Reply #34: one of the sources, I think

[bain_sidhe]

First, my "Hillary supporter" creds: In my heart, I was always pulling for her, for a variety of reasons, even though I was officially on the fence for most of the primaries, and eventually decided (just before Pennsylvania) that Obama would be our best nominee for this time in history.

(Further disclaimer: I'm from Michigan, and had that as my avatar as a reflection of the "my vote doesn't count" concept. But I changed my avatar (and my sig) after last night. I was going to make my own, making one half an Obama avatar, and the other half a Michigan one, but that seems petty, today.)

On to the OP's question. For one thing, I think the feeling that it was "stolen" from Clinton comes more from earlier events--specifically the Michigan and Florida rogue primaries. If Dean had not announced that there would be NO delegates seated from those two primaries... if he'd gone with the half delegates penalty proposed in the rules, those primaries would have mattered, at least to some extent, thus her wins in those two states would have mattered too, again, at least to some extent. Those wins could have changed the narrative, and her momentum, and very possibly the outcome of the race. By denying her *any* delegates out of those states, the narrative became all about Obama taking the delegate lead in the February contests. That changed the tenor of the coverage of both campaigns.

But.

The time to fight that was then, not now, and Clinton didn't. So I don't have as much sympathy for this view as I might have back in February.