Votes on the Votes

Harold Ickes just said the Clinton campaign would contest the committee decision regarding Michigan at the convention. Clinton supporters are heckling the committee. At one point they were chanting “Denver, Denver.” Ugly stuff.

The decision that Florida votes would be split by the primary vote and votes will count for half was accepted unanimously, even by Clinton supporters on the committee.

Update: The Clinton supporters are trying to disrupt the committee meeting, which just voted (19 yes, 8 opposed) on a Michigan plan that I’m not sure I understand completely, but I think it provides for a 69-59 split in favor of Clinton with half votes in Michigan, with Obama guaranteed two add-on superdelegates.

Correction: The bobbleheads are pointing out that Ickes said Clinton “reserves the right” to contest the decision to the credentials committee of the convention, not that the Clintons necessarily would really do that. But I think the Clintons will not back down.

Update: Chuck Todd just said the meeting revealed the DNC no longer belongs to the Clintons. Obama won the outside game and the inside game, and it’s his party now.

Update: Georgia 10 has the Chuck Todd quote in full:

You know, there is a big thing we should be getting out of this party tonight, and that is the Democratic National Committee is not somehow controlled by the Clintons. Not by the Clinton campaign any more. We may have started this campaign believing that the Clinton campaign controlled, but this is Barack Obama’s party now. He’s already been winning the outside game, he now won the inside game. Yes it’s true that Harold Ickes can threaten this stuff about the credentials, but Don Fowler really did signal today by being for the Michigan compromise that, “Guys, it’s over.”

Update: Representative of the party?

One of the Clintonistas’ arguments for their candidate is that she gets fewer votes from independents and is therefore more representative of the Democratic Party. Well, be sure to catch “Eating a Reuben Amongst a Crowd of Clintonites” by Sam Stein. Conversations from Clinton supporters:

[Obama] is a cult. His campaign is an anti-woman cult.”
“I will actively campaign against him.”

“You know who is backing him is George Soros. It’ll be George Soros, not Obama, who is running the country.”

“South Dakota is totally rigged for Obama because of Tom Daschle. Obama’s going to win South Dakota because he’s buying it and rigging it.”

“[Obama] is a socialist! You know what the Nazi Party was before it was the Nazi Party? It was the Socialist Party.”

***

It was not all that different from the mood outside, where signs read, “At least slaves were counted as 3/5ths a Citizen,” and some pamphlets detailed Obama’s supposed dealings in drugs and gay sex.

“Would you rather have a president who had an affair [Bill Clinton] or one who was a murderer [Obama]?” Eve Fairbanks, a reporter with The New Republic, was asked by one protester.

These people are representative of the Democratic Party?

Update: Here’s one now —

12 thoughts on “Votes on the Votes

  1. Damndest meeting I have seen in a looong time. And I am not a young man. Strictly subjective comment: it looks like the Clinton supprters in the meeting were of the most rabid kind. Did someone pack the house? Coach the faithful how to react? The comment by (don’t heve her name) a Clinton supporter on the committee who first proposed full seating for the Florida delegation and then spoke of the compromise (50%) with regret, addressed the disruptive element with “Do you believe in Democracy?” She knew of and spoke to a greater good than loyalty to her candidate. There were a number of Clinton supporters on the committee who were greater supporters of the ideals of the Democratic party, and perhaps of principles of democracy, who did not participate in the mugging of Obama that the Clintons wanted. Outstanding!

    Speaking to he issue of how we got to the meeting in the first place…. No one ever expected a race this close. The penalty against MI & FL was always going to be lifted, but AFTER the candidate was selected. Thus, they would be seated in whole and penalized by having their participation a formality. Ooops! There is only a hairs difference between the 2 camps in the popular vote; and had the elections counted when they did happen, the momentum of the race would have changed. If Obama had been able to campaign the results would have also changed. If my Aunt had balls, she would be my uncle. The rules that both candidates agreed to before the starting gun went off was: MI & FL don’t count and neither candidate campaigned there.

    Note to all: there are no unimportant states, no unimportant votes.

    Bottom line: If you project the last primries as polled, assign those delegates and look at the new goalline, Obama needs 20 to 25 superdelegates of the 200 that are uncommitted. And a bunch of those superdelegates are Obama decided, but they would not come out while primaties were in play. (Carter comes to mind.)

    My Call: THe superdelegates are going to take this away from Clinton by the end of the week, but will she be smart enough to see it & accept it?

  2. Clinton’s got some of her followers cranked up to such a fever pitch of hysteria I can’t imagine they’ll accept anything short of a Clinton nomination for president. However, I suspect the numbers of such followers are not as large as have been made out to be. On the other hand, I hope Obama is wearing a bulletproof vest at all times …

  3. There are obviously some people who truly identify with Hillary as she has played the victim through this stage of the campaign, and it’s obvious from that video that some people were just not that mentally balanced to start with.

    I think it’s great to get cranks like that on video – let’s turn over these rocks and expose what’s underneath. Most sensible people will be utterly repulsed by such displays of spittle-flecked paranoia and ignorance. After all, I think most of us know people JUST LIKE THAT in our own lives, and know to disregard everything that they say.

    I am relieved by the outcome of today’s meeting and am glad to see the adults are still in charge.

  4. Wow, that’s some video.

    McCain is welcome to her, IMHO.

    Beyond the problems with the Clinton campaign, and the way they’ve driven some of their supporters into incoherent frenzy, I’m also really tired of he party fawning after ‘the middle’ by acting more Republican. Let people like that woman go vote for McCain if she wants. Replace her vote with three from Republicans who are looking for an intelligent alternative, young people who are hoping to believe in political change, and independents who have been waiting for Democrats to stand for something again.

    (I was particularly impressed by the reasoning behind the comment that Obama would not have been running had it not been a white woman who was running for president. (I don’t even understand what the hell she is talking about there. As I recall, there were also a bunch of white men in the campaign when they started. )

    Here’s my prayer that Ickes comment about reserving the right is really about clearing a space for Clinton to seem compromising and magnanamous when she pulls out next week, and not about actually dragging this out to the bitter, bitter end.

  5. Trouble is that lunatics can be found supporting just about any movement. Pointing out Clinton has a few is not to me news.

  6. Francis — valid point, but it does seem the lunatics are more representative than not of the loyal core of Clinton supporters. It’s been sad to watch formerly reasonable people come unglued of late. I just hope they recover eventually.

  7. Call me crazy but I have to wonder how many of the “crazies” are actually republicans, esp after seeing that quote about the Nazi party being a “socialist” party – isnt that a narrative straight out of right wing radio? Walks like a Rove, quacks like a Rove ….

  8. I would think (hope!) that women like these (I’d call them “Ferraro Democrats”) are a tiny minority in the party. As a former ‘Deaniac’, I was certainly disappointed when that ‘inadequate white man’ John Kerry got the nomination but I whole-heartedly threw my support behind him and worked the MoveOn phone banks for a solid week before the election to help him and other Dems get elected. And as a former Hillary supporter, I’d just like to say, ” jeeze, thanks a bunch Hill and Bill for helping to engender this kind of apoplectic hostility towards another party candidate!”

  9. Anyone else think that the raving woman in the video had been drinking?

    No, she seemed like a normal New Yorker, except I wondered what was with the sunglasses.

  10. I’m about the same age as the woman in the video, but I’m from the midwest so my style is markedly different. I started out as an Edwards supporter, because I thought he had the best chance of winning, and I agreed most closely with his positions. When I had to choose between Hillary and Barack, I chose Hillary because she impressed me as better prepared, I like her health care plan better and his vote on the energy bill and Exelon connections displeased me. As the campaign has progressed, I’ve come to like Hillary more and dislike Barack more. I had hoped for a Clinton/Obama ticket, but I don’t think the opposite will work, and I’d rather see her return to the senate. I dislike the tenor of Obama supporters Dkos, TPM, Huffpo etc. so intensely that I’m now feeling a disconnect with that segment of Democrats. My vote will probably go to the Green Party, although I’ve never voted third party before. But, if Hillary wants to run for any future office, I’ll be first in line to work for her.

  11. Betty — I’m originally from the Midwest but now live in New York, so Hillary Clinton is my senator. I’ve voted for her twice for Senate. I’ve even met her; she was charming. I have a slight preference for her health care plan over Obama’s, although neither plan is what I really want. But her “experience” is overrated. As a senator, she has been a disappointment. She has accomplished very little, for all her famous fighting.

    You may dislike the tenor of some Obama bloggers, but to my mind Clinton bloggers like Larry Johnson and “Big Tent Democrat” at TalkLeft have been much uglier, more hateful, more hysterical, more divisive, more untruthful. It boggles my mind that Clinton supporters can’t see how badly they’ve behaved these past few months. It’s like you are wearing blinders.

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