Hillary's Hostage Crisis

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14789

Hillary's Hostage Crisis
by RJ Eskow | May 23, 2008



Hillary's rhetoric of the past 24 hours has gone from conciliatory to cataclysmic, turning on a high-speed dime like some UFO over the Florida swamps. An awful lot of Democrats are shocked and outraged at her use of civil rights rhetoric over the primary dispute, especially after winning two primaries with the help of some white voters who admitted their choice was influenced by race.1

snip//

She knows these arguments won't sway the superdelegates to give her the nomination. What she's doing now is showing the Obama team and the Party's leaders that she has it in her power to cost them the election in November. Her surrogates are busy doing the same thing: "undermining the legitimacy of the Democratic nominee," as Scott Lemieux puts it.

And speaking of racial: Was it just coincidental that she invoked Zimbabwe, of all places, in describing the Florida election? And not just Zimbabwe, but the President of Zimbabwe: "the president lost, they refused to abide by the will of the people." Nice. The President of Zimbabwe is, of course, a scary and possibly corrupt black man. (No subliminal racial message there, of course; it's just one of the ongoing series of "accidental" inferences the Clintons keep innocently making.)

She knows these arguments won't sway the superdelegates to give her the nomination. What she's doing now is showing the Obama team and the Party's leaders that she has it in her power to cost them the election in November. Her surrogates are busy doing the same thing: "undermining the legitimacy of the Democratic nominee," as Scott Lemieux puts it.

It's a hostage crisis. She's showing that she'll destroy the party if necessary, even if it means destroying her own political future. She wasn't having a personality crisis when she switched from nice to mean yesterday: She was showing everybody the detonator in her hand. It was a Dog Day Afternoon moment, with Hillary as Al Pacino -- walking back and forth, smiling and nodding her head and saying "See what I can do? Still want to write me off?"

She didn't think Florida and Michigan were "rights" issues when she signed that pledge -- not until it was in her self-interest to do so. But a lot of her supporters either don't know that or don't care, and she knows it. She knows that a certain percentage of Democrats will chant along with her when she and her supporters start saying "Count the votes! Count the votes!"

What a moment that will be. Like "Attica State! Attica State!" but with a less sympathetic character leading the charge.

___________________

[NJmaverick]

1. I think this was dead on accurate

<<She's showing that she is willing to ignite a firestorm, amplify the misguided rage of her supporters, and split the party in two if her demands are not met. She no longer expects to get the nomination. She has another list of demands, which might include the vice presidency but definitely involve high-level appointments for herself and/or her supporters. She spent a couple of days showing how good she can be for the party. Now, the purpose of her recent comments has been to show how much damage she can do.
>>

[Warpy]

2. It seems like the DLC is pursuing a scorched earth policy

and will be perfectly happy to split the party, cost us the election, insure McInsane does his level best to start WWIII and destroy this country, all because they can't bear the thought of not being at the center of power.

Sickening.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

3. "Attica State" sounds like an undergraduate school

The chant was "ATTICA! ATTICA! ATTICA!" as I recall.

Doesn't everyone know by now that the Clintons - and I was once their biggest fan and supporter - are craven and soulless creatures who will do and say anything to win? That she's now cast herself in the role of spoiler is not at all surprising. I hate to admit it, but so much of what their "detractors" had to say about them is looking now to have been correct.

[williesgirl]

4. The DNC should stand up to her, vote to award only 50% of delegates in FL and MI and split those

between BO and HRC. Obama should refuse to give her anything. Especially not retire her fucking debt. Then they should find a strong female from NY to run for her seat and send both Clintons packing once and for all.

We've had this behavior for 7-1/2 long years now. NO MORE OF THE SAME, regardless of party.

rec'd

[babylonsister]

5. I like your scenario!

:thumbsup:

[Captain Angry]

6. Florida and Michigan

Totally unrealistic, but:

They should evenly divide all delegates in those states amongst the candidates that were running at the time, including Kucinich and Gravel. This way nobody gets a huge chunk, and the remaining candidates need to ask the former candidates to endorse them with the recommendation to their delegates.

Let's see some compromises! :-)

[Yael]

7. This comes as no surprise to those of us who have been expecting it

for the last 15 years.

[PATRICK]

8. This doesn't solve the current

problem of an abused delegate and voter bloc with nowhere to go except a mud-fight for nothing because their commitment to a candidate has been driven at full speed into a dead end.

What in blazes can this blind juggernaut accomplish except to aid the GOp and everyone's mutual destruction? Some delegates are peeling off and this only increases the hardened nature of this misled and betrayed mass of supporters. For what? Some important policy agenda? The VP spot? 2012? Meaningless or toast simply by virtue of no leadership toward those goals or even rules and DNC control sparring.
How much longer must the candidate with nothing to gain keep forcing her supporters over a meaningless cliff? Where is the direction any direction, other than "winning the Pres. nomination" fictions that more than cross the brooder demanding a coup of some indeterminate sort? maybe that is the only way she thinks she can hold them together, but the purpose of it all is becoming increasingly absurd a la the Bush GOP standard.

[digidigido]

9. Read Rachel Maddows Blog on Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-maddow/clinton-to-the-convention_b_103078.html
........"So, how does the Democratic Party get a nominee before the convention? Seems to me there's two things that need to happen. One small, one big.

First, Obama's campaign should stop believing what most of the press says, and start believing what Clinton says -- she isn't budging. If they don't mind the prospect of a divided convention, then fine -- if they do mind that prospect, they'll have to fight for their desired outcome. Clinton is now arguing that taking the fight to the convention is OK for the Democrats -- even noble. This argument won't be defeated if it is ignored -- Obama's camp will have to rebut.

Second, if the Democrats are to avoid a divided convention, the Florida and Michigan dispute will have to be taken off the table -- settled in a way that avoids the risk of a rules dispute that stretches the nominating contest out through the convention. I can think of only one way to do that, but there may be others.

Here's my way: based on my read of NBC's delegate math, I think if the Clinton campaign won 100% of what they wanted on the Florida and Michigan dispute, Obama could still clinch the nomination -- even according to the most pro-Clinton math -- if 90 of the remaining 210-or-so undeclared superdelegates declared for Obama.

If they so declared before May 31st, the Rules and Bylaws committee would have no reason to take up the Florida and Michigan dispute because it would be a moot point -- Obama's camp could concede every Clinton demand on the subject and still win the nomination.

Otherwise? I'll be the twitchy one on radio row at the divided Democratic convention in Denver... spooked by the ghosts of 1968, 1972, 1980..."

[cliss]

10. Melodrama Queen.

I just realized what she's doing.

At this point, she does not have a SNOWBALL's chance in hell. With each passing day, it becomes more and more unlikely.

So what is she doing?
Answer = providing a cover for John Mc Old. That's it. That's all she's ever done. I don't believe she EVER thought she had a chance at the presidency.
This is cold....calculating....and Republican.