My Rules and My Votes, not THE Rules and THE Votes
Am I the only one getting very tired of Clinton claiming rule-following and vote-counting principles in ways which are consistent only in that they net her the greatest number of votes?
Clinton says the rules say that Florida and Michigan be seated, even though the rules clearly say that they won’t if the states jump the primary-vote line, which they did. Clinton respected the rules (kind of–she didn’t campaign in Michigan but kept her name on the ballot) back at the beginning of the year when she thought she was a shoo-in (last October, she said, “It’s clear, this election [Michigan’s] having is not going to count for anything” and she accepted that much), but now she thinks those rules are bad and her new read on the rules is the only fair way to go. Clinton complained that Obama broke the rules when he ran a national ad that also aired in Florida, but now she’s saying the the rules insist those votes be counted, which contradicts the idea that Obama broke the rules. In short, rules only count when they help me or at least do not hurt me; if they do hurt me, I find new rules to follow.
Clinton also says that the votes must be counted–you can’t ignore any votes. But while she demands that the votes from Michigan and Florida be counted, she also insists that Obama should get zero votes from Michigan. Why? Because he followed the rules and withdrew his name from the ballot. 40.1% of Michigan voters chose “uncommitted” on their ballots–and Clinton is saying that those votes should not go to Obama. After all, they voted for “uncommitted,” not for Obama. Except that most of those votes came from black voters, 68% of whom voted “uncommitted,” and young voters, 48% of whom voted for “uncommitted”–and that’s Obama’s core base. What votes were not for Obama had to be for Edwards–the remainder would have been a tiny fraction for anyone else. And Edwards has now backed Obama, with his delegates joining the Obama delegates.
Not allowing the uncommitteds to be counted for Obama is to deny those people the right to their votes. Hillary says, “Too bad, those are the rules–the ones I choose to observe, at least. Not the rules that say the delegates won’t be seated, I don’t like those rules–I mean the rules which help me get votes but say Obama doesn’t get any. Those rules.”
Hillary doesn’t like the rules which say that the votes that went for her in Michigan and Florida won’t be seated, so she ignores them. But the rules which say that votes should not be counted for Obama, she likes those rules.
In short, Hillary has no respect for the rules–she dredges up only those which serve her and trashes the ones that don’t. Nor does she have respect for any vote that was not for her–she wants her votes counted, even though party rules say they shouldn’t be, and all other votes that can be trashed, she trashes–she doesn’t want those votes counted, so revives the rules she trashed only where they apply to denying Obama the votes.
There comes a point where the self-serving hypocrisy becomes so great that it breaks all reasonable thresholds. Follow all the rules or none; count all the votes, or not. But you can’t cherry-pick only the rules and the votes that go for you. That’s dishonest. That’s cheating. That’s wrong, and it is beneath the dignity of someone like Senator Clinton.
Only she doesn’t seem to think so.
Actually, I think she signed a statement pledging to abide by the rules that said Michigan and Florida would not count.
Somewhere that’s written on paper by someone.
I’d love to see that document… wonder if it’s publicly available.
Found it! I could not find an image of the actual piece of paper she signed, but this is a copy:
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/070831_Final_Pledge.pdf
…And it turns out that it’s not quite the violation against seating delegates that we thought it was. It says:
The agreement does not specifically say the votes will not count, though I think you could make a good case about it being firmly implied. However, the text only says that she won’t “campaign or participate in any state which schedules a presidential election primary or caucus before Feb. 5, 2008.” The wording seems wishy-washy enough that she could claim that she followed it. For example, does “participate” mean to have your name on the ballot? You could argue it does, in which case she broke the rules in MI & FL–but Obama broke that rule in FL, so it makes for a weak case if you are for Obama but against Hillary. It is this pledge that she usually bashes Obama with, claiming a national media buy as “campaigning” in FL.
However, there was this press release from Hillary’s web site:
Again, here, Hillary could weasel out and say that she’s just agreeing to the idea of campaigning actively in the right areas at the right times, and nothing else was promised. However, once you include the context, it makes it very hard to maintain that you were “for” seating all their delegates all along–after all, the honoring of the four states makes it clear that any violators would have to pay the full price for that violation, and that’s the agreement Clinton bought into. However, you could make the case that Hillary was planning to seat their delegates, and was cleverly holding out on that option, covering her bets; though she certainly did not seem to plan for the necessity, she probably did so out of habit–better safe than sorry.
So, it seems, no iron-clad “gotcha.” However, she did say she’d honor the DNC’s rules, and those rules explicitly stated that the MI & FL delegates would not be seated.
Here’s video of Russert going over the issue and discussion the matter with pro- and anti- guests.
Also: the committee that eventually ruled to not seat any delegates from MI & FL was dominated by Clinton representatives, who gladly stripped the states of all delegates…before Hillary found that she needed them. Slate made the case that had Hillary wanted the delegates to be seated, she could have easily, very easily, influenced that change before any of the primaries started–giving Obama and Edwards the chance to get back on the ballot in MI.
She did not.
Good work, Luis. Wow. I don’t know how you do it. I can never find anything I want while I’m out surfing on the internet.
Well, I think, at least in Michigan, that leaving your name on the ballot was participating and campaigning. And if it’s true of both of them in Florida, so be it. They both agreed no to.
I think that some one could ask her point blank, when you agree to the pledge, were you intending to have them seated anyway, and if you did why did you indicate the opposite? Why didn’t you say then that you planned to seat them.
This is another episode in why not to have her as President: the only logic that ever gets followed is what benefits her. There is no objective truth or good out there other than what benefits her. She’s wants power, and she’s willing to do anything to get, including destroying the Democratic party’s chances in the fall (which he candidacy always did to some extent because of the high negative numbers), and once she’s got power she likes to wield it unmercifully, vindictively upon those that have crossed her path. It’s bad enough that she can’t admit a mistake. Right now she just looks like a female George Bush to me – except she’s willing to shed a tear if it advances her cause: she disarms you with her tears, then draws you in and knife’s you in the ribs. Good riddance.
Tim:
Yes; when you think about it, what would the pledge have meant had it been just to not campaign but to allow the delegates to be seated? “Oh, you nasty states! Just for breaking the DNC rules, we’re going to not campaign in your state primaries! We will be on the ballot, and our supporters will be out in full force, and you’ll have the election, and your delegates will be seated… but you’ll have to suffer the consequences of our not setting foot in the state!!! So there!!!”
Doesn’t quite sound right.
But you’re right, along with the Slate writer–this really does show Hillary does not have the right temperament for the office. Yes, dogged perseverance is useful sometimes, but this is Bushian levels of schizophrenic denial to an utterly unhealthy degree. Imagine if a president acted this way on the world stage–er, well, we kinda don’t have to imagine do we? The result it, we get laughed at and generally disrespected.
Playing off of Duce Bigelow (you have to like stupid humor) she is a ‘She-Bush’ or perhaps a “Fem-George”.