Disgraceful.

Should the SuperDelegates also decide how important Puerto Rico should be since they aren't a state and can't vote in the GE?

"And the party will have to decide whether they believe the caucuses -- where you get about one delegate for 2000 votes -- are more important than the primaries where you get one for 12,000," Bill told the crowd.

That's suppose to somehow be more representative?

Count every vote, except the caucuses?

The energy it takes to lie, spin and dissemble their way through this process, would power a small town. Bizarrely, it's all moot anyway, because Obama is within spitting distance of the nomination.

The sheer absurdity of it all!

I just want them to go away........

I'm starting to wish this fucking scumbag was impeached.

Look over there Bill,pudgy interns with cheeseburgers!(anything to make him stop)

I wonder how much of this is not necessarily out of vanity, narcissism, or ambition, but out of the need for basic survival. Think about it: the Colombians have paid a significant amount of money to Bill for "speaking fees," and if the Clintons don't deliver by winning and passing the free trade agreement with Colombia, they're in deep trouble. My understanding is that you don't want to screw around with the Colombians. Or for that matter, any one of the other sketchy entities that have paid BIll (Uzbekistan, Clinton LIbrary/foundation donors, etc.).

Thank you, Bill Clinton, for telling my state we don't count as much as those other states. Yes. Fuck you very much.

Where was all this fauxtrage over caucuses before Hillary lost so many? Where was all the fauxtrage over Michigan and Florida before she needed every delegate she could beg, borrow or steal?

They have no principles. It's pathetic.

I'm sorry, I just can't bag on Bill anymore. There comes a point when an entity is in such bad taste that it rounds the bend and enters the realm of Art. Considered in this context, Bill Clinton is now Plan 9 From Outer Space and, if the campaign goes another two months, might well become Citizen Kane.

Think about it. A former president is trying to drum up votes in Puerto Rico by arguing that Iowa doesn't matter.

(James Lipton voice)

Brilliant!

Bill has gone totally insane

Is there any doubt that the Clintons are BAD for the Democratic Party? They've worked overtime to undermine this entire primary season just to further their political ambitions. It's disgusting and frankly every registered Democrat should be shouting them down at every turn. Just sad and pitiful.

Somebody needs to put a stop to this. The Clintons are destroying the democratic party, NOT enhancing it. Having two bitterly divided camps DOES NOT PROMOTE UNITY IN THE END. Hillary has three or four scenarios where she could be sElected based on a tie, but each scenario counts on disenfranchising some democratic voters (well actual whole states full), who voted when they were supposed to, in a fair election. Each scenario also ignores Obama's stellar organizing and GOTV efforts, as well as the small donors he has attracted to build a war chest, in lieu of HRC being the leader of the elusive DINO vote. We dont need DINOS in 2008, we need Democratic voters. TELL HER TO STOP, DEM LEADERS!

Bill Clinton sucks.

And Hillary Clinton sucks.

To think that I actually wanted HRC to win as late as last December! No, never. Better if they lost for good now.

I did not have caucuses with that woman...

Whoops!

Devil with the blue-stain dress.

Your legacy.
Thanks for nuttin', Bill.

I think that's their revenge. They know we need unity to succeed and they know they have to pretend to be for it to salvage their future.
But if they have to swallow their price and pretend to want Obama as President, they want it to be as painful for us as it is for them.
So they will be as obnoxious and offensive as they can, knowing full can we cannot say anything "out of unity". If they are going to have to go through this, they want to go crazy with frustration as well.

I can guarantee that ever caucus goer counts more than any voters in PR come November.

For some reason I think the HRC folks are gonna get yelled at soon, like Charlie and Grampa at the end of Willy Wonka, except they will NOT win anyway.

SDs: You lose! Good day, Mam!

Bill: You're a crook! You're a cheat and a swindler!
That's what you are. How can you do a thing like this?
Build up a little girl's hopes and then smash all her dreams
to pieces. You're an inhuman monster!

SDs: I said Good Day!

As, I think, would the Obama campaign.

Bill makes a good point. Obama's supporters may be enthusiastic & idealistic, but are they really *representative* of the party? No getting around the fact that the caucus states are skewing perceptions in Obama's favor - he's weaker than he looks - which could spell big trouble in November. Supers, think VERY HARD before making your commitments ...

It's just disgraceful that the Clintons were cheated out of the nomination because, obviously, no one told them the rules before the game started.

The illegitmacy tour continues.

I don't why anyone thinks she's getting out. She can't very well turn around next week and concede. Her argument is that he is not the "real" nominee. She's in until the convention and beyond.

What I still don't understand is why *H.* should drop out.

The only way either can win is if the other one drops out. So maybe *Obama* is the one who should unify the convention & avoid political civil war & ruining *his* political future ... by dropping out!

For folks who don't relish that potentiality, here's a nice middle ground: Don't ask either to drop out. Let the voting continue, count all the votes (including MI/FL), let each side plead their cases to the supers, and take it to the convention.

That's what conventions are for!

Double standards ...

What I still don't understand is why *H.* should drop out.

As others up-thread have already stated, it will piss away the rest of the summer not knowing who our candidate is going to be, (which will continue to give McCain a free pass) and the party come out of the convention deeply divided thanks to an all-out brawl which Clinton would still lose.

What part of that do you disagree with?

So if caucuses are not going to count, per ClintonRules, then that means no Democrat will be required to make the pilgrimage to Iowa in the dead of winter to pay homage to corn growers and other quaint rural folks (I be a quaint rural folk so I can use that term).

Has anyone broken the news to the Iowa Congressional delegation that their importance as the first in the nation is over because of ClintonRules?

While the economy did well under Bubba Bush, I personally found the man to be reprehensible in his personal life and feel that he brought dishonor to the presidency. IMHO.

I agree that H. is far from blameless, and I agree the supers may well bolt toward O. in the next few days making all further discussion academic. But consider ...

- I don't hold the MI/FL spectacle against her. No sane politician would stand by things that were said months ago, in vastly different circumstances, when the stakes are this big. Obama certainly didn't stand by Jeremiah Wright when the relationship stood in the way of O's ambitions! FL, in particular, rankles because its calendar change was the result of Repub. dirty tricks; and anyway, O. violated *his* pledge not to campaign in that state. The FL dels, at least, should definitely be awarded to H.

- Regarding caucus states vs. primaries: Bill C. is just *right* - the math is what it is - The causus states are weighed too heavily. To ridicule H. for complaining about the rules at this late date reminds me of a cop who gives you a ticket for running a red light on your way to the emergency room - correct on the very narrow point of law, but missing the big picture (which, in Hillary's case, is getting the best candidate and best future prez).

- Same point about her "popular vote" argument to the supers. The last time the popular vote winner failed to get the "official nod" was 2000 with Al Gore, and it's very disturbing for O.'s supporters to sound so much like Fox-perts and Bush flunkies: "Popular vote totals don't count with us, it's only official tallies that matter ..."

- Her arguments about "hard-working white voters," while artlessly expressed, really do matter: If there's any doubt that O. can beat McC. in Ohio/Penn/WV/KY/IN, then the supers should think long & hard about whom to support. I've heard O. supporters claim to have a new electoral map, but this would be very risky.

- H. has been beat-down so much about negative campainging that she can't say this is public, but O.'s hypocrisy - every bit as bad as her's - makes my skin crawl. Throwing Jeremiah under the bus after flunkying for him for 20 years ... calling for the IN loser to drop out until he wound up losing ... "sweetie" ... "bitter" ... trying to ignore MI/FL ... outspending her 3 to 1 and STILL losing 6 of the last 8 primaries (whatever happened to campaign finance reform, which his progressive supporters used to support?) ... It really makes me very uncomfortable with Barack.

Bill Clinton must know that he is ruining his legacy, right?

The more I hear about caucuses, the better they sound in terms of being a citizenship building -- Democratic Party Building -- Democratic leadership building system. I'm thinking every state should have one, say a month prior to a primary vote date. It would be a hybrid with the potential for tremendous people power, great promise.

What is our biggest problem? Corporate money corrupting absolutely? Corrupt politicians? Lying propagandists on talk radio, certain websites and faux news? Mainstream (aka corporate) media?

Well, yes and no. Yes, they're problems, but they're also symptoms of what happens when we the people in a democratic republic sit on our thumbs and let big money and big politics run our government. We the people need to get active and stay active -- and not just enough to get to the polls every two or four years.

Caucuses sound to me like a huge way to facilitate that change. Not everybody has to go but all are invited. People talk to people, decide on issues and decide on answers. Real natural leaders surface in the process, gain experience, and are recognized by the people -- they will be the folks that people listen to, gravitate to, work for. And all these folks are the core of the grass roots that networks with the less active community, gets them active, and gets them to the polls for elections or writing letters, calling politicians after elections.

Clinton -- both heads -- is FOS. We need to build a new primary system that embraces the best of caucus and primary votes -- and that disenfranchises elected and party officials from their super status. An active people working for the common good can trust themselves, don't need no supernanny delegates, should want no part of that sh*t.

First we gotta elect a president for change. Then WE got to make the change happen. Obama recognizes it comes from the bottom up. Do we? I mean really...do we? Not if we don't realize that means we got work to do, ongoing work...starting now.

And it doesn't end after the election. Or it's business as usual. The changes we need will NOT happen unless we get REAL dedicated REAL quick and start growing a network of citizens willing to act like it.

How much time each month would we all need to dedicate to public life (politics) to be the change we want to see? Maybe different amounts for different people. Each will need to decide what they can spare. Then we each need to commit to ourselves, our family and our community that we will follow through on that.

Think carefully. It's only worth the effort if we're up to the effort. This ain't no popular cause of the moment type action. This is citizenship and it takes dedicated adult citizens. But it's where the power we need to fulfill the real promise of a democratic republic is going to come from. Big money doesn't stand a chance against a united citizenry.

You can count on them continuing to do everything they can to divide and conquer us before we get anything substantial up and running. And then they will continue todo all they can to divide and reconquer us after it starts to hum. And then they will continue to do all they can thereafter to put us back "in our place".

So this change we claim to long for, we must understand, is not a quick fix, is not bound up in a good leader (but will create many more of them), is entirely and continuously up to us. Else it will all soon be for naught and big money and big power will have found better ways to keep we the people in "our place".

Am I making sense or am I off in progressive pipe dream la-la land?

Hi again ami_in_deutschland,

I think I'd prefer someone with a divisive style. For 20 of the last 28 years, give-or-take, we've either had Repub congresses acting toward Repub presidents like interns, or Dem congresses (the current one, say) rolling over in the name of "bipartisanship." I'd like to see a political street fight over principles that matter to me. The one rap I have against Bill C. is that he rolled over on welfare reform in the name of "compromise," rather that fight (although the Rep congress had a veto-proof majority and Bill would have lost). "Bipartisanship" is vastly overrated. And if O. thinks his style and charisma will convert everyone to his agenda ... well, Goodnight Irene!!

As a woman and voter in the 'caucus' state of Colorado... I resent the implication that our delegates have less value. It is up to the states, while following the DNC rules, to determine how they will elect their delegates for the nomination process. All that matters Mr. impeached, disbarred, ex-president that oversaw the deregulation of the banking industry...bringing us today's mortgage and credit crisis, and NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO causing the rapid release of manufacturing and jobs in this country...all that matters is that for the delegates will be representatives for all of the democrats in Colorado. We have a process. I happen to know that caucuses cost less money, and they are paid for by the party and not the state which is apparently why we have a caucus in Colorado. I like the caucus because I can go and physicall be present. I can see exactly what happens and there are so many witnesses to the vote that I feel it would be hard to tamper with the results.
But all that you need to know and the superdelegates need to know is that we elected our delegates in accordance with the rules our states.
Oh... I forgot, you don't understand rules... that's right. You don't know what 'is' means...
Well, I hope that the rules committee stand by its ruling and does not allow any delegates to be seated based on the 'tainted' primaries and then seats them based for the sake of party unity 50/50 because this isn't about Hillary or Barack, this is about the future of the DNC rules committee, the DNC, and their credibility. Can they be corrupted and used by an unruly candidate... we shall see...

IRT to lobbyists and federally funded elections -- both of those items are part of how TPTB keep their power. It will be up to us to take our role as the REAL power to change that.

They've got the money, we've got the people -- and all our votes. We are responsible if lobbyists have more influence than we the people do...and we are the only ones who are going to change it.

I'm sure there's politician in Obama. But there's also organizer in him and that ought to mean he knows he's going to have to help us organize ourselves and make our politicians listen to us, not the lobbyists.

When you think about it, even federal funding elections is not foolproof or all that important if we stand together as citizens. How many bureacracies have been set up to protect us from the abuse of power -- DOL, DEQ, DHS, FEC and many others. They can be co-opted, corrupted. Insiders love 'em. They are fig leafs for corruption. They are a weak, undependable substitute for people power.

[deep inhale - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10]
[deep exhale]
[deep inhale]

Billary. Everyone. Agreed. To. The. Rules. At. The. Start.

You. May. Not. Change. Them. In. The. Middle. Of. The. Process.

Was. That. Slow. And. Clear. Enough. For. You. This. Time?

Pig. Out.

The caucus process allows for that independent to make a commitment to a party, register with that party and vote for the candidate they feel would best represent them. In fact a person can even change party for the caucus, they must however register as a Dem or Rep thereby acknowledging the selection process is a party process.

I think with the insane coverage the primaries are getting this season some don't seem to realize that this is a primary and not a general election, or at least don't seem to recognize the difference. Primaries are not "general elections for each party" afterall.

Does Clinton have any super-delegates from caucus states?

Screw Bill Clinton. My state is a caucus state and he can do to me what Monica did to him.

Bill who?

Yeaaaaaahhhhhhhh Hillary....

GO HOME! PACK UP YOUR CRAP & PLEEEEEAAASEEEE GO HOME, HELL I CAN GET A S**T LOAD OF PEOPLE TO HELP