You're missing the part where this campaign has been intellectually and morally bankrupt for months now.

That's the part you're missing.

Nope your not missing anything gregg. They get more and more desperate every day. I still don't see how they think that they can win in November if they blow up the party and steal the nomination. It truly is amazing.

Perhaps you're missing the part where Clinton's team has no real credibility - on this or any other issue?

Why are you confusing what they say with any sort of reasonable analysis of the situation? They are liars. Lying hacks. It's their job to do so, but this group has taken the hacking to a whole new level.

When it's all said and done, really the only avenue open to the party that won't create a raft of shit is for only a half delegation to be seated from MI (per long-standing party rules) and for that delegation to be split 50-50 between Hillary and Obama. This thanks to the impossibility of wading into the "uncommitted" morass and further complicated by the Hillary campaign's blatant violation of their pledge not to campaign in MI, which went out the window when the campaign went in and gamed the caucuses.

And then there's this lovely tidbit:

Obama Again Apologizes for a Preacher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H11x6bMu4Y

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/05/29/obama_again_apologizes_for_a_p.html

Dear Harold,

Perhaps you missed the part about how NO delegates were awarded in the MI primary. None. No Clinton delegates. No Edwards delegates. No uncommitted delegates. Oh wait...you couldn't have missed that part. You VOTED for it.

Greg, your head must have just exploded by the flack-stastic flackulence of Hillary flack, Harold Ickes.

You've been spun by a flack, feels good, no?

Maybe you're missing this part... that Hillary has no intention of compromising. Perhaps her plan is to contest any compromise plan to the Credentials Committee at the convention.

Check out this HuffPost article today:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/m.s.-bellows/the-trap-clintons-briarpa_b_104198.html

The Trap: Clinton's "Briarpatch" Strategy For The DNC Rules Committee Meeting

FOREWORD: Barack Obama and Howard Dean are about to walk into Harold Ickes' trap tomorrow, and they aren't likely to even realize their mistake until Hillary Clinton cries "foul!" next week and announces that "justice" and "voters' rights" are forcing her to carry her campaign all the way to the Democratic Convention next August.

By leaning toward implementing a compromise "split the baby" decision tomorrow on how to allocate the Michigan and Florida delegates -- a compromise that nearly all observers see as a setback for Clinton -- the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee ("RBC"), the Obama campaign and other well-meaning Democrats will actually be throwing Brer Clinton into the briar patch -- giving her exactly the excuse she wants to continue her Quixotic campaign.

In this post, written early yesterday, I make some predictions to test whether, in fact, the Clinton camp has a counterintuitive secret "briar patch" strategy for tomorrow's RBC meeting. Just in the last 24 hours, some of those predictions have started to come true:

much more at the link

Perhaps you missed the part which BigTentDemocrat over at TalkLeft piked up on where Clinton concedes that FL and MI broke the rules:

In today's conference call, the Clinton campaign conceded any rules-based or fairness-based argument for the full seating of the Florida and Michigan delegations. The Clinton campaign declared that, unlike Iowa, NH and South Carolina, Florida and Michigan did indeed break the DNC rules and without justification. The Clinton campaign expressly disagreed with the Michigan Democratic Party's contention that the DNC had selectively enforced its rules by allowing New Hampshire and South Carolina to break the sanctioned primary schedule, that Florida was not entitled to a safe harbor or waiver, and that the DNC had acted properly and within the rules when it stripped Florida and Michigan of its delegates.

No, that would be you. You'll never die.

The Rules Committee just can pass a new rule saying they can apportion Uncommitted delegates based upon exit polls, or they can just not give votes to the Michigan delegates.

And the Clinton's campaign argument doesn't make sense since they conceded that Florida and Michigan broke the rules.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/5/30/13333/0744

Clinton's claim is based on the actual vote.

Obama's claim is based on a lot of "could haves", should haves", "and would haves". All irrelevant. Hindsight is 20/20. He fucked up. Too bad.

Isn't the baseline for this meeting that neither candidate has any delegates from these contests and that the reason for the meeting is to find a way for Fl an Mi participate? These so called "primaries", in essence, did not happen according to the DNC. That's what the rules at the time were anyway. So Clinton's delegate count from Fl an Mi should start at ZERO, not the total she claims she "won" from these fucked up elections......I'm starting to wonder why I'm responding to Clinton talking points. 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back...now fogu2 is a troll so we dont respond to him right?

The actual vote in an illegal primary where she was the only one on the ballot.

jesus.

i hate this.

And I'm sure Ickes wants the uncommitted delegates chosen at random, including Hillary supporters, who obviously weren't uncommitted.

The DNC lawyers explained on page 5 of their memo that was released yesterday (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/michigan-analysis/?resultpage=5&) that these delegates can be allocated to the candidates who were not on the ballot, but are still participating in the race (that would be Obama).

Ickes is floating this as possible grounds for appealing the decision. They can keep stirring that pot, if they choose. It will just push more SuperDels over to Obama's side to avoid encouraging any division between now and November.

People voting for Uncommitted in Michigan (me, my wife, many friends) were doing so with the hope that those delegates, if seated, would then swing for Obama. Or for who ever else became Clinton's main challenger.

40% of Michigan Dem voters voted in the January cold in a primary election that they thought might not count because they did not want Hillary Clinton to be the nominee.

So, therefore, these voters should get their wishes granted, and the Uncommitted delegates should go to the candidate who is not Hillary Clinton.

what do they think would happen for her if she got her way?

What do they think would happen if she stole the nomination? Does she really think that everyone would just get over it and go along? Really?

Why in the world would someone want to win this way, who wasn't a Republican someone?

Hillary Trolls out in full force. Jeez, this site has become so polluted that one can barely breathe.

Someone said Clinton unquestionably won x percent of the vote...

Excuse me but I do question... the primaries in Florida and Michigan were tampered with... affected so to speak by the rules committee.
Voter supression occurred as mamy have stated that because they trusted the DNC and the candidates (icluding Hillary and Ickes) when they were told that their votes and primaries would not be counted in the presidential nomination process, and so they did not vote. You can't 'count every vote' when you can't measure the number of votes that were supressed and frankly I don't see how you say that they are less important than those who voted anyway.
Voter choice was also supressed in these primaries. The candidates did not campaign and thus voters did not experience true choice in their voting options. The Clintons were a household name... of course this would work to their advantage. I'm sorry but the primaries in Florida and Michigan were 'tainted'. They were not fair or representative of the voters of either state.
So I DO 'QUESTION' the validity of any information coming from these primaries. I feel the rules committee must stand by its inital ruling and NOT seat the delegates based on the primaries.
Then I think they could separately decide to seat all of the delegates of both states in a fair and equitable way for the sake of party unity that honors all voters who have participated in the nomination process from all states. My preference is that they seat them 50/50 with no right to change their vote/representation for president at the convention.
I ABSOLUTELY QUESTION validating the 'tainted' primaries that occurred in Florida and Michigan.

I can see her going outside to the band of protesters there...amongst the cheers...with Wolf Blitzer talking like an idiot announcing that she won and it's onto Denver! At that time, I vomit crudely and loudly...

the camera pan to a sign that says.."where in the hell is your gax tax holiday, Hillary?"

Ickes and Co. are making their case to the public because they know it wont stand up in front of the RBC and they need to try and keep their supporters in a tizzy in order to keep her march to the convention possible.

Any realistic compromise has Hillary ending up 100 delegates short, meaning they can't have any compromises and the RBC isn't going to give them what they are asking for. All this is posturing so they can appeal the RBC decision saying they are not happy with the ruling. Nothing more nothing less.

Ickes makes sense. Those uncommitted delegates shouldn't be seated until the convention, because Obama might be assassinated between now and Denver, and then they'd have to change their minds.

I'm going to hope the RBC comes up with some totally reasonable solution. Then Obama will accept the ruling, while Clinton will go ballistic. He will be seen as the reasonable, sane, grown-up candidate, and she will be revealed as the scary monster that will not die.

Whatever happens, no way in hell should those uncommitteds go to Hillary. 45 percent of the people showed up to specifically vote AGAINST her. Their will should not be ignored.

The point is that there was no elections in Florida and Michigan, pure and simple. The results as is can not count as some people did not vote because there were told not to vote.

Candidates did not campaign. Senator Obama was not on the ballot in Michigan.

So there are 2 possibilities:

Do a reevote : It is not going to happen

or 50 - 50.

Anything else can not be valid.

Will this never end? Will the Clinton gang give us no release?

"Just when I thought I was OUT, they pull me back IN!"

looks like this is business as usual for obama....

One other opponent who Obama eliminated by challenging his petitions, Gha-is Askia, said he has no hard feelings today about the challenge and supports Obama's presidential aspirations.

But back at the time he was running for state Senate, Askia said, he was dismayed Obama would use such tactics.

"It wasn't honorable," he said. "I wouldn't have done it."

He said the Obama team challenged every single one of his petitions on "technicalities."

If names were printed instead of signed in cursive writing, they were declared invalid. If signatures were good but the person gathering the signatures wasn't properly registered, those petitions also were thrown out.

Askia came up 69 signatures short of the required number to be on the ballot.

"I did not participate in sexual relations with that woman"

For some reason that keeps coming to mind

Perhaps someone who is good with the actual numbers can help me here... Thinking out loud, is it conceivable that the majority of undeclared superdelegates, knowing that they are being played by Clinton, could band together and say, "Fine, if you want to keep manipulating the process, then we'll give you what you want. Then we'll turn around and support Obama en masse and put an end to this charade."

Could this work?

If the Clintons want to hang around, just in case "something happens", why not just suspend her campaign, and wait for it?

This endless goal post changing and these unreasonable arguments serve to reinforce the stereotype that Clinton is a calculating machine who will do anything to win.

If she were to gracefully suspend her campaign, her stature would grow, significantly. And, if something does happen, she could then gracefully step in.

Why can't she just suspend her campaign? What happens to her pledged delegates if she does?

There should be an absolute constraint on all MI/FL arguments that seek to be taken seriously:

No candidate should get more delegates than s/he would plausibly have gotten in a full and fair, contested election. Anything else is trying to exploit the MI/FL mess.

I think Obama would have narrowly won MI and lost FL by perhaps 6-8 points. But perhaps HRC folks want to argue she'd have taken both, perhaps by decent margins. But it's very clear that whatever she would have gotten wouldn't be nearly enough to affect the result at this point -- this is incredibly stupid, and I can't wait til it's over.

I wonder if how many Obama supporters would vote in the general election for Hillbillary if she won the nomination. I sure as hell wont vote for her, PERIOD!

you keep saying she will have no credibility left. with whom do you think this is the case?

she is winning more popular vote than OBAMA. the numbers are on her side for credibility. your posts speak as if she does not have a large army strongly behind her and that we also drank the obama koolaid. we haven't!

sorry but obama has lost as much credibility in the publics eye with hilliary supporters as you feel for hilliary.

get over yourselves why don't ya.

No candidate should get more delegates than s/he would plausibly have gotten in a full and fair, contested election. Anything else is trying to exploit the MI/FL mess.

Of course! That's just what they are trying their best to do - they created this mess and they are using it to their advantage if they can.

It's not like this didn't already occur to them, once she found it wasn't going to wrap up on Feb 5, which was the point of this in the first place.

Just as we cannot know for whom those "Uncommited" voters would have cast their ballots, we can never know how many of Hillary votes were cast for her only because those other names weren't on the ballot(as I heard once interviewee say on the radio this morning), or how many voted for McCain (as another said). The only thing we do know for certain is that at least 40 percent voted against hillary, probably more. Thus, the logical extension of his argument, and the only fair solution, is to maintain the status quo.

As long as it's made clear that this is the wish of the Clinton campaign, I can live with that, since the supers will have put an end to it with 2025 by the end of next week.

Be careful what you ask for, Hill.