Barack Obama Elected President!

[Wales2004]

http://thenewshole.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2...21/1050995.aspx

5. Campaign and Suffering: As John Brown led the raid on Harpers Ferry... As Elizabeth Cady Stanton read the Declaration of Sentiments at Seneca Falls... As Martin Luther King led marchers to the County Courthouse in Selma... So, too... in our fifth story on the Countdown... did Hillary Rodham Clinton today rally to the cause of the 10,000 elderly residents of Century Village in Boca Raton, Florida. Hey! All that is Senator Clinton's analogy -- not mine.

http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&brand=...:-1:ind:1:ff:8A

The above link goes to the video page/ The Clinton countdown dip is the last one in the second row.

[Roman]

I saw that. He needed to lay into her. The nerve......

The Clinton camp's idea of fairness.....

From MSNBC:

From NBC/NJ’s Mike Memoli

On a conference call this morning, Clinton senior adviser Harold Ickes argued not only that Michigan’s and Florida’s delegations should receive full votes at the convention, but that the Michigan's 55 uncommitted delegates should be seated as such, not given to the Obama camp.

“The views of the voters in the Michigan primary and in the Florida primary [should] be respected and be reflected in terms of the allocation of delegates,” Ickes said. (For the numbers, if Clinton were awarded the delegates based on the results of the primary, she would get 73 delegates. Neither of the challenges to be taken up by the Rules and Bylaws Committee on May 31 call for splits adhere strictly to the results of the primaries.)

Communications Director Howard Wolfson later acknowledged that these uncommitted delegates would likely go for Obama, and that there were efforts from his supporters in the state to drive up the uncommitted count, since he wasn't on the ballot. But Ickes then added that it would be “presumptuous” to assume that these uncommitteds would go for either candidate, and that these delegates would “get a lot of attention” from both campaigns.

The Clinton camp has argued consistently for months now that Michigan and Florida should be seated. But to what degree has varied of late. Terry McAuliffe told NBC’s Tim Russert on Meet the Press May 11 that the campaign “certainly might” accept giving Michigan and Florida half votes, which he claimed DNC rules called for. As DNC chairman, McAuliffe wrote about threatening to strip Michigan of 50% of its delegates if it moved up its date. Bill Clinton has also called a 50% penalty “appropriate.”

Ickes today said Michigan and Florida should be seated fully because, in his view, they have already been punished.

“The fact is that punishment was imposed by virtue of not running the primaries there; the lessons were learned,” he said, adding that the attention should now turn toward winning the states in the fall.

Asked why then the votes should count if there weren’t traditional, contested primaries, Ickes pointed to significant turnout in both states.

“People came out in droves,” he said. “They knew who they wanted to vote for.”

Both Ickes and Wolfson declined to say what would happen if the Rules and Bylaws Committee ruled for anything less than a full commitment, but did not rule out taking it to the Credentials Committee at the convention. Ickes sits on the committee and last year voted to strip Florida of its delegates.

Wolfson also continued to press the campaign’s electability argument, pointing to new Quinnipiac numbers in Ohio and Florida specifically that show her running stronger against McCain than Obama.

“We urge superdelegates to look at the map that we believe makes very clear that Sen. Clinton would be the stronger nominee against John McCain,” he said. “We believe the party ought to choose the person who is already winning these [swing] states, has won them in primaries, and would be the strongest possible nominee.”

[Roman]

From Crooks & Liars:

Conyers Subpoenas Karl Rove

(Washington, DC)- Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) issued a subpoena to former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove for testimony about the politicization of the Department of Justice (DOJ), including former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman’s case. Yesterday, Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, sent a letter to the Committee expressing that Rove would not agree to testify voluntarily, per the Committee’s previous requests.

“It is unfortunate that Mr. Rove has failed to cooperate with our requests,” Conyers said. “Although he does not seem the least bit hesitant to discuss these very issues weekly on cable television and in the print news media, Mr. Rove and his attorney have apparently concluded that a public hearing room would not be appropriate. Unfortunately, I have no choice today but to compel his testimony on these very important matters.”

Separately, Chairman Conyers recently received a letter from DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) indicating that the office has opened an investigation into allegations of selective prosecution of Siegelman and others.

[Roman]

(CNN) – New York Gov. David Patterson, a supporter of Hillary Clinton's White House bid, said Friday the New York senator is showing signs of "desperation" in her continued push to get the full delegations of Michigan and Florida seated.

"I would say at this point we're starting to see a little desperation on the part of the woman who I support and I'll support until whatever time she makes a different determination," Paterson told New York radio station WAMC, according to the New York Daily News. "I thought she was the best candidate and I thought she had the best chance of winning."

The comments come a day after Clinton delivered a fiery speech in Florida demanding that that state's delegation, as well as Michigan's, be fully seated at the party's convention in August. The party stripped both states of their delegations last year after the state legislatures there voted to hold their primaries before February 5.

Clinton won both states' primaries, though Barack Obama removed his name from the ballot in Michigan. Clinton uses popular vote totals from both Florida in Michigan in her claim that she is beating the Illinois senator in the overall popular vote.

“I have heard some say counting Florida and Michigan would be changing the rules,” she said at a rally in Boca Raton. “I say not that not counting Florida and Michigan is changing a central governing rule of this country, that whenever we can understand the clear intent of the voters, their vote should be counted.”

Patterson, a Democratic superdelegate, said he disagreed with the party's initial decision to penalize the states, but added he thought the party should now "leave it where it is."

He also noted none of the presidential candidates — including Hillary Clinton — objected to the penalty when it was imposed last year.

[DevotedToAMC]

The media has talked about Hillary supporters going to McCain if she is not on the ticket...it was on CNN

[Roman]

I don't think they can. They let her get away with this and call the shots even though she's losing that giving it to her now would destroy the party.

But, if that's what they want to do, so be it. They will pay for it in November......and then it will be real interesting to hear where the blame is placed then.

[Roman]

From Yahoo News:

Analysis: Party insider Clinton now on the outs

By DEVLIN BARRETT – 5 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — After more than a decade as the ultimate Democratic Party insider, Hillary Rodham Clinton finds herself in a strange place: on the outside looking in, beseeching party leaders to help keep her White House bid alive.

In campaign appearances through south Florida, Clinton called out her own party's leadership, urging them to restore national convention delegates to Florida and Michigan. These delegates were stripped from the two states for jumping ahead in the line of primaries in violation of party rules that all the candidates, including Clinton, agreed to before she won the two January contests.

"We're asking the Democratic National Committee to make sure they count all of your votes," she said at a Miami rally Wednesday night.

In years past, the Clintons didn't have to ask the DNC for anything; they just told the committee what to do.

Her husband, after all, was the president. She worked in the White House. Her current campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, is an old Clinton friend and fundraiser who once ran the DNC.

Now, her campaign is pushing party leaders to fully count the delegates for the two disputed states, even though none of the candidates campaigned in the two states because of the rules violation and Obama even had his name taken off the Michigan ballot. Seating both groups in the way most favorable to her would still leave her trailing Barack Obama in the delegate count.

With every step Obama takes closer to the nomination, Clinton fades a little farther from the spotlight.

Seeking to reverse that, she has embraced the rhetoric of an outsider, calling for Florida and Michigan delegates to be counted, not for her sake she says, but for democracy. Her spokesman Howard Wolfson claimed Thursday that what's at stake is the "bedrock principle" of free government.

Clinton repeatedly compared the current situation of unseated delegates to the 2000 recount in Florida which was ended by the Supreme Court, giving George W. Bush the presidency.

"It is time for the Democratic Party to honor one of our core values, namely that we are the party that supports democracy," Clinton said.

William Daley, who chaired Gore's 2000 campaign and now is a top adviser to Obama, said Clinton's comparison doesn't make sense.

"I just don't get it. There's no analogy whatsoever here, zero," Daley said. "I think when you start making extreme statements like that, one's credibility isn't enhanced, it's lessened."

Daley said every politician likes to assume the role of the outsider, but in Clinton's case, it just doesn't fit well.

Bill and Hillary Clinton "have been the paramount force within the Democratic Party, and most of the people that voted for (punishing Florida and Michigan) were Clinton people, because there wasn't such a thing as Obama people in the establishment then."

One very prominent Clinton supporter, New York Gov. David Paterson, said he doesn't agree with her comparisons between civil rights fights and Clinton's attempt to count Michigan and Florida votes, and hopes she ends that effort.

"I would say at this point we're starting to see a little desperation on the part of a woman I still support and will support until she makes a different determination," Paterson told WAMC-FM in Albany, N.Y. "Candidates have to be cautious in their zeal to win that they don't trample on the process."

Many Clinton supporters see it differently, and voice their frustration in blunt terms.

Florida congresswoman Corrine Brown introduced Clinton to the Florida crowds by demanding that DNC Chairman Howard Dean and "the party bosses" seat the delegates.

"In 2000 we had a coup d'etat, you know, the Republicans stole our votes," Brown said. "Now this is 2008, Howard Dean and the Democratic leaders, count our votes in Florida!"

She even urged the crowd to take buses to Washington for the May 31 meeting of the DNC's rules committee, where is expected to reach a decision about the two state delegations.

Clinton voters seemed receptive to the call. At the Miami rally, one held a sign declaring: "Not counting votes: It's a Republican thing, not a Democratic thing."

DNC spokeswoman Stacie Paxton said they expect hundreds of people to show up at the Washington area hotel for the committee meeting, but said she had no specific knowledge of planned protests or demonstrations.

"We're expecting there will be a significant interest and public attendance," said Paxton.

Demanding more consideration from party bosses is a far cry from where the Clintons expected to be at this stage of the race. Last year, the former first lady seemed almost certain to capture the nomination. But for all their past electoral successes, the two have had a complicated history with party leadership.

In Bill Clinton's first term, he practiced the political art of "triangulation," finding a middle ground between the left and the right and claiming it as his own. Many in the party felt that strategy left congressional Democrats badly exposed, leading to the Republican takeover of the House in 1994.

The Clintons aren't alone in coming to terms with the role reversal. The current head of the DNC, Howard Dean, became a national figure in 2004 as he campaigned for president claiming to represent "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." He stormed the early primaries but imploded and ended up with a key party position instead.

Now, the former outsider Dean must decide what to do about the new outsider Clinton, and do it in a way that doesn't leave their party locked out of the White House for another four years.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Associated Press Writer Devlin Barrett has covered New York politics for five years.

[Roman]

This seems like one of the few at ABC News who will call her on her BS.

Clinton Evokes Bloody Zimbabwe Election Dispute When Discussing Florida and Michigan

May 21, 2008 10:01 PM

In Florida today, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., vociferously pushed her argument that the disqualified contests in Michigan and Florida should count, even though the DNC said the contests didn't count, no candidate campaigned in either state, and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., along with many other Democratic candidates, was not even on the Michigan ballot.

"I believe the Democratic Party must count these votes. They should count them exactly as they were cast," she said in Palm Beach County, per ABC News' Eloise Harper, apparently meaning that she should receive more than 300,000 votes from Michigan and Obama should receive zero.

In Sunrise, Fla., Clinton assailed countries "where votes don't count. People go through the motions of an election only to have it discarded and disregarded. We're seeing that right now in Zimbabwe -- tragically an election was held, the president lost, they refused to abide by the will of the people. So we can never take for granted our precious right to vote."

Almost four dozen people have been killed in Zimbabwe, allegedly by those loyal to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe after an election dispute in that country.

Which doesn't really explain why Clinton didn't make an issue out of Michigan and Florida until it became clear she might not be able to win the nomination without those contests counting.

Or why Clinton campaign senior adviser Harold Ickes, as a member of the DNC's rules and bylaws committee, voted to not recognize Michigan and Florida's delegates, thus -- I suppose -- taking for granted our precious right to vote.

- jpt

[Jess]

I was afraid of that. Her tactics will hurt Obama's candidacy, it will hurt the party and it will destroy her future as a leader of the party. The Republicans predicted everything that is now happening and I'm sure they are loving it.

[Roman]

Jess, if I were them.....I would too. A guranteed year to take back the WH, and it's getting blasted all the hell over this bullshit.

[Wales2004]

When the movie comes out, it'll make her look pretty silly and petty. I guess for now she's giving comedians plenty of material.

[Jess]

I am truly amazed all all of this. The best of Hillary has turned into what so many of her foes expected. She went from a leader to a self-serving me or nothing person in the matter of weeks. I thought she just needed a while to adjust and accept that she needs to let it go. Instead, she is continuing her campaign with the attitude that if she can't be president, then she will make sure that Barack Obama is not either. The flaw in her approach is that she is closing the door on any future bid for herself. She thinks if McCain gets elected, she will be the front-runnrt four years from now. She is committing political suicide and she is doing it on live television.

[David_Vickers]

A lot of you people are giving the November election to John McCain based on your dislike or hate of Hillary Clinton which is utterly laughable. I'm sick of reading SON's political thread, have posted less and less all the time. Support Obama, I will if Hillary does not get the nom, but quit the mudslinging. Let this play out. All votes should be counted. The citizens of Florida and Michigan should not have to pay for the mistakes of Democratic party leaders in their state.

[DevotedToAMC]

I agree. In this thread, I have not even found a reasonable perspective on why to dislike Hillary Clinton....this campaign has been rather tame compared to others I have seen in my lifetime.

I also think it is best to count Michigan and Florida so to not risk them going Republican in November. That will surely happen if their votes and delegates are not counted

[David_Vickers]

Obama is NOT the nominee yet. Hillary Rodham Clinton would BE his best choice for VP. It will not only be Obama's choice, it'll be also the DNC's. The DNC can influence Obama to pick her. As an example, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson didn't get along at all, but the DNC heavily influenced JFK into picking LBJ as his running-mate. Hillary is the best choice because she can win states that Obama cannot and vice versa and she can win areas that he can't etc.