Why is Hillary against holding Caucuses in MI and FL?

[JackORoses]

From NBC/NJ's Athena Jones and NBC's Mark Murray
ORONO, ME -- Clinton seemed to dismiss the idea that Florida and Michigan -- two states whose primaries she won but weren't contested and didn't award delegates -- should hold caucuses so that their delegates could be seated at the Denver convention.
...
"I think that the people of Michigan and Florida spoke in a very convincing way, that they want their voices and their votes to be heard. The turnout in both places was record-breaking and I think that that should be respected," she told reporters. However, Clinton was the only major Democratic candidate on the ballot in Michigan, as a significant number of people there voted "Uncommitted." And it's worth noting that Clinton never spoke this way about Florida and Michigan until right before the South Carolina primary, a contest she lost decisively.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/02/09/651383.aspx

***

Hillary doesn't care about enfranchising voters.

She knows the Primaries that were already held are flawed beyond repair. People knew the contest didn't count, there is no telling the effect this had on turnout and the final results.

She wants the delegates to be seated as they are because she wants to win. There is no disputing this.

She is playing the People against the Party in an effort to force this issue.
Her actions are despicable.

[DiamondJay]

1. because they have already spoken.

and the caucus system fundamentally undemocratic, as it makes people have to vote in public, and many are scared to express unpopular opinions. Hillary Clinton is unpopular to talk about, but wins most actual primaries, obama wins caucuses because he is the PC candidate, people want to be able to say they like so no one can call them racist and feel good about themselves, while if you like Hillary, people are always like "you like HER???"

[JackORoses]

3. they haven't spoken. the people knew the elections didn't count

in MI, only 1 of the candidates was on the ballot

The results are damaged.

Do you really want to see Hillary get the nomination based on damaged results?

[Alexander]

6. The answer to your question is obvious. Shillbots don't care about the voters.

They just want to win at all costs.

[DJ13]

2. The Clintons have always been too transparent in their lust of power

But this is a new low for them.

[CoffeeCat]

4. Hillary Clinton is behaving like...

...a swindler.

She will lose so much respect in our party, if she continues down this
absurd, clearly amoral path.

Two names weren't even on the ballot in Michigan. The Florida and Michigan
voters were operating under the assumption that their votes would not
count, and no one even campaigned in Michigan and Florida.

If these states are to count--they need to have legitimate elections.

If Hillary is so worried about leaving voters out, she wouldn't be
touting elections that clearly left many voters out--because most of them
had been told that the delegates would not be seated.

No one will stand for this...not even her supporters. It's so
ridiculous. Her behavior is appalling.

[Yael]

5. This should surprise no one.

[liberal N proud]

7. Why should they get to vote twice when I haven't even voted once

Their state chose to move the primary up, now they want to vote when they would have normally?

BULL SHIT!

The race is nearly over before I get to cast my vote and some of the players already eliminated.


Hillary is right on this.

[Andy823]

8. One thing I am sure of

If Obama would have won both of them, she would "NOT" be saying these things, ane would be having a cow at the thought of those votes being counted for Obama!

If this is the way she wants to win, then the party is in big trouble. I have come to the conclusion that we can "NOT" afford to have her as the nominee if this is the way she will be doing things. This is dishonest, and should not be tolerated by the party!

[BenDavid]

9. because like all free thinking americans one woman/man one

vote and that is the american way to let the people vote.....

[indimuse]

10. Exelon (owner of Com Ed and secret to to BaRockstar's pro-nuclear stance

Obama's Rise
written by Paul Street , December 15, 2007

S. Murph asks: "did Obama's rise to the level of political visibility come from a ground swell of African American support and a outpouring of African American MONEY, or did it come from somewhere else?"

Short answer: somewhere else.

Before he got the big Keynote Speech (which is what is typically said to have made him an overnight Rockstar). B.O. passed the audition with the Washington-Wall Street nexus. He had to get vetted by the corporate-imperial players. Some of that is detailed in "Barack Obama, Inc." by Ken Silverstein (Harpers), which you can read online at http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/11/0081275

A key person who advocated for him to get the pivotal Keynote assignment was then Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry.

Luck played a key role. The assignment might have gone to Michigan Gov Jennifer Granholm but Obama got the nod largely because the party thought he might need it for them (the Democratic Party) to win the open seat Senate race in Illinois. That and Kerry's man crush did the job and put him in position to deliver the reactionary speech that made him a household name.

There's an overly flattering biography of Obama out by Chicago Tribune reporter David Mendell: http://www.amazon.com/Obama-Pr...060858206. The book is too adoring but contains some material on the big white dollars and media connections that made the Obama Story possible in 2002-2004.

Obama's ascendancy and rise to visiblity and fame depends significantly on the guidance of the renowned white campaign-media consultant David Axlerod, who also handles Chicago Mayor Daley's campaigns and public relations.
There's to say more but it's an essay.


Awesome research, Mr. Street
written by Brian , December 16, 2007

Wow, I am amazed that this information isn't making more of an impact with the kossacks over at dailykos.

Can you post some diaries over there?... and hopefully many of us Obama realists will support you.


More background
written by Paul Street , December 16, 2007

I'm well to the left of DK but maybe the moment for that is right.

Meantime, here's some more history in reponse to S. Murph...

Obama lucked into the Iliinois Senate in 1996 when the popular and progressive black state senator Alice Palmer made the mistake of trying for higher office; when she sought to get back, Obama and white advisors challenged her petition signatures and kept her off the ballot.


Obama got the electoral crap kicked out of him in 2000 by Bobby Rush in a super-majority black congressional district on the South Side of Chicago. B.O. tried to unseat the long-time black Congressman but was widely reviled and dismissed in the ghetto as too bourgeois and "too white."

He would not have run for the U.S. Senate if Carol Mosley Braun hadn't decided to run for the presidency; she would have had too much rank and file black support for him to make a credible run.

Obama certainly picked up early support and start up cash from black bourgeois elements including professionals and his good friends at Ariel Capital Management (headed by the super-opulent black capitalist John Rogers, who is at least a third generation descendant of one of the richest families in Black Chicago history).

But he won the U.S. Senate seat and took his role on the national stage mainly with white corporate, legal, lobbyist, and high-/global-financial cash. The leading fundraising role went to the white aristocratic Chicago Pritzker dynasty (of Hyatt fame I believe). Filthy rich Penny Pritzker (she enjoys grotesque opulence in a city where 14 predominantly black neighborhoods consign at least a quarter of their children to life and death at less than half the poverty level) remains a chief fundraiser I think.


Key Obama funding roles have been played by the utility giant Exelon (owner of Com Ed and secret to to BaRockstar's pro-nuclear stance)and Henry Crown, a leading investor in the Arab-slaughtering "defense" firm General Dynamics.

Exelon is Obama's #4 or 5 contributor and joins 8 leading global investment firms (Goldman Sachs et al.) among his top 20.

Barack ($80 million by the end of the third 2008 quarter)Obama tapped into the campaign finance database of global Chicago's great white Business Mayor for Life Richard M. Daley (a man who makes Republicans redundant and unnecessary as far as the city's "business community" is concerned).

Obama was the recipient of more luck in 2004: his main rich white primary opponent (Blair Hull) blew up when nasty divorce records were exposed. Then a sex/divorce scandal blew up superfreak Jack Ryan, his initially formidable GOP opponent.

Obama atuallly ended up running against the openly absurd Alan Keyes.

No rank and file unsurgency required.

Black bourgeois (including urban professional from the sorts who attend Urban League young professional gatherings) money was certainly essential in his start-up and is undoubtedly still part of his money profile. But its dwarfed by bigger whiter dollars.

Obama says he was inspired by the Harold Washington story (I'm sure he was) but he has never ridden any kind of mass black voter wave like the ones that put Harold in City Hall in 1983 and back again (all too briefly) in 1987.

[K Gardner]

11. Yup. Color it any way people want, bottom line: Greedy, amoral, no integity, dishonest cheater. We

have ONE of those in the WH now. We don't need another.

[Blue State Bandit]

12. Caucus or sit down.

If she had a problem with disenfranchising voters,

she should have said so from the before Iowa.

This is no different that Tele-Comm immunity;

Cheat somebody, then, when it bites you in the ass,

change the rules.

U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings and U.S. Senator Bill Nelson

could have easily fixed this by not changing the date in the first place.

On edit:

Bill Nelson could have stooped this , and florida would have been a legit deciding factor, but then he kept his mouth shut until it became a problem for his candidate.

link
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2007/09/dean-responds-o.html

[557188]

13. Already voted

Why don't we have Iowa revote with a primary?

[Bitwit1234]

14. So we are supposed to have do over elections....where the other candidate

lost we are supposed to vote over. How about voting over in all the states where Hillary lost...that would be nice also..what a bunch of butts this other candidates supporters are.

[pampango]

15. "Just say - No" and yell "Disenfranchisement". That's the strategy. n/t