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Edited on Wed May-21-08 02:44 PM by SoCalDem
One has to really give credit where credit is due, whether you support Obama or NOT.
Think back to ancient times....Feb 8, 2007... Obama announced that he was planning to run for president. A few weeks earlier, Clinton formally announced her intentions, although most of us have known she was running, since...oh..let's see... since she ran for the NY senatorial seat back in 2000.
Back then the Clinton's were (still are?) the de facto party bosses of the DNC (& DLC), and their guy Terry Calif ran the show for them. They, no doubt, set the pace and understood, if not set in place, the RULES.....The rules being, the manner of running elections, choosing candidates, and the day to day coordination and running of the democratic party. They probably also set long-term goals for the party. The Clinton's were (are) intimately involved in party functioning.
There probably has NEVER been a candidate more perfectly groomed, and prepared for a presidential run, than Mrs. Clinton. The presumption of a run had over SIX years to percolate and permeate the political landscape. She had a ready reservoir of cash, TOTAL name recognition, and 6 long years to rehabilitate any Clinton administration ill-will.
She was smart, presentable, well-funded, politically savvy, and had the backing of many well-connected politicos. The rules under which the primary season would proceed were (or should have been) well-understood by her and her campaign staff. The Clinton's were involved in MAKING the rules, and Bill had run successfully TWICE, using those rules or a close derivative of them.
The neophyte Illinois senator, on the other hand, was relatively UN-CONNECTED, and would be starting well back in the pack of known candidates. He was the stealth candidate, interesting to think about, attractive to look at, and a spellbinding speaker, but still a "newbie".
With Clinton as the presumptive winner, before a single vote was cast, it was not hard to see the uphill climb that ANY challenger would face. She had the name, the money, the presumptive nature of a winner, and the campaigning skills of a still-popular ex-president husband who would campaign for her. How could she possibly lose?
When Florida & Michigan were disqualified for jumping ahead, no doubt there was a severe scouring of the rules, so everyone would understand exactly how this primary season would work. ALL parties agreed before ANY votes were cast ANYWHERE, and a total of 2025 was set in place as the ultimate goal. This was the 26.2 marathon equivalent. All agreed that this was the total number of DELEGATES needed to secure the nomination of the party.
This was not a secret number, but it did include the possible votes of Super Delegates. Super delegates have been around for a long time, but in past elections, they were like extra frosting on an already frosted cake.. hardly noticed...an afterthought.
They went unnoticed for decades because in MOST election cycles, all but ONE candidate falls away early in the primary season, as they see their fund-raising capabilities shrivel up and fall from the vine.
Mrs Clinton stormed California during November & December of 2007 in a fund-raising frenzy, and to secure votes in the "vault" from California's early voting season. Her name recognition, and her husband's popularity pretty much locked in a vast majority of the early votes and absentee ballots.
Early voting began Jan 07, 2008. Between 1/3 to 1/2 of ALL votes cast in California's primary came via early voting...and it WAS EARLY..many sent in the very day the ballot arrived. Californians were HUNGRY to vote, and Hillary was their choice.
Clinton expected to come in a close 2nd to Edwards in Iowa, but by having Michigan & Florida voting super-early, 200 of the amorphous super delegates on her tally and California's "banked" absentees & earlies, she expected the delegates she WOULD get from Iowa's close 2nd, followed by an immediate blow-out in New Hampshire to scare off most of the contenders, and when Feb 5 rolled around, her other large victories would finish off the rest.
She would indeed be "all done by Feb 5".. The fly in the ointment was when Michigan & Florida really WERE tossed out, and then she actually came in THIRD in Iowa, and nearly LOST New Hampshire. The aura of presumptive winner started to fade, and all of a sudden "rules" no longer mattered.
The upstart senator had caught on with voters, and it suddenly looked as if HE could reach 2025, and he was raising money like no one ever had before, while HER money had dried up due to the fact that her donors had reached their limits.
Rules that had excluded Florida & Michigan were followed by the Obama campaign, but were now being discounted and ignored by the Clinton campaign, and they actively set out to negate wins of their now single challenger. His wins were lessened because black voters left her and lined up behind him.
His caucus state wins were somehow not valid, because all of a sudden caucuses themselves were deemed "un-democratic" by the Clintons. These same caucuses were participated in, and won TWICE by Bill Clinton. Surely he told Hillary about caucuses. They were in all the papers, and on tv. Many hours were devoted in explaining how they work, and advertising for participants & caucus-workers. How COULD she have forgotten about caucuses?
Obama's team always had the 2025 number in their sights. They worked EVERY caucus, every "small" state, every "red" state, every "insignificant" state, every "unimportant" state. Those states always have democratic primary races, and every cycle a couple of candidates participate (in the early ones, at least)..
It's a foregone conclusion that in a race between two democrats in ANY state..red or blue.. there WILL be a democratic winner, no matter if that state will eventually be won or lost by a democrat in the general election. Primaries are about choosing the general elections candidate, and that choice is , and always HAS been, about choosing the DELEGATES, who will ratify their state's choice for candidate.
All throughout the primary season, as Obama's team kept their eyes on the prize, and always on that 2025 number, they plodded along campaigning, running and winning, as Clinton's camp set out to undermine his candidacy in every way possible. Unable to beat his fund raising, and now missing the support of the African-American Community, the ONLY possible ways to salvage the run were to destroy the other candidate, while simultaneously trying to change the rules.
New numbers emerged along the way . Is it 2209, 2210, 2116, 2108? The campaign that could not count, disagreed with every number shown to them, all of a sudden seemed emboldened enough to DICTATE what the numbers would be, and set out to show us all how insignificant the challenger's increasing numbers were. As he got closer to the *official number of 2025, the new numbers appeared magically, and always further away.
And now we are where we are..at the end..or near enough to the end, and no one seems to even KNOW what the required number is or will be. Most of the primaries are over, votes are in, delegates are chosen, and we still don't know. The front-runner, Obama, has run a fantastic campaign, followed the rules, piled up delegates, and refrained from taking the "cheap-shots" at Mrs. Clinton that others would surely have taken, and as he reaches what was always supposed to be the "finish line", it's suddenly not there anymore..It's nowhere in sight.
Now we are told that a secret meeting May 31, of a committee set up & staffed by the Clinton faction (or so we are told) will be the final arbiters of the Florida & Michigan "problem". We will then find out what the "new number" will be. This is a recipe for prolonged anger by half the party, at the eventual winner.
The Clinton camp seems to think that NOW, after all or most of the voting has been accomplished, some states should have zero counts for popular votes, and states who were disqualified, should have THEIR votes count, and that popular vote count (which is NEVER part of a primary consideration for candidate selection) should now count as THE important factor. Included in that count , according to them, would be a ZERO popular vote for Michigan voters who did NOT vote for Mrs. Clinton.
Michigan and Florida were to be PUNISHED for breaking the rules, and now in the end, they will be the FINAL states to vote and possible DECIDE the whole shebang, by creating a "new finish line number", and a new popular vote count method of choosing, thereby negating the long-held tradition of DELEGATE selection. Their punishment will be to REWARD them, and to catapult them to premier status as Deciders-of-Record.. It's positively Bushian by design. Will they also have a Medal Of Honor Medal presentation for them?
Obama set out on a 26.2 marathon race, and along the way while he was running the race, more miles were added at each stage of the race, as he kept winning.
The "orders" for miles were being "phoned in" by one far behind him, but still he pulled ahead. No matter the extra miles, he's still ahead. And at the new finish line, there stands Michigan & Florida, with feet fully extended, ready to trip him and stand on him before he crosses the line.
There is huffing & puffing behind him.. Who will trip that one?
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