Are there really any substantial number of Floridians or Michiganders who are paying enough attention to this that it might affect their votes in the fall? The level of engagement, combined with the levev of caring about stupid stuff (that is, a sane Fl/MI type wouldn't hold whatever happens against the eventual Dem candidate or the Dems generally), seems like it can't possibly apply to many people.
Does it ever occur to any of these guys that usually the primaries are over well before many states have their say, and it's never been an issue in the past?
We're in a good year for Democrats and we're going to piss it away and then probably nuke something. Jesus wept.
No wonder the Democrats are the party that Irish people identify with. As Brendan Behan once remarked, "If it was raining soup, we'd be out with forks."
You may think this isn't a big deal, but if Obama wins the general election, there's talk of Michigan and Florida seceding from the Union.
Florida seceding from the Union
Sir, you just made me an Obama Man.
I think 1 is fundamentally right - the number of people who really care - and will still care in November - is tiny.
Unless people felt truly blown off. IOW, if today's meetings were unpublicized, or dominated by Obama people, or weren't even meetings (ie, Dean or whoever just made an announcement), then I could see people feeling pissed. The turnout in both states was huge, despite the widespread, if not universal, knowledge that the votes would likely not count. If people cared enough to turn out for something, then they care enough to want their turnout recognized.
But I think this is well understood by all the parties, and expect there to be some face-saving compromise that will make it impossible for good faith voters to feel "disenfranchised." It would be much trickier if HRC were within striking distance, but she's simply not, so the compromise can even be fairly generous* to her.
If you're up by 4 when the other guy takes a buzzer-beating shot from the 3 point line, let him say it was a 3 pointer. Who cares?
* Not absurdly so - she can't have her fantasy solution where she gets to count every possible delegate as hers. I'd be inclined towards something like counting most of FL and half of MI - the MI situation was absurd, with only her on the ballot, but less than half votes seems like chump change. Maybe 2/3 for FL and 1/3 for MI. Whatever. It's over. Just get the optics right.
5: Voting aside, FL's the only state in the Confederacy that's worth thinking about*, with a genuine cosmopolitan city and a unique ecosystem that they might kind-of save.
Until rising sea levels, that is.
* LA semi-excepted - kind of weird post-cleansing
I think both Atrios and Josh Marshall have good takes on this. The high moral groundism from both sides has been disgusting, but the Clintonistas deserve the greater scorn for waking up what no one would have given a shit about otherwise.
Geraldine Ferraro deciding that dignity and self-respect are just other names for nothing left to lose.
Other than the underlying racism, the bothersome thing is that she has help set the "frame" that basically simply by running for office while half-black, Obama has played the race card.
As states go, I really love Florida.
11: Yes, its shape is so sincere.
Several people inside the room arrived with tape over their mouths, a sign of their contention that they were being silenced in the current Democratic presidential primary.
Super! I'm glad that the fringiest of the HRC camp are now embracing all the ridiculous theater of the right-wing that I've spent the last four years alternately laughing at and being horrified by. Maybe they can hand out photos of dismembered hard-working white embryos next.
If you're up by 4 when the other guy takes a buzzer-beating shot from the 3 point line, let him say it was a 3 pointer. Who cares?
Yeah, except for the fact that they'll then make the argument that they won the game if you don't count foul shots.
By the way, does anyone know if Hillary even once objected to not seating the Florida and Michigan delegates before (1) the votes had already been counted and (2) it became clear she really needed those delegates to have a shot at winning?
14: Clinton on October 11th on Michigan:
"It's clear, this election they're having is not going to count for anything," Clinton said Thursday during an interview on New Hampshire Public Radio's call-in program, "The Exchange." "But I just personally did not want to set up a situation where the Republicans are going to be campaigning between now and whenever, and then after the nomination, we have to go in and repair the damage to be ready to win Michigan in 2008." [emphasis added]
Surprisingly, btw, the CSPN argument seems to be having not-infrequent moments of hilarity.
Well at least Clinton has Lyndon LaRouche on her side:
On the eve of the May 31 scheduled meeting of the Democratic Party rules committee, which is to take up the question of the Florida and Michigan primary votes, Lyndon LaRouche denounced Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard "Scream" Dean, for his attempts to relegate the voters of Florida to a status lower than that of the slaves.
Fuck'em all. There is a good after-effect: it makes Obama voters less likely to accept a Clinton as VP compromise.
I tell you what, I for one am glad that Dean lost, because I think he makes an awesome party chairman.
Clinton is just harming the party now.
What's this "now" business? Neither of the Clintons has done anything but harm the party, and American liberalism in general, over the last decade and a half. The neoliberal project they've championed has always been about taking Reaganism mainstream, and in return they lost the Democrats both houses of Congress and the presidency. It's only by the pathetically low standards of the Democratic Party that Bill Clinton was ever considered some kind of political godsend.
The neoliberal project they've championed has always been about taking Reaganism mainstream,
Not everyone shares your political disposition, stras.
In many respects I do, of course. Clinton was only able to do what he did because the party was already weak, though. Carter-Mondale-Dukakis was a depressing series.
21- It's a mistake to say Clinton is hurting the party. The party deserves exactly what it's getting. Having an election decided by non-elected delegates driven by their own ambitions?
I love being an American these days because if I vote and make a mistake, the Supreme Court or some rules committee or career politicians will correct me. No extra charge.
"Would you rather have a president who had an affair [Bill Clinton] or one who was a murderer [Obama]?" Jeannie, the Greensboro Democrat, asks a fellow in a floppy Tilley hat and Hillary buttons. "That's a good point," he replies."
Any minute now we're going to discover that Obama and Jeremiah Wright had Vince Foster offed in Mena, AR.
"Would you rather have a president who had an affair [Bill Clinton] or one who was a murderer [Obama]?" Jeannie, the Greensboro Democrat, asks a fellow in a floppy Tilley hat and Hillary buttons. "That's a good point," he replies."
Whaaaaaaaat?
The party deserves exactly what it's getting. Having an election decided by non-elected delegates driven by their own ambitions?
Oh, please. God forbid that we acknowledge in any way that there's something to be said for the judgment of people who make politics their life's work.
The murder thing does seem to be new. I'm not worried, though -- since toughness is so important, having killed someone would be a plus.
God forbid that we acknowledge in any way that there's something to be said for the judgment of people who make politics their life's work.
From their performance over the last couple of decades, I can't say that the judgment of the establishment has been shown to be particularly good, in matters of policy or politics.
29: Yeah, nor has the judgment of "the people." All I'm saying is that it's not inherently evil to have superdelegates and regular delegates, which strikes me as an attempt to inject a bit of parlimentarianism into the American nominating process.
God forbid that we acknowledge in any way that there's something to be said for the judgment of people who make politics their life's work.
What does that actually mean? "Devoted themselves to politics" would seem to be "devoted themselves to power"; I'm not sure that's a recommendation.
31 -- In an ordinary year, where the people pick the nominee early, the 'superdelegate' system is just a way to ensure that the party regulars and office holders get to go to the Wing Ding. Independent of the campaigns, which would supply all of the delegates otherwise. This is a very important part of having a party, maintaining esprit, and getting those folks bought into the candidate's run.
It's awkward that they might (will, actually) decide the thing, but that's just a necessary risk for an indispensible element of party building.
I think it's past the point where Clinton could rein in some of these people even if she showed any signs of wanting to. Good work, team.
If the choice is between thinking that Jeannie of Greensboro's claim that Obama is a shapechanging Reptilian gay-sexx0ring murderer is sincere because she's crazy or a wafer-thin rationalization of her desire to not vote for the black guy, which is the more condescending option? Because I want to get all my ducks in a row.
32: What it means is that I assume that people like me, who are reasonably educated and far more politically aware than your average American voter, are still pretty damn ignorant when it comes to the ins and outs of partisan realpolitick, and that Im willing to believe that most superdelegates are folks who, in their cynical and evil pursuit of power, tend to know more about said realpolitick than I do. And that it therefore makes sense to allot weight during a nominating process to such people, and isnt terribly unfair given that (1) there are also delegates who represent the pure, unsullied popular vote; and (2) my sense, during this process, has been that the superdelegates are by and large pretty responsive to public opinion.
Of course, this is much of a piece with my belief that teachers by and large genuinely do care about education and students, rather than merely being power-hungry petty dictators, so.
Sue me: I think that although yes, obviously power corrupts blah blah, it is also true that people generally are irrational enough that they follow their career paths out of considerations that include things like actually giving a shit about what they do.
34: "crazy" is more condescending. "paper-thin rationalization" imputes to her the brains to construct rationalizations, so.
actually giving a shit about what they do.
Right, but what's at issue is "what they do." Pointing at realpolitik doesn't convince me, because their ends are not necessarily my ends or their announced ends.
I'm fine with superdelegates, I'm fine with the rules committees. All because, as Napi suggests, you need an actual machinery for the party. And, as long as those votes are public, they can be punished.
It's only by the pathetically low standards of the Democratic Party late American slackjawed imbecility that Bill Clinton was ever considered some kind of political godsend.
Possible to punish the state parties? Strip Michigan and Florida of superdelegates. They'd be party bigwigs in their respective states, eh?
their ends are not necessarily my ends or their announced ends.
What do you mean by this? And how is this different for "them" than it is for anyone else?
I do appreciate knowing about the choirmaster at Obama's church who got killed. Without crazy Clinton supporters, I would be without that knowledge.
Obama is sort of a giant ball of scary for some folks: Muslim, foreignish, person of color, gay, radical, unpatriotic, etc. I think the only adjective we're missing at this point is "illegal immigrant."
Well, it's official on Florida: only half votes for all delegates and superdelegates.
Ickes just did a 5-minute grandstand to complain because it looks like MI is going to skew super-positive for Obama. They're currently discussing the 59-for-Obama, 69-for-Clinton seating suggested by the MI party, and pretty much everyone's making good noises about it including another Clinton supporter on the committee.
I just want this vote to be taken, it's looking good.
MOTION CARRIES! KOBE!!!
Clinton supporters are yelling "Denver, Denver, Denver", since Ickes finished his speech on the Michigan motion by saying on behalf of the Clinton campaign that they feel entitled to appeal to the Credentials Committee.
MI will have 59 pledged delegates for Obama, 69 for Clinton, every one of them with only a half vote, and the same with all of the super delegates.
Amazing for Obama, I was expected that motion to pass, but with the MI delegates voting at full strength.
I probably shouldn't start this, especially as I'm going to start dinner now, but:
Stras, could you please provide some concrete evidence that, absent the Clintons, a more liberal Democratic party was in the offing in 1992 or immediately thereafter.
I understand the liberal critique of the Clintons, I really do - I voted for Nader twice. What I don't understand is how the country that voted for Gingrich, et al. was also the America that really wanted to vote Ted Kennedy or Bernie Sanders as President.
You may have seen the opinion polling that's been making the rounds, showing that Americans of all stripes prefer Democratic policies over Republican ones - as long as you don't tell them their Dem policies? When you tell people which policies are Dem and which are Republican, people shift their preferences R-ward. IOW, even after 8 years of peace and prosperity under Clinton followed by 8 years of war and wage stagnation under Bush, people still trust Republicans more than they do Democrats. I suppose the response to this is that this is Clinton's fault, but of course the Democratic "brand" was in much, much worse shape in 1992.
All I'm saying is, America in 1992 had a very low opinion of Democrats in general. Following the Clinton presidency, they had a much higher opinion and, as we all know, wanted another Democrat to be President. I have trouble looking at those facts and thinking, "Bill Clinton is a sleeper agent on a mission to destroy the Democratic Party."
Opinions may differ.
W00T! Bernie Sanders for President!!!! WOOT!!1!!!!
And now I will bow out from this convo and do the dishes.
What ever became of the idea to hold new, party-sponsored primaries in MI and FL? Was it too expensive? I'd like to know, particularly because my (vaguely Hillary-supporting) boss said Obama's people torpedoed the idea.
Also, I'm now using an old laptop that was moldering dust for two years, and when I loaded Unfogged, it pulled up a cache with this at the top. Awesome.
My mood will pass, but at the moment it's like this: if McCain wins I'll roam the streets of Florida looking for Clinton supporters to gun down.
**Not really, Mr. Police!!**
Some of the statements I saw today were such horrible bullshitthat you have to wonder whether there's been Rovian infliltration.
The turnout in both states was huge, despite the widespread, if not universal, knowledge that the votes would likely not count.
No. Turnout in Michigan was mediocre.
Michigan's pretty much already been smacked by economic fate, but Florida still needs an extra dose of punishment. A storm of frogs might be nice.
My call: Hillary's last-ditch desperation move will be to endorse McCain unless she gets the nomination.
Sue me: I think that although yes, obviously power corrupts blah blah, it is also true that people generally are irrational enough that they follow their career paths out of considerations that include things like actually giving a shit about what they do.
Well, a lot of them care about graft and influence peddling.
which strikes me as an attempt to inject a bit of parlimentarianism into the American nominating process.
I think the idea of the super delegates arose because the DNC instituted affirmative action quotas (I don't mean this in a negative sense) for its delegations. Because even Democratic election officials were mostly white and male, many of them wouldn't get to go see the balloons fall.
I don't think that means they can't in practice serve a Parliamentary function, because positive features in governance can be accidental. But I think any such role is probably swamped by the tendency of this system to reward front runners and incumbents. The advantages of institutional support are already large, I don't think it's wise or necessary to add to them.
And how is this different for "them" than it is for anyone else?
It's different only in their relative power. Neither you nor I is an a position to get a favor for our vote; the superdelegates are. Their business is trading favors for direct or indirect personal benefit--that, it seems to me, is the realpolitik at which they are skilled--so I'm not sure why their choices would be better choices, in some global sense, than those made by you or I.
Again, I'm fine with the system, both as part of an incentive system to create the necessary bureaucracy of the party, and as a failsafe system. But beyond that, I don't see a particular benefit to the use of superdelegates.
The first paragraph of 52 seems, to me, at odds with the second paragraph of 52.
53: Because I assume that the flip side of their being in a position to get a favor is that following political ins and outs is something they do a lot more, and more closely, than you and I.
I don't know that I see a particular benefit to superds. What I'm saying is that I don't know that I see a particular downside, either.
r is that following political ins and outs is something they do a lot more, and more closely
I don't know what "political ins and outs" means. Can you give an example?
We now need to go back to the posts and threads where I predicted there would be a compromise on MI & FL, and the Obama supporters said never never all rule of law would collapse, radical evil blah blah. All I said was a compromise would be found.
Looking at the usual self-righteous bullshit motherfuckers. Story of the Obama campaign, lying disgenuous bullshit.
55: Having said that I don't think that I know as much as most of the superdelegates do, that's kind of a funny question for you to ask. But, as a hypothetical, I have no idea who might feel they're owed favors, who might feel they're not owed favors, and how those things might reasonably be expected to impact what a given candidate can or can't be expected to do.
A really gross analogy: Ron Paul and Nader voters no doubt really believe that their votes are "sending a message." Most of those here present find that kind of thing astonishingly naive.
I could link as an example, to the 14 pages or whatever of hilzoy proving Geraldine Ferraro, is & has always been completely racist, as racist as Lester Maddox or whatever, all so reasoned and calm and more sorrow than anger of course but the whole blogosphere makes me want to throw up.
Bloggers choose what to post, If you don't want the Obama campaign to be about race, then don't post about race. He has plenty of other positives. If you do want race to be the central issue of the campaign, then focus on it. But don't say it's the racists making the campaign about race. Obama isn't doing that.
Or abandon integrity and do what you gotta do. I no longer give a shit.
I don't give a shit if you give a shit.
57: That seems tantamount to saying, "There must be some benefit that I just don't know about." And we have at least one indication about the nature of the favors: as I recall, Bill Clinton bitched that Richardson's vote should have belonged to Hillary Clinton as Bill appointed Richardson to a series of jobs.
58:no fuck you. Anf fuck Yglesias and hilzoy and Katherine and Klein and all who said no compromise on MI & FL would ever be acceptable.
I didn't lie. Y'all did.
"McCain in '08! McCain in '08!" a woman yelled from the back of the room. "No-bama! No-bama!"
Niiiiiice.
59: Bob, for once I'm going to say "fuck off." I won't accept it when people say "if you don't want sexism to matter, then don't talk about it," and what you're saying is essentially the same thing. Racism does matter. Noticing it /= wishing it so. And Ferrarro's remarks really are completely inexcusable.
61: And Richardson didn't do what Clinton wanted him to do.
It might be tatamount to saying that. Napi's comment, above, gave what seems a reasonably good explanation for *why* it's done the way it is. IMO, that's also a reasonably good explanation for why doing it that way is beneficial. What I'm saying is that I don't see any real evidence that superdelegates have disenfranchised The People, beyond people worrying about the possibility; indeed, I'm rather surprised that things seem, after all, to be turning out rather well.
60: Emerson doesn't give a meta-shit.
And Richardson didn't do what Clinton wanted him to do.
That's the only reason we know the terms; deals that work don't get publicized.
I think we're arguing about nothing, really. I signed on to Napi's explanation in #37, and said I'm fine with the system as long as the votes are public.
I repeat: Samantha Power was right.
65: Given what little I know about Emerson's age and diet (lots of beer?), I kind of doubt that.
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OMG, if ever a video was comity-inducing, it was this one.
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Bob, if I recall correctly, what most of those people were saying was that no compromise on MI and FL would be enacted if it stripped Obama of the pledged delegate lead and gave it to Clinton. That's a far cry from just a simple compromise which allows them to be seated, but still leaves the delegations as unimportant cherry-toppers. You note that most people stopped saying it would be a big deal once Obama had enough of a lead to render the seating pretty irrelevant, as then any compromise would not be tantamount to stripping Obama of the lead on the back of two extremely illegitimate elections.
63:Tell ya what, b, if y'all need to go off for a week and 10k words every time some irrelevant idiot says something offensive, you will have ample opportunity. And then tell me they are the ones setting the agenda and forcing you to talk about racism. Of course,you would rather talk about issues and policy, but damn it some steelworker in Youngstown just determined the dialogue.
Which is part of what Ferraro was saying.
I could have, and would rather have ignored her. She doesn't move dozens of delegates or thousands of votes. Who cares what Ferraro says? You do, because you think you can gain political advantage by focusing on her.
You may be horribly mistaken.
71: OMG cuton bomb! Plus you have to give props to the headline writer: "Baby leopard spotted in house"? Of course it was!
73: Bullshit. I ain't linking to all of the "rules are rules" and "MI made its decision and must suffer for it" and "ANARCHY" posts, because well, I know it won't matter, and like the history is being rewritten as we speak.
Like your comment, everybody will soon be saying a fair compromise is what they wanted all along, and always said so to the careful readers. Such is the reality-based community.
Who cares what Ferraro says? You do, because you think you can gain political advantage by focusing on her.
I do, because I worked on her campaign when I was a girl and she was kind of a feminist big deal. Much the same reason I care about Clinton.
And if you want people like Hilzoy to ignore Ferraro, you should expect Ferraro to ignore the steelworkers in Youngstown you think she was talking about. Me, I think she was just venting some grapes that had gone sour because she steeped 'em in a big vat of racist b.s.
Bob, basically when it was figured out that Clinton couldn't win anyway, people cut a face-saving deal. MI and FL got something, but not everything. While anything was at stake, the Obama people fought for every ditch, same as the Clinton people.
Clinton only had 55% and 60% in MI and FL, even under the most favorable circumstances, and if the election were replayed she'd probably do worse the second time.
I also don't understand your intense preference for one of the two minimally-OK candidates of the other. It doesn't fit with your generally apocalyptic view, within which neither one of them can be worth a hill of beans. I'm in damage-control lesser-evil mode, and for me Obama is unquestionably better, but not really all that good.
I like the "see also":
# Leopard rescued from well
# Giant snake found in house
Presumably the archives also include Giant snake found in well; Well discovered in house; Giant snake rescued from leopard; and Leopard rescued from giant snake.
76: I see Emerson has already addressed this to some extent, but the point is that "rules are rules" and "MI will suffer for it" under this compromise. That's why it's acceptable. If any compromise had been reached that allowed those horrendous elections to be relevant, I'd still be pissed.
Now that the delegations are beyond relevance, I'm fine with a face-saving compromise that allows a handful of Florida and Michigan delegates to show up at the convention.
I wonder if this means that our long party nightmare is over. The two will break even on the remaining primaries, or nearly, and after that HC will need about ?4/5? of the remaining supers, and she'll be very lucky to get half.
79: You missed both "Giant baby found snake-leopard" and "Baby well rescued from house giant".
I don't understand the four votes that they were still fighting over. They wouldn't have changed anything, and Obama should have just given them.
"Mouse-killer? Look at those innocent blue eyes! Are those the eyes of a mouse-killer?"
Tell ya what, b, if y'all need to go off for a week and 10k words every time some irrelevant idiot former nominee for VP says something offensive in a major news outlet...
No problem with superdelegates generally; I do wish it were more publicized, because I get the sense that The Man on The Street, along with maybe the Clinton campaign, had the sense that it runs exactly like the general. E.g., if in every primary we never announced a winner until the convention, or we'd heard about them every cycle as much as we heard about them after Clinton didn't actually win the nomination on Super Tuesday and all of a sudden WV became the bellwether state. Because it would have been hard to avoid the perception, had it come to that, that they were invoking some special rules to determine the winner.
In short, more civics in 8th grade, taught properly.
64: And Richardson didn't do what Clinton wanted him to do.
That's because Richardson is all about "what will you do for me tomorrow?" and not about "what did you do for me yesterday?"
78:Jesus John how many times do I have to say it? What, you think I'm a fan of Penn or Carvelle or Emmanuel?
Now everybody is calming down and accepting the compromise (and revising history at 90 mph) but I took a lot of hate and abuse back when I suggested a compromise was likely.
And it fucking alienated me from Obama, because his supporters didn't seem to care about what they did to get him the nomination, nor care about the truth, not care about who they abused, how or why.
Obama fosters hate & haters, dissemblers and dividers while talking comity, magnanimity, and peace. I think this is intentional, a plan.
The weird thing is that the present system is about as directly democratic as any Presidential candidate selection process has ever been, and the Democratic Party is on track to have either its first woman or its first black Presidential candidate, but the lesson a lot of people will take home is that the party is undemocratic and anti-woman.
I don't especially blame Hillary, the same dynamic would be at work if a back-room deal seemed to have knocked out Obama. So much for being the nice guy.
88:She wasn't important then, and a symbolic choice in a totally hopeless election. And a bad scandal-ridden candidate, as it turned out. There are many more interesting and important political women, Pat Schroeder for instance.
No, I don't care about anything Dan Quayle would have to say, either. Ferraro's nobody.
What did I mean by that? The Democrats are always safer running a white guy like me. A Protestant white guy, so that the candidate's bishop can't try to screw him the way some dumb fuck in Boston tried to screw Kerry.
I'm enjoying the first entry of Ambinder's play by play over at the Atlantic.
A woman, dressed in a pink pants suit, parks herself in one of the press filing rooms and refuses to leave. Security hired by the hotel is called. They surrounded the woman; a 20 minute, unproductive discussion ensues. The woman claims she was escorted into the press room by a DNC official; the official, conveniently enough, cannot be found. The woman stood up and immediately fell to the ground, laying prostrate in protest.
There are many more interesting and important political women, Pat Schroeder for instance.
Maybe to you, but the reality is that Ferraro is a prominent figure in the Clinton campaign with media access.
Fine, but Ferraro was with the Clinton campaign until she was forced off it, she had an iconic importance to a Democratic demographic you and I don't belong to, and she got an op-ed in a major newspaper. Pretending she's not there would have been BS, and what she said was BS. For me she went from obscurity to lifetime banishment in one fell swoop.
Yggles has said all along that the best way for MI and FL to get all their delegates seated is for HRC to drop out. Once their votes won't determine the outcome, they can have as many as they like.
Yggles has said all along that the best way for MI and FL to get all their delegates seated is for HRC to drop out
All along? Like back in March & April when the nomination was still in question? I am trying unsucessfully to get his damn archives to open. Active-X and pop-up problems.
But "all along" is what I meant by history being rewritten.
Bob, I'm totally confused about your point. That people were mean to you because you called for compromise about MI and FL? That seems entirely possible to me. People have been mean to you about many things during the primary. Often, in my view, for good reason. In this case, though, I don't recall the context. So, how about showing us the comment in which you called for a compromise, because I'd like to know the details you had in mind. As someone said upthread, the devil has always been in the details. Had the Lanny Davis compromise won out today, I assure you that plenty of Obama supporters would be fighting mad. But instead, it's a compromise that works for Obama, which is why his partisans aren't upset. So again, what, exactly, are you saying? And what were you saying before?
It's okay. Bob's confused about his point as well.
Lanny Davis, Geraldine Ferraro, Terry McAuliffe, Howard w-lfs-n, Harold Ickes, Mark Penn -- I'm looking forward to the pig farm endgame of the Clinton campaign.
I'm still waiting until the end of the first week in June, Emerson. If the Clinton camp hasn't begun offering full-throated support for Obama at that time, everyone should invest in hog futures. Honestly, Ickes's performance today was unacceptable. I'm really, really pissed. But, like I said, I'm giving them another week to make nice. Then I'm going to hold my breath, stomp my feet, and maybe break some of my toys. Or something.
w-lfs-n hasn't done anything memorably bad, but the rest of them have.
I envisage them standing on the sidewalk in from of the 2012 Democratic Convention, hoping to buy a ticket from a scalper.
Also, I walked and ran around in the sun all day today. And I just had my second beer. So I'm about as drunk as I've been in a decade. I've sent Ogged six text messages, including a poem or two, but haven't heard back from. I hope he likes the macramé I'm shipping him. I really do.
Erm..... I have two beers on my non-drinking days. Wobegon culture is strange to many.
The first paragraph of 52 seems, to me, at odds with the second paragraph of 52.
The first paragraph was denying your claim on a narrow basis, the second paragraph on a larger one. Long and potentially tedious explanation:
My point in the 1st graph:
1. DNC decides it would be good for the delegations to match the diversity of its constituency.
2. Party elders realize, oh shit, it's going to be tough having all the party elders go to the convention as delegates without messing with the diversity goals we set.
3. The position of super delegate is created to solve this problem by having none of them as regular delegates.
Conclusion: It is not the case that the creation of the super delegates was "an attempt to inject a bit of parliamentarianism."
My point in the 2nd graph:
1. Even if the creation of the super delegates was not "an attempt" at parliamentarianism, which is to say intentionally aimed at that result, it could still have had that effect and be worthwhile.
1.a. Innovations in institutions can be valuable to us, even if we don't value the goals for which they were introduced.
1.a.i Attempt to increase the relative power of English barons → Magna Carta (constitutionalism)
1.a.ii Attempt to let party leaders become delegates while preserving diversity → Super delegates (parliamentarianism?)
2. The costs of increasing parliamentarianism in this way (hurting insurgents, fostering patronage) outweigh its potential benefits (expertise and experience).
Conclusion: The creation of the supers was not intended to inject parliamentarianism, even if it did so, its not worthwhile to do it in this way.
(Sorry to jump up thread and, you know, run on so.)
w-lfs-n hasn't done anything memorably bad, but the rest of them have.
To be inscribed on my tombstone.
You'll at least have a tombstone, w-lfs-n. Not just a bunch of juicy hams and pork roasts and bacon.
I'm not sure I reallt understand what parliamentarianism is supposed to mean here.
To 52/111, I'll add that it's not just diversity. There's also the whole insurgent/dfh issue. No matter how you get there, as the candidate, you're going to want state, local, and union officials using their various machinery and capabilities on your behalf. Even if you beat their favored candidate in the primary. Invite them to the convention, wine and dine them, put them on the platform committee, have them do demonstrations from the floor, and hang out with them generally.
Wine and dine them....
With nice juicy flavorful ham.
I'm trying to think of a kosher anthropophage. Is bear meat kosher?
I don't think any carnivore is kosher. Or at least any carnivorous mammal. Maybe some kind of fish?
more civics in 8th grade, taught properly.
Amen to this.
I've sent Ogged six text messages, including a poem or two
I have two beers on my non-drinking days. Wobegon culture is strange to many.
I send Ogged half a dozen text messages on *my* non-drinking days.
114
I took it in the sense of the party organization itself, rather than voters who choose to vote in its primaries, choosing its leader. In other words, a little bit more like the British system. Also in the sense of deciding through debate, compromise, and persuasion among a group small enough that it can be said to meaningfully deliberate.
Piranhas are kosher. Barracudas are kosher.
Properly is important. I worry when I read stuff like this. Although it's heartening that a high school student took the time to write it.
103:Ari, of course you are confused. You didn't follow the link in 102
Meanwhile, what Josh said about Hillary Clinton's efforts to change the rules of the primary midstream. ...MY
Following the link to Marshall:
But all these particulars are secondary to the principle, which is that you don't change the rules in midstream to favor one candidate or another. ...Josh M
"Mean to me" isn't the point. The constant claims of justified moral outrage on the part of Obama supporters, of claiming that for instance MI & Fl were matters of moral principle with good people & bad people on either side of the discussion, has been how this campaign has been waged, and with the Ferraro bashing, is still being waged today.
I will vote for him, but I am being made to feel a moral reprobate for not being an uncritical enthusiast. I am very far from the only one who feels this way about the Obama campaign. Keep calling me "racist" and "a paranoid idiot" and I may become even less enthusiastic.
And the MI & Fl compromise shows that it was all tactical bullshit. Principles and moral positions are being used with concious cynicism. Moral principles and ethical considerations are of course laudatory. Using them as weapons against your own not so cool.
If MI and Fl were really matters of principle, I understand Bob Barr is running.
Flesh-eating plants are probably kosher.
Jesus, Bob, we've been down to two candidates for quite awhile and both of them have been using the moral outrage, Hillary's side more than Obama's. It's all normal-range political BS.
Granted that beggars can't be choosers, the only important thing is that whoever is nominated be supported. I said that when Hillary was still in the race, too.
Iy would take forever to feed Rove to a pitcher plant. Even a warehouse full of pitcher plants.
I followed the link, Bob. But I didn't have to. Because I remember the original post. So, do you appear somewhere in the 160 comments? If so, let me know where. I'm curious to read the particulars of the compromise that you were floating. Otherwise, bitching about how people were mean to you just doesn't mean very much in the context of the trollathon that you've been running since Iowa.
but I am being made to feel a moral reprobate for not being an uncritical enthusiast.
No, you're being made to feel like a moral reprobate for calling Obama a wife beater, which you divined from the fact that he put his hand on Clinton's arm. I'm entirely willing to believe that in your household "wife beater" isn't considered a major lapse, but for the rest of us, it's a gigantic sin.
I originally read "trollathon" as "triathlon" which got me thinking: what would be a triathlon of trolling?
1. ad hominem
2. concern trolling
3. grasping at straw men*
*A spin-off competition is the World's Strawest Man
I am very far from the only one who feels this way about the Obama campaign. Keep calling me "racist" and "a paranoid idiot" and I may become even less enthusiastic.
I'm inclined to agree with this, as a general statement about the post-primary season.
132: Yup, if Clinton partisans demonstrate in the coming weeks that they're ready to support the party's presumptive nominee, it's time to let bygones be bygones. Otherwise, I'm with Emerson. Important caveat: people like Gerry Ferraro, and others who have have expressed similar sentiments, are off my Hannukah card list/should be drummed out of the party.
follow-up to the post linked from the post bob linked
should be drummed out of the party.
What sentiments are those?
See that's the difference. The Clinton campaign in part was about putting a woman in the White House. The Obama campaign is about slapping down the racists. Which is why we get the racist-of-the-day posts, instead of positive posts about black leadership, for instance. I had to do my own research on Michelle Obama's admirable career.
Just as the Obama campaign isn't about ending the war, which may or not happen, but about punishing the warmongers.
It is at its core a revenge, ressentiment hateful campaign.
136 -- I'm not sure, bob, whether it's you or me who belongs over in that drug thread, because we're certainly living in alternate realities.
136 was by Bill Clinton. Obama played the race card on him.
What sentiments are those?
Read the full comment, not just the fragment that you've chosen to quote out of context. Then, perhaps, you'll understand what I mean. Or don't. Honestly, I made the mistake of thinking that you might have something interesting to say tonight -- I thought perhaps that your bitching about a compromise for MI/FL would amount to something. Shame on me.
"It is at its core a revenge, ressentiment hateful campaign."
Huh, that didn't work. Let's try that again:
"It is at its core a revenge, ressentiment hateful campaign."
Ogged's theory is sounding more and more attractive by the day. Perhaps this is the real identity of bob mcmanus. Or maybe he's this guy. Regardless, I salute him.
136 -- I'm not sure, bob, whether it's you or me who belongs over in that drug thread, because we're certainly living in alternate realities.
You know what, you're right. Shut this here shit down, turned on the cable, and got in on the start of Talk to Me with Don Cheadle as Petey Greene. Feels like like fucking home.
Granted that beggarsbloggers can't be choosers,
Stras, could you please provide some concrete evidence that, absent the Clintons, a more liberal Democratic party was in the offing in 1992 or immediately thereafter.
This thread is dead, but I'll respond anyway. Bill Clinton's time in office was filled with a host of right-wing legislation there was no political need for Clinton to support, from welfare reform (Clinton was already crushing Dole in the polls when he signed it in '96) to corporate deregulation to AEDPA to DOMA to NAFTA. Most of this stuff either passed at a time when Clinton was either already fairly popular, got little coverage in its particulars, or like NAFTA were actually actively unpopular. These weren't right-wing panders in the traditional sense; these were shifts to the right motivated by an ideology that believed that moving rightward was the right thing to do.
Bill Clinton didn't gain in popularity from selling out to the right; he gained in popularity because the economy picked up. But he held to a political ideology that maintained that gutting habeas rights, slashing welfare benefits and curtailing civil liberties for gay Americans were necessarily smart political moves, regardless of the history, the context or the evidence. We've seen the same instinct within post-Clinton Democrats time and again when it comes to Iraq and civil liberties: a desire, even an eagerness, to sell out as quickly as possible to the right wing, even when, as in 2002, there's nothing to gain.
You ask me how, absent the Clintons, a more liberal Democratic Party was in the offing. That's the wrong question. The right question was, why were the Clintons as conservative as they were? And the truth is it wasn't the fault of a GOP congress or mere political necessity. It was political ideology, a conviction that absent all evidence, that the Democratic Party's problem wasn't the extremists on the Reaganite right but the moderates on the liberal left. And so we got a decade of Democrats tearing down liberal institutions and, surprise surprise, weakening their party in the process.
That Lanny Davis proposal is insane, particularly the basis for it -- "Obama wasn't enthusiastic enough about a revote, so he should be punished." It wasn't Obama's decision! It was the decision of the parties in the individual states. Both chose not to do a revote. The decision to strip delegates wasn't intended to punish either Clinton or Obama, but the states, and the states should be disadvantaged for not having taken corrective action -- which in fact the existing compromise does.
His reasoning seems eerily like that of Bush v. Gore.
It wasn't Obama's decision! It was the decision of the parties in the individual states. Both chose not to do a revote.
I think it's more complicated than that. Obama's side objected to some plans that were suggested by the Clinton side.