledged delegates, do you? You mean one of her pledged delegates ended up losing and Obama's won. Otherwise it sounds like Obama is pulling a Clinton.
April 18, 2008 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
No official pledged delegate had been chosen yet, they just finalized the vote count and the percentages were off by enough from the preliminary estimate to result in Obama getting a pledged delegate that was expected to go to Hillary.
(No pledged delegate changed their mind or jumped ship or anything like that, it was a pure numbers thing.)
April 18, 2008 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are these guys going to denounce this then?:
"Top Hillary Fundraisers Rip Into Howard Dean For Saying Super-Dels Should Announce Support "Starting Now""
I thought we were supposed to let the voters have their say!
April 18, 2008 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
No surprise there. There's long-term animosity between the Clintons and Dean, beginning with his run for the presidency as "representing the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" (vs. their wing, the DLC). Wesley Clark was their Dean stalking horse in '04; that didn't work out so well for them...then they tried to block Dean's ascension to head of the DNC...then tried to oust him, which also failed due to Democratic victory in 2006, thanks in large part to Dean's efforts on behalf of the DNC.
So, no love lost there. But the Clintonistas should know by now that they don't scare Dean.
April 18, 2008 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good for Sen Clinton. It sounds like she earned Rep Sutton's support, and so she deserves it. I tip my hat to her.
April 18, 2008 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, is that the least impassioned endorsement I've ever seen.
April 18, 2008 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's nice to see her pick up a super now and again. The Wikipedia Superdelegate chart has been a sea of purple since the beginning of February.
April 18, 2008 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Obama campaign has actually been largely consistent on this point, saying that the super-dels should follow the winner of the national pledged del count.
Greg, don't you think you're showing your support for Obama a little too publicly?
Look, the Clinton campaign has always been about choice, the woman's issue. You can tell that Obama doesn't care about women. In her campaign, I'm proud to say superdelegates have a wealth of choices, at least one of which should fit.
1. Most elected delegates.
2. Largest popular vote inall the United States of America.
3. The winner of the states that count. (See the campaign web page for an updated list of these states, as circumstances cause frequent changes.)
4. Anyone related to a former president.
5. Anyone with an offspring old enough to campaign.
6. Anyone who's most like the common folk. (Income and associations cannot, technically, be considered for this category.)
7. The person with the most public scandals and shady friends, as these have already been vetted for the general election.
8. Anyone who has to struggle to pass a bar exam. We have enough elite lawyers in Washington.
9. Anyone who has the support of Taylor's Martians.
And if this isn't enough to whet your appetite, the Clinton campaign is pleased to offer rationales specifically for your situation.
So, Greg, you can see that the Clinton campaign has a consistent policy on automatic delegates. Please try to show a little impartiality next time. (Aside: Not yet, Carville. You'll get your bite in time.)
April 18, 2008 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama has a 19 point lead in Newsweek's national poll!!!
April 18, 2008 4:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary's Sargent at Arms on TPM, did not see fit to set up at thread about the Newsweek Poll results, like he does when ever Hillary has even the slightest of good news.
I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that Hillary's Sargent at Arms has not drawn more attention to the huge lead that Obama has in the Newsweek poll.
April 18, 2008 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
And if you recall, initially Obama said that the superdelegates should support the winner of the pledged delegate count and the popular vote. But during the debate over re-votes in Florida and Michigan when it was beginning to appear that his efforts to prevent revotes might fail, Obama dropped the "popular vote" part and said superdelegates should support the winner of the most pledged delegates. I remember commenting on it, calling it "politics as usual".
April 18, 2008 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Go ahead and let Florida's popular vote into the total, Obama will win the count even then.
Michigan shouldn't count because his name wasn't on the ballot. It was an election straight out of Soviet Russia.
April 18, 2008 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yippee! She got one! Wow! Huge News!
This will all be over Tuesday.
No matter what happens, even if Hillary wins PA, she lose, unless it's a blow out (and by that I mean what she was supposed to win by... which is 20 points).
It's over Tuesday. The supers are starting to flock towards Obama and come Tuesday, the floodgates open.
Clinton' campaign is dead in the water.
April 18, 2008 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Because the supers are sheep like the rest of us!
April 18, 2008 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I do not know that I would have used the word "sheep," but other than that I agree entirely. The supers are just like the rest of us. They are democrats, elected by other democrats to represent us in democratic conventions. Given that democrats have proven to be fairly evenly divided, you have to wonder why there is a live hope still that the supers will break heavily for Clinton in the end. It just seems so very implausible a scenario on which to hang all of one's hopes.
April 18, 2008 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Greg, Greg, Greg...why didn't you publish a story two days ago when Obama picked up THREE superdelegates: Rep. Andre Carson (IN) , Rep. Mel Watt (NC) and Rep. David Price (NC)?
April 18, 2008 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
And will you write about the Newsweek poll showing an Obama lead of 19 points?
April 18, 2008 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Come on, everyone knows that "man bites dog" is news while "dog bites man" is not. "Obama picks up superdelegate" is much more like "dog bites man," while "Clinton picks up superdelegate" is...
Need I say more?
April 18, 2008 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you haven't seen this already, Politico has a very good superdelegate resource here. The best one I've seen so far.
April 18, 2008 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, demconwatch is probably the best one out there.
April 18, 2008 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
HILLARY'S WINNING!!!!
HILLARY'S WINNING!!!!
Now back to reality.
April 18, 2008 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well said, Greg.
April 18, 2008 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Go Hillary! Keep fighting!
April 18, 2008 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dear superdelegates,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhkq11UExcw
Nuff said.
April 18, 2008 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mrs Clinton needs to prepare a victory speech that ends with "I am bowing out for the good of my party & country". The debacle of a debate Wednesday night will unleash the floodgates of Democratic super delegates on the 23rd of April that will have Vernon Jordan making a call to Hill & Bill.
April 18, 2008 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
For those of you keeping score: since February 5, Clinton has been able to woo 6 superdelegates.
Obama? 80.
April 18, 2008 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow! and Feb 5 is an important marker because...?
April 18, 2008 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Because it was the day Hillary was to wrap up her coronation.
April 18, 2008 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Because that was the date by which the Clinton campaign had confidently predicted that they would have it all wrapped up.
April 18, 2008 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
But some of those gained by Obama were defections from Hillary, offsetting the few she's gained. I think at this point she's got a net loss of one since Super Tuesday. She had gotten it up to the break-even point for a few days, but then there was another defection. Meanwhile, Obama keeps adding them.
Hillary supporters, tell me again what a terribly weak candidate Obama is, and why the superdelegates should endorse Hillary, a candidate who trails a terribly weak candidate in pledged delegates, and who trails a terribly weak president in fundraising, and who trails a terribly weak candidate in the popular vote, and who is near an all-time low in her approval numbers, etc. etc. etc.
April 18, 2008 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow - she trampled through the Democratic party like Sherman , laid waste to everything in range and she got a whole 6 more delegates out of it.
See I keep saying - all that campaigning, all those smears, all the shit that she and Bill have been throwing and this is all get out of it -
Tell me again how she'd make such a great president. Honest to god - her campaign is broke, she's pissed of more Democrats than hyper-tits Kathy in Florida, and she's only gotten this much further.
A good president? Puuuuuuhleeeeeeeeeze!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
April 18, 2008 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, I qualify my previous post -- make that "A Cabinet post for Idiotic AND HusseinTenaX!" :)
Thank you for consistently great posts.
April 18, 2008 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink