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"The people who cast the votes don't decide an election,
the people who count the votes do. "
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Don't agonize, organize ... that's my mantra. Change won't happen unless you work to make it happen! But sometimes even your best efforts don't provide the results you were looking for. Or sometimes a situation is just so completely outrageous that all you can do is say ... YIKES!
13 comments:
Oh, bac. I hate that I know this: Joseph Stalin ....
sue j- You beat me to it! Isn't it funny that we were using that same quote when the GOP were doing all they could to suppress the votes in order to give the White House to Bush. Now it is cropping up as we see our own DNC doing the same thing in order to get Obama in. It looks to me as if the DNC has taken the dirty tricks of the GOP and made them their own.
This is America? This is Democracy?
Wow, I was going to guess it was Lyndon Johnson... oops.
SueJ - we have a winner!!
Mary Ellen - I know, how sad it is.
Dguzman - logical mistake.
BAC
Do remember, Mary Ellen, these rules were set back in May/June of 2007, when Clinton was the presumptive nominee. No one at the time expected Obama to do better than a distant second.
The rules weren't put into place to give Obama the nomination, they were designed to keep the states from holding their primaries more than a year before the general election.
Changing the rules now would be changing the nomination process just to elect the "chosen" candidate. This is even worse in Michigan where only one candidate had her name on the ballot - an act much closer to communist regimes than following rules that have been in place for over a year.
an act much closer to communist regimes
Whoa, John J! Hyperbole much?
Several Democratic candidates freely chose to take their names off the ballot -- no one forced that. Clinton and Chris Dodd chose to leave their names on the ballot.
Sue - John seems a little over the top today. Must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed.
BAC
I mean, I understand the connection back to the quote, but to imply that Clinton somehow strong-armed her way onto the MI ballot and eliminated opponents like some communist dictator -- that's a bit much!
You are trying to imply that Obama is strong arming these states out of the way. You are trying to compare him to Stalin. You completely ignore the fact that Obama had nothing to do with the rules and is only following them.
Clinton on the other hand is trying to insist that an election where she is the only remaining candidate whose name was on the ticket should count. She is trying to change the rules to her favor in a way that no open democracy would accept. You tell me which is more Stalin-esque.
john- I never realized how naive you were. If the rules were set in place to keep States from moving up their primary dates, then NH,IA, and SC all would have been punished. Howard Dean knew thought that Obama would win those States and that is why they weren't punished. Unfortunately for Howie, Clinton still won NH. And if you want to talk about the rules...Obama violated those rules when he ran national ads in FL when they were not supposed to be campaigning there. He also had fund raisers in FL, and even though that wasn't officially against the rules, Hillary turned down any fund raisers in FL that were offered to her because she didn't want to give the impression she was campaigning.
So...by the rules, Obama should not get one vote or delegate from FL. BTW, the rules of the DNC do not disallow re-votes and the rule was the punishment was only supposed to be half of the delegates would be removed if they violated the ruling. It was Howie and Donna Brazille who pushed for 100% of the ruling.
Obama took his name off the ballot in MI. He didn't have to and wasn't asked to by the DNC. He did it as a campaign ploy to make Iowans think that he was honoring their State as the first to have a primary. His campaign also put forth the push for MI voters to vote uncommitted to try and embarrass Hillary. They thought she would lose to "uncommitted". Again, they miscalculated...she won anyway, without campaigning, without the dirty tricks. Dodd kept his name on the ballot.
So, please, if you are going to argue the Obama talking points,get your facts straight.
Also, don't forget that Obama could have allowed a re-vote in FL and MI, but kept that from happening because he knows he would lose. He is the one responsible for the disenfranchisement of millions of voters. The DNC said they would be fine with a re-vote as long as both candidates approved.
Again...get your facts straight.
John - your hyper-sensitivity leads you to believe this quote was directed at Obama. I was actually thinking of the DNC when I posted it. See how dangerous it can be to assume something?
Clinton wasn't the only candidate on the MI ballot. I think Dodd, Kucinich and Gravel were also on the ballot. But that's not the point.
The point is ALL the early states moved their primaries, yet the only states that were punished were MI and FL. And the punishment the Dems handed out was much more severe than how the Republicans handled the same situation. They clearly want MI and FL included in the general election.
If you could stop being an Obama-apologist for one second you might have understood the intent of the post.
BAC
DNC rules were that only IA, NH, NV, and SC were allowed to have their primaries before Feb 5, aka Super Tuesday. This was the case long before Obama or Clinton ever declared that they would run. 20+ states moved their primaries up to that date to try and get more attention. Only two thought themselves so important that they didn't have to follow the rules. These two were told what the punishment would be back in May of 2007 and they continued to ignore the threats. This was long before Obama was more than a blip on Clinton's nomination.
No one expected Obama to win IA, in fact, at the time, Clinton was winning the four early primaries 2 to 1 against all opponents.
Clinton didn't hold any fundraisers in Florida? - http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/story/233134.html Might want to check your facts.
As for campaigning there - Obama ran an ad on CNN that CNN ran nationally. CNN gets about a million viewers tops for any given program nation wide. He did not campaign specifically in Florida and followed the letter of the agreement. Clinton did as much in the week before to campaign at Florida. She spent the entire week campaigning in GA, etc. saying "Vote for me, Florida, and I will seat your delegates." If that isn't campaigning Florida (again, just barely on the safe side of the agreement) I don't know what is. Not to mention her "campaign fundraiser" on their election night...
The DNC rules didn't disallow revotes, nor did it prevent FL/MI from moving their primary dates back to Feb. 5 or later. The states didn't do the latter, and Clinton was against the former until it was too late to do it effectively and fairly. By the time Clinton voiced support for re-votes in the two states, it was impossible to set up primaries in either state, and in Michigan she wanted to disenfranchise half the potential voters.
After seeing Clinton's tactics in MI, Obama and Edwards did both say that voters there should vote uncommitted but they, and Clinton, all said it would be a "beauty contest," until Clinton found out she would lose horribly without it. It has been her "ace in the hole" for a while, that is why she left her name on the ballot. But even with Michigan and Florida, she can't win. If Clinton hadn't been saying "I want your votes counted as is" from 1-26 to 3-1, and instead pushed the states to move toward a re-vote, there probably would have been one.
"your hyper-sensitivity leads you to believe this quote was directed at Obama."
No actually, Mary Ellen's direct implication and your support of her statement led me to believe that you two were directing it at Obama. The original post could just as easily have been directed at Clinton for all I cared, seeing as she is the one who wants to change how votes are counted.
John - Everything you have just said has been refuted time and time again ... but you refuse to listen.
You are absolutely hopeless.
BAC
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