Hunter S. Thompson spelled it out very clearly back in 1972. They can be bought.
If your price is a lifetime appointment as a judge on the U.S. Circuit Court, your only hope is to deal with a candidate who is so close to that magic 1509 figure that he can no longer function in public because of uncontrollable drooling. If he is stuck around 1400 you will probably not have much luck getting that bench appointment…but if he’d already up to 1499 he won’t hesitate to offer you the first opening on the U.S. Supreme Court…and if you catch him peaked at 1505 or so, you can squeeze him for almost anything you want.
Hunter S. Thompson Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72
There is a problem with this system, though. Even in the “good old days” Democrats were known to look for dirt on Super delegates, and if they found some---or if they set you up with an underage call girl and took pictures
When that happens, you’re fucked. Your price just went down to zero, and you are no longer an Uncommitted delegate.
In this system,
the front running Democrat has all the cards. He (or she) is the one who can make promises. So, last year Clinton could accumulate SDs, seeing as she was the sugar mama. This year, we will see them drift away from Clinton and flock to Obama, since he is now the sugar daddy. That it is all well and good. The system was designed to work that way. It encourages the SDs to reward the perceived popular winner, creating an effect much like that of smashed insects clinging to the windshield of a car that is speeding down some west Texas highway. The wider the car is and the farther it travels, the more squashed bugs it accrues. If two cars are in a competition, say a Cadillac going 100 mph and Yugo going 55 mph, the Cadillac is going to win in a contest of shear bug mass.
The blackmail part is not supposed to be undemocratic either, since the candidate with the most resources---that means money, although Democrats do not ordinarily like to boast about money, this year is some weird exception—is also the candidate who is best able to hire detectives and do oppo and muscle SDs. He (or she) is the one who can expect people to come forward and whisper “So and so is an SD and I know for a fact that he did x, y and z. You will remember me when you are elected, right?” So that just adds to the momentum of the front runner, by allowing her (or him) to give a not so gentle nudge to those SDs who are being greedy and attempting to hold out for bigger or better favors for their votes.
The problem we face this year is that we, the Democratic voters are not the ones who are selecting the nominee. As I have attempted to show in a series of journals, the RNC under the leadership of
Karl Rove decided that their only chance to continue the War for Oil in Iraq and Keep Americans Unhealthy and Prevent Bush and Co. From Being Tried as War Criminals was
to recreate the election of 1972, using the Pat Buchanan CREEPY strategy. In order to control the vote, the Republicans have used their whores in the press. Edwards was targeted as the Muskie. In
The Press v. John Edwards I show how he was driven from the race through a combo of Big Lies such as
Edwards is a phony and a media blackout. Obama was targeted as the McGovern—the candidate whom Rove thought he would have the easiest time smearing in the General Election---so the MSM was instructed to give him unprecedented free, favorable coverage of almost rock star quality all through 2007 designed to build up a youth cult following like that which George McGovern had. Clinton was the designated Hubert Humphrey, with a solid Democratic base following.
If Hillary was the subject of smears which appeared to come from sources within the Democratic Party as in this Buchanan memohttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/stories/buchananmemo.htm The preparation of attacks on one Democrat by another
It would tear the Democratic Party apart as it was torn apart in 1972, when Hubert Humphrey’s base---union members, working class Democrats and African Americans---either stayed home or voted for Nixon. They were too angry at the way that their beloved Humphrey had been vilified by McGovern supporters to vote for the nominee.
Looking back, it may be hard for some people who were not born then to realize that poor old solid Democratic Hubert Humphrey was widely reviled in 1972. The slurs that are being heaped upon Clinton are exactly the same as the ones visited upon Humphrey.
War monger. Republican. Dirty trickster. Corrupt. Thompson conjured images of suitcases full of money from mobsters. Hell, Humphrey might as well have been Nixon in the eyes of McGovern supporters. Worse than Nixon, even.
Looking back 36 years, we can laugh at those silly hippies. What are people going to do when they look back 36 years at 2008, when self style Democratic liberal writers have called the Clintons NeoCons and the same as Bush? Of course, we only have the writers' word for it that they are Democrats, the way that the people in 1972 could only assume that the attacks were coming from within the party. The nation was to learn a year later that many of the attacks came from GOP moles and from CREEP.
But I digress. The problem with SDs is that they can be blackmailed, and we know who runs the biggest blackmail operation in the U.S. right now. If you said the Clintons via the Arkansas mafia, go stand in a corner. Yes, I know that Dick Morris says that. But Dick Morris sucks toes for a living at FOX. Clinton’s campaign coffers are bare. It takes serious money to run that kind of oppo.
The biggest blackmail ops in our country is taxpayer funded and is located in a room at AT&T. Dick Cheney set it up first thing after he and Bush stole the 2000 election. Thanks to their illegal
domestic spying operation they can read every phone call, email and fax that every Super delegate has made for the last seven years. This gives them access to secrets that a lot of people would rather remain secret.
And
all that the RNC asks for its silence is that a SD cast his vote for one of two perfectly acceptable candidates. That isn’t too bad.
Eliot Spitzer was a warning to all SDs. Play by Karl Rove’s rules or we will out you. We do not care how powerful you are or how rich your daddy is. The story that he was caught through bank transactions was deliberately thin. He is not going to trial, because a trial would reveal that the bank transaction story was a lie. He was found out through warrantless wiretaps. His story is meant to serve as a warning to other SDs. When you get the call from a representative of the RNC telling you that it is now time to move the chess piece
here or
there you had better do it, because we will out you the same way we did Spitzer. And the Democratic base will not rally to your support, because they are too busy rooting for their candidates and cheering when the other guy or gal loses an SD---even if it is because of death.
Consider how tenuous our control over our own primary is. Karl Rove has used the press to hijack the vote. He knocked out Edwards and then he had his whores start in with
Hillary is a bitch and on cue a bunch of Democrats nodded their heads just like the mindless clones in the Ridley Scott 1984 Mackintosh ad and intoned
Yes, Hillary has always been a bitch. And we have always been at war with Oceana. Last night’s ABC debate was a rude awakening for the Obama camp. It showed that at any time, the press can change the narrative. Last night, Obama supporters were
horrified to see the story change from
Hillary is a bitch to
Obama is a cheater . They were not prepared. They had assumed that the press was enthralled with their candidate. It did not occur to them ( as it had to a lot of people with more experience with our corrupt news media) that the industry was just following a script which went
We will knock out Edwards first, then take out Hillary, then start softening up Obama for McCain .
The press can be controlled, which means that the popular vote can be manipulated. Florida’s votes are out (and Michigan’s because they copied Florida), because of the GOP, which means that the Democratic Primary as a whole can be manipulated. And Karl Rove can hijack the Super delegate vote, too.
Think about it.
Now, think about the one thing that Pat Buchanan and Nixon did not want the Democrats to do in 1972----come together. They did their best to create a fractured party, one in which key portions of the Democratic base would either not vote for the nominee (Blacks because of their loyalty to Humphrey) or voted for Nixon (unions and working class). They did this by convincing Humphrey supporters that McGovern supporters had
cheated, smeared, slandered and disrespected a party stalwart.
Here is what the November 2008 election could be. McCain poaches Democratic working class voters and woman, both of whom are angry that Obama has smeared, slandered and disrespected a party stalwart. This gallup poll shows that McCain already has the potential to steal working class Democratic votes from Obama.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/106381/Obama-Education-Gap-Extends-General-Election.aspxIf Humphrey had been McGovern’s running mate in 1972, he might have had a chance. The Pat Buchanan
divide and conquer strategy would have failed. All those Democratic supporters who switched to Nixon would have stayed with their own party.
It is up to Obama and Clinton to save the Party--and the country from four more years of Bush policies. Telling Clinton “Get out of the race!” is not the answer. At this point, her supporters hear those words as
Get the hell out of the race you skank lying cheating bitch Sorry, but I am not the one who has been writing the vitriol at the Huffington Post that has a chunk of the Democratic base up in arms (and which has to make you wonder if there is an RNC mole or two on staff at that publication). The only way to bring this party together is for the two candidates to sit down and have peace talks in public.
Maybe Bill Moyer could mediate. Two or three hours talking about serious issues, finding common ground, dealing with their frustrations. And maybe they can work out something.
Because we can not rely upon the SDs to save us. Playing “by the rules” ain’t gonna cut it, when the Republicans have already hijacked our Democratic primary.
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