Clinton discussed a Clinton/Obama ticket.
Highlights:
* Ohio says she should be on the top of the ticket... screw the rest of the country.
* People are starting to take this "seriously" now.
* Voters who made up their minds in the last three days (negative ads) voted for Clinton.
Does this strike anybody else as deluded?
Losing candidate magnanimously offers vice-prez spot to winner
Posted by Maggie at 3/05/2008 10:02:00 AM
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I'm starting to hear a lot more rumblings about the possibility of do-over elections in Florida and Michigan. Both favor Clinton, as does Pennsylvania next month.
For the first time I see a roadmap of how this could slip away from Obama, alienate his young and passionate base of supporters, and cost the Democratic party the general election as a result.
Yeah, Howard Dean and the Florida governor are both in favor of a revote. But that doesn't guarantee a big gain for Clinton. The original FL results were warped since many Democrats skipped the election first time around, and the candidates weren't allowed to campaign.
However, my recollection is that Florida voters tended to respond better to negative ads than positive ones. That does give the advantage to Clinton.
Howard Dean is NOT in favor of a revote. Last night on CNN and MSNBC he said the rules are the rules -- everyone agreed -- no delegates will be admitted.
At this point, a revote is looking more and more tenable.
Yesterday I would ahve said "Where is the money going to come from if Clinton has to campaign in Florida and Michigan?" Today I'm thinking she can make a much better case to her donors.
Clinton supporters can say that "people just made a better choice on March 4th" but judging by the exit polls it really does look like negative campaigning had an impact. So many more Clinton voters people made that decision after the ad came out.
This raises the question: maybe it's just not possible to reach the American voter by running a positive campaign.
That's not what I read yesterday, Keri. Dean said that if Florida paid for the revote, then it would be okay with him. This isn't the same AP story I read yesterday, which I can no longer find, but it confirms that Dean was okay with it. (Perhaps "in favor" was too strong, as this article says only that he's "open" to the idea.)
I went to bed early last night and hoped there'd be a clear outcome when I got up in the morning, but it appears that things are just as murky now as ever.
Clinton *might* get Pennsylvania but Obama is predicted to get most of the rest of the states up for grabs. And again, it's not winner-take-all, so a close race in Pennsylvania doesn't mean very much. If all the primaries had happened yesterday, people would say Obama was in the lead. This idea of "momentum" is silly... I don't think any of these states have strayed much from what was predicted.
What good is the will of the people when the people are reality-TV fed mall-hopping ding-dongs? I despair. We finally have a Democrat who has a chance of winning an election, and we can't scrape the Republican goo off our boots.
The problem with "the rules is the rules" is that a candidate only needs a good enough argument to convince the superdelegates.
Those state parties screwed their constituents over. They don't deserve a do-over, it's true.
But rules are malleable and politics is about spin. Which spin is the most resonant?
It's rules vs. votes counted. And ti's tough for Democrats to swallow an anti-vote stance, especially after 2000. Even if it's not the reality, the perception carries more weight.
BTW - the "Dream Ticket" idea is a big winner for Clinton supporters. If they can convince Obama supporters of Clinton's inevitability and "Why not settle for Veep Obama?" catches, then Obama's support will suffer.
That said, I wonder how Clinton could unite the party otherwise, should she win the nomination.
The thing I like about revoting in Florida and Michigan is that they are pretty electoral rich states. True their parties screwed them over, but the perception is that the Democrats screwed them over. If we can manage some increased exposure there, it could help us in important states in the general election. After all, the fact that their party screwed them does not make them any less disenfranchised.
I agree that's a compelling argument after the fact, but if Democratic voters in those states were worried abotu their votes not counting, why did they not balk at "breaking the rules" before their state organizations violated them?
What you're looking at, then, is that the people who are less involved basically threw their votes away by virtue of not caring enough when it could have made a difference. You have to figure that, at the time, they just figured their votes didn't matter.
Now, later, they've reconsidered that. Hindsight is 20-20. You could almost make a similar argument for any early state.
"I would have urged my party not to move the primary if I'd known..."
You didn't care then, why do you care now?
How can you make that argument for "any early state"? Other early states didn't get punished.
Of course those people thought their votes didn't matter - they were told that their votes wouldn't matter.
A decision was made with the rules already in place. It caused them to have an outcome they didn't like (i.e. the rules being enforced)
If you don't like the outcome, you can go back and have another shot.
The particular circumstances only really matter if you agree that some outside party wronged them. That's not really the case. If it's your party, then it's your fault.
Look at the way the Republican party in Massachusetts operates. Nobody's involved. Who do they have to blame? Themselves. If you're not an independent, then you are the state party.
If the Democrats decided to caucus in MA and not allow me to vote, I'd have to decide whether to become a Democrat. But if I decided not to be involved, I really couldn't blame them for doing whatever they wanted.
That's the situation these Floridians are in. You can't whine after the fact, it wasn't a surprise. The only way you can say it was a surprise is if you didn't care enough to find out. This isn't like the national election, this is a party running its primary.
That's why I say I agree that it may be a bad decision in strategy. However, they are justified by the rules to tell FL to like it or lump it.
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