Shorts: Campaign Roundup

Michigan and Florida revisited:

Florida has already thrown in the towel on a re-vote, and the latest out of Michigan has the Democratic leaders in that state proposing a likely-untenable do-over scheduled for June 3. Among the many issues surrounding these two states which continue to exasperate:

• The Michigan plan calls for the DNC to pay for the new primary, something Howard Dean has repeatedly stated will not happen. If the two states exhibited folly in ignoring the DNC's warnings before, they have raised the bar beyond reach in continuing to do so now. To go on so unbudgingly requires either an enormous set of something or a complete lack of rational thought. I'm banking on the latter.



• Several weeks into this conversation, there are still pundits and candidates who call the March 4 elections fair. Again, they ignore the obvious. The DNC stripped the delegates before the primaries were held, nobody campaigned in those states, and Obama wasn't on the ballot in Michigan. To suggest that Obama should have kept his name on the ballot carries the same weight as suggesting he put it on a Canadian ballot. As far as he and everyone else-including the voters-knew, the Michigan ballot counted for just as much. Clinton seems to be chastising Barack for lacking the foresight to see an attempted mid-stream rule change in the future. (Although, considering the opponent, maybe he should have.)

On delegate counts; and ignoring them:

March 4 signaled a turning point in the Democratic race. Not because Clinton put together an impressive set of wins and closed the gap between her and Obama, but because that was the day the pundits forgot about the delegate count.

By all accounts, Hillary netted less than ten delegates on Super-de-duper Tuesday-bowl-mania, but somebody forgot to alert cable news. Obama has more than made up that ground by winning Wyoming and Mississippi as well as gaining some of Edwards' Iowa delegates. Obama's increased his lead since March 3.

Yet, if the actual state of the race hasn't changed, the narrative sure has. But given that the delegates are awarded proportionally and that Clinton would have to win every remaining state by preposterous margins, it's glaringly obvious that she can't catch Obama short of a riot-inciting convention battle.

Will someone please alert the MSM to pay attention to how the delegates are counted and divided up. It's kind of important to your narrative, even if it doesn't sell as well as a soap opera.

Eliot Spitzer redux:

As expected, opinion as to the significance of private affairs on public office is trending on party lines. Clinching the achievement of farce, David Vitter goes as far as to say that he and Spitzer do not share similar tales.

"I have made a very serious mistake a long time ago and I have to live with that every day," Vitter said, according to Jordan's account. "That's not a flippant statement. I need to spend my whole life making up for that." According to Jordan, Vitter turned "a bit defiant" and added: "Anybody who looks at the two cases will see there is an enormous difference between the two of them. The people that are trying to draw comparisons to the two cases are people who've never agreed with me on important issues like immigration and other things."

What, exactly, the differences are, no one knows. Well, besides the fact that Spitzer resigned and Vitter still serves, even having the cajones to add an abstinence-only clause into an African AIDS relief package. For those scoring at home, that's David Vitter: 2, logic: 0.

On the coverage: Please, no more pontificating on what drives a man to cheat. Ask a 15-year-old and move on with it. Coming to the right conclusion doesn't require a committee.

Sphere: Related Content

Florida and Michigan Inanity

If there's one thing the March 4th primaries made clear, it's that nothing has been cleared up in the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. While the vote counting is still incomplete, most counts have Hillary Clinton chipping away at Barack Obama's delegate lead by single digits. Not nearly the sweeping momentum change she and the media would have you believe. Although she clearly demonstrated through the popular vote that her campaign is still viable, she is on record as saying the only thing that matters are delegates, not popular vote. Having used this line of reasoning to belittle Obama's recent run of 11 straight victories, it's more than a tad disingenuous to cozy up to the popular vote at this stage in declaring her own comeback.

A more blatant blow to the face of logic, though, is Clinton's insistence that the delegates from Florida and Michigan be seated at the Democratic convention August 25-28 in Denver. As has been well-documented, those two states were stripped of their delegates after moving their primaries ahead of the traditional first-run states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Problem is, in staking out this position, Clinton expects whoever will listen to ignore some very cogent pieces of information. First, the delegates were stripped last year, well before the heart of the campaign season. The two states were given an opportunity by the Rules committee of the DNC to rescind their decisions and chose not to. That is, the legislature of the states were told that failing to comply would render the voters of their respective states voiceless at the convention and chose not to. If the voters are angry, as Clinton proposes, they need look no further than their own legislatures.

Second, Obama (as well as others) removed his name from the Michigan ballot. While all candidates agreed not to campaign in Florida or Michigan, Clinton refused to remove her name from the Michigan ballot, edging out 'uncommitted' by 15 points.

In order to suggest that the voters are being disenfranchised by not having their delegates seated, she has to presuppose that the current results are the complete will of the voters. That seems rather dubious considering Michigan voters weren't even given the chance to vote for Obama and certainly voter turnout was tempered in both states by the evident futility rendered by the early dates. Short of holding new contests, there is no possibility a seating of the current delegates in any way reflects the true will of the people.

While Clinton's faux populism is quaintly charming, it's a false argument. Suggesting that voters are disenfranchised by not seating delegates is to ignore that the contests were not an accurate test to begin with, especially with Obama not even on the ballot in Michigan.

In combination with some of her previous inflammatory suggestions regarding caucasses and which states are important and which aren't, this stance illustrates not a forthright desire to have every vote count, but rather a specious attempt to treat logic and reason as malleable instruments to suit her particular circumstances.

Sphere: Related Content