Forum Name General Discussion: Primaries
Topic subject Hillary, YOU Don’t Get to Decide to Seat Our Delegates
Topic URL
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4204265#42042654204265, Hillary, YOU Don’t Get to Decide to Seat Our Delegates
Posted by ProSense on Fri Jan-25-08 08:06 PM
Hillary, YOU Don’t Get to Decide to Seat Our Delegates
By: emptywheel Friday January 25, 2008 4:50 pm
This is probably going to get me kicked out of the MDP, but this is bullshit.
Statement by Senator Hillary Clinton on the Seating of Delegates at the Democratic National Convention
I hear all the time from people in Florida and Michigan that they want their voices heard in selecting the Democratic nominee.
I believe our nominee will need the enthusiastic support of Democrats in these states to win the general election, and so I will ask my Democratic convention delegates to support seating the delegations from Florida and Michigan. I know not all of my delegates will do so and I fully respect that decision. But I hope to be President of all 50 states and U.S. territories, and that we have all 50 states represented and counted at the Democratic convention.
I hope my fellow potential nominees will join me in this.
I will of course be following the no-campaigning pledge that I signed, and expect others will as well.
Its bullshit for a number of reasons. Hillary is pretending that this matter won't be decided, by the party, well before her delegates get to Denver. She's pretending the decision hasn't already been made that, once it becomes clear a candidate has the nomination, the DNC will announce that MI's and FL's delegates will be seated in Denver. And she's pretending that she can somehow give us voice in the nomination process, when MI's Clusterfuck has already guaranteed we will have no voice.
It's a shameless pander to Florida's voters, an incredibly dangerous move suggesting that Hillary might someday try to claim MI's and FL's delegates to contribute to her total, and it's a nasty cynical tactic that cheapens my vote.
OUR state gambled with the Clusterfuck and lost. That's an issue between us, our party leaders, and the DNC. But it is not your place, Hillary, to swoop in and make it better. And to suggest it is your place really, really, risks damaging the party.
Back during the Clusterfuck, I scoffed when people said Hillary would try to seat MI's delegates. Such a tactic would only be tried, I thought, by a reckless person who put herself above the larger good.
Apparently I was wrong. About Hillary, that is. Not about the recklessness of this.