No, I Don’t Hate Democracy
This morning, I was all set to link to a post over at The Carpetbagger Report, noting that Hillary Clinton’s campaign has taken the high road lately and that Obama supporters would be better off chilling out and letting Hillary step aside on her own terms. Then I saw that Clinton compared her cynical and self-serving crusade to get the Florida and Michigan votes counted to the struggles of the civil rights era and I remember why I’ve found her campaign so damned infuriating.
It’s stunning to me that Hillary Clinton supporters would have the audacity to claim that the popular vote is a metric that we should be using to determine who should get the Democratic nomination while at the same time insisting that Obama shouldn’t receive a single vote for Michigan. I’m ambivalent about whether or how the MI and FL delegates should be seated, but if you’re going to hold yourself up as a champion of voting rights and insist that the popular vote is a more legitimate way to gauge voter intent, then it’s pretty craven to chase a strategy whose only purpose is to cut into Obama’s lead with the implicit conclusion that not a single person in Michigan supports Barack OBama.
But, you might argue, Obama chose to take his name off the ballot and therefore his lack of support is just the result of his own choices. Well, if we’re going to follow the rules to the letter and punish candidates for their choices, then it bears repeating that the rules state that Michigan and Florida don’t count and that the Clinton campaign made the choice to agree to the DNC sanctions against these states. If you’re only going to recognize the rules that help Hillary Clinton win, just drop the self-righteous bullshit about your sterling commitment to democracy and be honest enough to admit that you’re only interested in Florida and Michigan because you think Clinton is a better candidate.
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and all of the other Democratic candidates competed under the same rules and Clinton lost. Now she’s trying to work the refs and is trying to change any rules that might keep her from winning. That’s understandable, but when you wrap your attempts to move the goalposts in a veneer of moral superiority and question the values of your opponents (specifically, questioning whether or not Obama supporters believe in voting rights), don’t be surprised if you piss a lot of people off.
So for all the talk about how much work the Obama campaign has ahead of itself trying to court alienated Clinton supporters, it’s worth pointing out the alienation works both ways.
9 comments »
Copy link for RSS feed for comments on this post or for TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Amen. I have been led to believe lately that my vote, as a white male, for Obama was the result of my sexist views or the sexist views of the media that were forced upon me. Gee, how did I miss that? Forget, of course, that I only reluctantly voted for Obama and even argued with his volunteers (I apologize) suggesting that I might vote Green because he was too flaky in my opinion regarding various issues (AIPAC, vague on non-tax economic policy, etc.). Forget of course that I refused to vote for someone who favored war with Iraq, and championed it right up until, sometime in 2007, it seemed that it just MIGHT be a political liability. I have no doubt that Hillary will make most every effort she can to ensure the Democrats lose this year UNLESS she is given what was always supposed to be hers. But yeah, I’m a sexist shitbag because I didn’t pick Hillary. Whatever.
Comment by frazamatazzle — May 21, 2008 @ 6:42 pm
Except that Clinton doesn’t want to court your vote. She just expect you to vote for her because you’ll have no other choice except John McCain (and maybe Bob Barr).
Comment by darrelplant — May 21, 2008 @ 8:01 pm
THE INTERNET IS THE NEW THIRD PARTY AND THE BLOGOSPHERE IS ITS POLITBUREAU, there literaly millnios of people on the net each day, SURELY YOU can find one whom YOU could respect, feel better about voting for, be happier with in office, than THESE three.
Comment by Mike Meyer — May 22, 2008 @ 6:07 am
could be millions
Comment by Mike Meyer — May 22, 2008 @ 6:10 am
I agree that it’s ludicrous to give Obama a total of zero Michigan votes.
That aside, you’re only ambivalent about seating the delegates from MI and FL because you support Obama. No, I’m not lame enough to accuse you or anyone else of “hating democracy,” but I won’t go so far as to say that you love it, either.
There’s tons of discussion and noise about this very issue and you know what the BEST way to make it all go away is? For Barack Obama to say “screw it, count all the votes and seat all the delegates.” He should have enough confidence in the lead he’s amassed thus far to do that. The fact that he doesn’t probably leaves a foul taste in the mouths of many. Just as HRC supporters piss you off, realize that you piss off a lot of them. This goes both ways.
Plus, for a guy who’s on record for championing the whole notion of voting and for promoting the rights of voters, talking about “the rules” looks a little silly. Not immoral, not corrupt, not deranged–just a bit odd.
In the meantime, I’m going to reflect on the conversation I had with a staunch BHO supporter who couldn’t name anything that he’s done and how he’ll change the world simply by being idealistic, and especially how she didn’t know his middle name was Hussein.
Fortunately, I don’t assume that this individual represents most of Obama’s camp.
Comment by Brad Gutting — May 22, 2008 @ 8:52 am
Are two contests in which neither candidate participated in any way reliable indicators of the voters preference? How many Clinton or Obama supporters stayed home on election day in MI or FL because they were told that their state’s results wouldn’t count? An uncontested primary that nobody agreed would have any meaning is hardly an accurate measurement of voter intent, yet those are the results that the Clintons are fighting to have validated. If Hillary Clinton and her supporters truly cared about the disenfranchisement of the people of MI and FL, she would have said something about it before voters went to the polls. That she only cared about the civil rights era-ish struggles of these voters after she won these contests just cements the impression many have that the Clintons are hypocrites who will say or do anything to get elected.
Actually, the best way would be for the Michigan and Florida state parties to come up with delegate-apportionment plans that would accurately reflect the will of the voters, yet Clinton rejected the plan to hold re-votes in FL and Mi and she opposed the Michigan Democratic Party’s plan to seat delegates that would include pledging “uncommitted” voters to Obama.
Ahhh…such a class act.
Comment by greg — May 22, 2008 @ 9:34 am
[...] I truly believe in and that is fairness. You may not like the rules, but once you agree to them, you play by them. Hillary Clinton can’t even manage to do someting as simple as [...]
Pingback by Outrage Against Clinton Continues - Liberal Values - Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought — May 22, 2008 @ 4:32 pm
The Clintons are looking more and more like the Bushes, for the following reasons:
They think the White House is a family entitlement, and will do anything to win it.
They like to create their own little realities.
(Remember how Bill Clinton tried to lawyer his way around the Lewinsky scandal, instead of either owning up to it or saying it was nobody’s goddamned business? Did he honestly think the court of public opinion was going to let him off the hook?)
Comment by Doobie — May 22, 2008 @ 10:46 pm
That is shocking! How could she be so ignorant as to miss an important policy position like that? Of course, let’s be fair now. There’s a lot of ignorance on both sides. Many Clinton supporters seem to be unaware that Hilary Clinton is a secret lesbian who had Vince Foster killed.
Comment by Autumnal Harvest — May 30, 2008 @ 8:50 am