Green Tea Redux
Sometimes it feels more like Hillary is pushing for a McCain/Clinton “dream ticket”. Like the way she so eagerly pushes the “Democrats are liberal elitists” meme :
I’m so ready for this stupid primary to be over.
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It feels like this is the way the nomination should be, and I’m glad Hillary hasn’t caved. As she correctly asserts, the meme that she can’t get enough delegates to gain the nomination is also true for Obama. Allowing the primary season to play out, yielding a battle-tested candidate, just seem right. The only thing I wish is that the primary voting hadn’t gotten so frontloaded. I think that the more time there is between primaries, the less there is to talk about, the more likely debate is going to degenerate into some of the more nonsensical things that have happened so far.
Comment by Earnest — April 12, 2008 @ 4:13 pm
Not quite. It’s not just that she can’t gain the nomination without getting enough delegates, but that she doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of beating Obama in pledged delegates or the popular vote. So the difference for the superdelegates isn’t between two candidates who haven’t quite passed the post but between the candidate who’s garnered more support and the one who hasn’t. Honestly, if Clinton somehow beats Obama in the number of delegates and the popular vote without resorting to the petty, kamikaze-style politics that have pretty much destroyed any respect I had for her, then I’d be equally insistent that superdelegates should choose her. But that ain’t gonna happen…
One thing that I hear a lot from Clinton supporters (not that I’m necessarily assuming you are one), is this line about the primary giving us a “battle-tested candidate”, but this goes both ways. Clinton isn’t just a sparring partner whose role is to make sure Obama is ready to face the GOP slime machine. In throwing her punches, she’s doing everything she can to discredit the almost-certain nominee of the party, which, given that her path to the nomination is almost mathematically impossible, offends a lot of Democrats who wish she’d put the interests of the party over her own political ambitions.
Moreover, Clinton’s campaign style has shown weaknesses that make her far from battle-tested. Through all of her attempts to paint herself as the candidate of “experience”, she’s revealed herself to be incredibly dishonest. She lied to voters in Iowa and New Hampshire about the primary calendar, she lied to voters in Ohio about NAFTA, and she lied to everyone about her experience in Tuzla and Northern Ireland. So with her running in another blue-collar primary state in which trade issues are paramount, it’s awfully odd that her husband and chief strategist have conflicts of interest in a trade deal that she supposedly opposes. Is she telling the truth this time or is her opposition to the Columbia trade deal just another politically-motivated lie?
Comment by greg — April 12, 2008 @ 11:33 pm
It took me until this year to finally make my peace with the Clintons’ lies. On the other hand, I think most Democrats made their peace with the Clintons and their lies a long time ago. You’re right that the campaign has shown Hillary’s problem with the truth to be a liability for her. If that problem costs her votes in the remaining primaries and superdelegates at the convention, then that just shows the strength of the process–and the ultimate weakness of the candidate. So far the process has shown the candidates to be near equals.
On the Superdelegates… What’s the point of even having superdelegates if their votes are just supposed to ceremonially mirror the results of the regular primaries?
Comment by Earnest — April 13, 2008 @ 11:56 am
Personally, I think the whole notion of a “superdelegate” is elitist and anti-democratic, so while it’s perfectly legitimate according to the DNC rules for superdelegates to disregard the choice of voters and select another candidate, doing so would alienate people from the party and pretty much destroy much of the enthusiasm the Democrats have going into November. Since superdelegates are supposed to use their best judgment to choose the candidate who’s best for the party, I think they’d be fools to pick the person who raises less money, gets less votes, and brings fewer new voters to thee polls.
Comment by greg — April 14, 2008 @ 11:09 am
You might know that I am a HUGE Obama supporter. But even I am starting to think that they should just get it over and done with. I am running out of things to write.
Comment by Angry African — April 15, 2008 @ 3:50 am
Primary. Election. Life in these United States. All of these are things I can’t wait to be over. If this is what we’ve done with our freedom, fuck us. Somebody else deserves it more.
Comment by Dr. Pants — April 15, 2008 @ 7:46 am