What Hillary Might Be Up to With Her Bogus Popular Vote Claims

[Dr Ron]

http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=3330

What Hillary Might Be Up to With Her Bogus Popular Vote Claims

May 30th, 2008 by Ron Chusid

Daily Kos (who I linked to in the previous post) isn’t the only one to show that Obama, not Clinton, leads in the popular vote. The Nation looks at who is really leading, whether the popular vote matters, and what Clinton might be up to:

Moreover, the popular vote is no more than a symbolic statistic when it comes to choosing a nominee. The Clinton campaign knew full well when the race began that delegates determine the Democratic nominee. As Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said back in January, “this is a race for delegates.” It was only when Obama starting racking up delegates at a faster pace than Clinton that the Clinton campaign started hyping the popular vote.

They’ve pursued a similarly surreal strategy with regards to Florida and Michigan. Lest you forget, the Democratic Party voted near unanimously to strip Florida and Michigan of their delegates last August when the two states moved up their primaries in violation of party rules. Clinton adviser Harold Ickes backed the decision on the Democratic Party’s Rules Committee, as did other Clinton confidantes. Yet Obama gets the blame.

Arguments like these stoke divisions at the very time the party is trying to unify. Comparing Florida’s sham primary to elections in Zimbabwe or the 2000 recount, as the Clinton campaign has done recently, feeds the myth that this election was rigged against Clinton. As Josh Marshall blogged: “What she’s doing is not securing her the nomination. Rather, she’s gunning up a lot of her supporters to believe that the nomination was stolen from her–a belief many won’t soon abandon.”

Maybe Clinton is just trying to gain enough leverage to force herself on the ticket when she exits the race in a week. If so, she’s going about it in an increasingly bizarre and cynical way.

I think it is just a desperation move from Clinton to claim she is winning the popular vote. She’s running out of reasons to argue why the superdelegates should override the primaries and caucuses and appoint her as the candidate. If Bill and Hillary could do it like Putin they would, but they can’t. Therefore they resort to making a lame argument as opposed to none at all. Like most of their weak arguments, this one has backfired against them, showing that Hillary is both dishonest and doesn’t play by the rules (which is rather important for a democracy to work). It’s no wonder the vast majority of superdelegates who didn’t choose early are now backing Obama.