Posts with the tag 'Florida'
NRO got a statement from the Clinton campaign about the delegate decisions…and it ended with this:
We reserve the right to challenge this decision before the Credentials Committee and appeal for a fair allocation of Michigan’s delegates that actually reflect the votes as they were cast.
A credentials fight at the convention. As noted earlier, there are efforts in the Obama camp to ease Hillary out, but I don’t thin she wants to be eased out. They are going to have to force her out, and the only way to do that is to have Obama secure a majority of delegates as if FL and MI were fully represented at the convention…in other words, I don’t see Hillary quitting even if Obama gets to 2025…he’ll have to go 100 above that, and I don’t think he’ll be able to do it, because as long as Hillary hasn’t conceded, there will be some superdelegates who will stick with her no matter what, and others too afraid to vote against her (they don’t know what Obama will do if they don’t help him out, but anyone in politics over the past 16 years knows the sorts of things Hillary WILL do to them if she’s crossed).
I don’t see this ending on Tuesday - certainly not before late June.
UPDATE: Hillary wins Puerto Rico by a convincing margin. Obama is still acting as if he won. Does this work to Obama’s advantage? I mean this treating Hillary as a negligible quantity and all this orchestrated talk about how Hillary has to back out? Does it make Obama seem strong, or does it make him seem disrespectful of a gallant opponent? Contemptuous of Hillary’s continuingly ardent supporters? The MSM is entirley on Obama’s side here (the linked AP story calls Hillary’s win today “largely symbolic”), but I wonder if Obama is getting into an echo-chamber much as Kerry did in 2004 and doesn’t understand that outside his ardent supporters, he’s a much diminished figure?
Tags: Democratic Convention, Florida, HillBama, Michigan, Superdelegates
June 1st, 2008
Hillary getting her backers to bring out the brass knuckles?
Democrats in Michigan and Florida struggled Friday to resolve the impasse over their disputed January primaries, coming up with a plan to hold a June primary in Michigan while remaining deadlocked in Florida.
Reflecting how tense the situation has become, influential fund-raisers for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton have stepped up their behind-the-scenes pressure on national party leaders to resolve the matter, with some even threatening to withhold their donations to the Democratic National Committee unless it seats the delegates from the two states or holds new primaries there.
The committee penalized Michigan and Florida for holding their primaries early in violation of national party rules, barring their delegates from being seated at the Democratic convention this summer. But with the Democratic contest now a scramble for every remaining delegate, the allocation of delegates from the two states could have a substantial impact on the nomination.
Mrs. Clinton won the primaries in both states, but the contests were not sanctioned by the party, neither candidate campaigned in the states and Mr. Obama did not even put his name on the ballot in Michigan.
Pushing to seat the Florida delegates, at least one top Clinton fund-raiser, Paul Cejas, a Miami businessman who has given the Democratic National Committee $63,500 since 2003, has demanded Democratic officials return his 2007 contribution of $28,500, which they have agreed to do.
“If you’re not going to count my vote, I’m not going to give you my money,” said Mr. Cejas, who was the United States ambassador to Belgium from 1998 to 2001.
Christopher Korge, a Florida real estate developer who is another top fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton, held an event last year in his home that brought in about $140,000 for the national party, which was set aside in a special account for the general election battle in Florida. But he told committee officials this week that if Florida’s delegate conundrum was not settled satisfactorily he would be asking for the money back.
“If we do not resolve this issue,” Mr. Korge said, “I think it’s safe to say there will be a request for a return of $140,000.”
Quite a pickle the DNC is in - seat the Florida delegations and perhaps hand the nomination to Hillary (which would greatly anger the Obama people), or play fair, and lose a lot of money for the fall campaign.
Which way will it go?
Tags: Barack Obama, Democratic Nomination, Florida, Hillary Clinton, Michigan
March 15th, 2008
They are on and on and back and forth on this - the latest thing being a mail-in primary to re-do the Florida vote (can you say “tailor made for vote fraud and lawsuits”, boys and girls?). Its mid-March, and the Democrats are no closer to a nominee than they were in mid-February and there’s no indicator that even all of April will clarify things.
In such a closely fought national campaign, it seems to me to be unfair to say to Florida and Michigan, “sorry, your leadership broke the rules, so your votes don’t count”. Some way has to be found to have a Florida and Michigan delegation at the convention. I can think of two ways to be fair about it:
1. Have a re-vote. Long and expensive thing to do, but the fairest measure not only in the sense of getting the will of the people, but of having the vote reflect the State of the Democratic party at a given moment.
2. Random selections. A bit tricky given the number of dead and non-existent people registered to vote Democrat, but if you selected 1,000 random Democrats from both States, you could then purge the selected groups of all the dead/mythical voters and then do a random selection of the remainder for the appropriate number of delegates. These would be unpledged delegates, which opens up its own can of worms, but at least the States won’t be disenfranchised for the primary process.
What do you think?
Tags: Florida, Michigan
March 14th, 2008
This will surprise no one, other than starry-eyed leftists who think that the Democratic party is other than a machine for dispensing government swag to the highest bidder:
WASHINGTON (AP) - Harold Ickes, a top adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign who voted for Democratic Party rules that stripped Michigan and Florida of their delegates, now is arguing against the very penalty he helped pass.
In a conference call Saturday, the longtime Democratic Party member contended the DNC should reconsider its tough sanctions on the two states, which held early contests in violation of party rules. He said millions of voters in Michigan and Florida would be otherwise disenfranchised - before acknowledging moments later that he had favored the sanctions.
Ickes explained that his different position essentially is due to the different hats he wears as both a DNC member and a Clinton adviser in charge of delegate counting. Clinton won the primary vote in Michigan and Florida, and now she wants those votes to count.
No chance that Ickes would have advised Hillary that, hey, them’s the rules and you have to live by them - nope, none of that at Clinton, Inc. Its whatever works - as I said last year, short of rape and murder, there is nothing Hillary and Co. won’t do to win.
Now, Hillary doesn’t really need the Florida and Michigan delegations - the super delegates would still be enough to swing the nomination her way provided she can have a plausible story that she, and not Obama, won the primaries. Its already pretty much a given that Obama will have won more States by convention time, and he’ll probably have a higher number of pledged delegates - but if Hillary can come in with more popular votes as well as victories in the crucial-for-Democrats blue States (such as California, New York, New Jersey, etc.), she’ll have a strong argument to the super delegates for their coming down on her side.
This doesn’t mean all this would work (Hillary will still have to do well in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas to keep her popular vote total high), but it shows that Hillary will not go quietly. Get ready for a political brawl for the Democratic nomination.
Tags: Florida, Hillary Clinton, Michigan, Superdelegates
February 17th, 2008
Tom Bevan over at Real Clear Politics points out the un-exploded hand grenade:
Clinton may be a slight favorite as we head beyond Super Tuesday, but this is still a very close race that will be competitive for a long time, precisely because Clinton and Obama are splitting the Democratic electorate down the middle: he’s winning young, she’s winning old; he’s winning upper income, she’s winning lower income; he’s winning Blacks, she’s winning Hispanics; he’s winning men, she’s winning women.
There is no reason to assume the voting patterns we’ve seen on the Democratic side won’t continue. And if you look at the calendar moving forward, Obama should have the upper hand over the next three weeks until we get to Texas and Ohio on March 4th.
If the back and forth continues, as it most likely will, and neither Clinton nor Obama are able to reach the magic number of delegates, then we’re going to circle back for a really nasty fight over Michigan and Florida.
For the last week the Clinton campaign has been laying the groundwork to push the DNC to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida, which would obviously be advantageous for her and potentially put her over the top.
But such a move would also rend the party in two, with Obama supporters taking the understandable position that Clinton was trying to steal the nomination by changing the rules of the game midstream…
It would be poetic justice if the Democrats started to rip themselves to shreds over a move by Hillary to change the election rules midstream - after all, the entirety of 2008 on the part of the Democrats is revenge for Florida 2000; they want to win this, at bottom, so they can get back at Bush…and why get back at Bush? Because back in 2000, it was President-elect Bush who got the US Supreme Court to stop Democrat attempts to change Florida’s election rules midstream. What goes around does, sometime, come around…and Michigan and Florida might be the cosmic payback for Democratic attempts to steal the 2000 election.
That aside, if Hillary and Obama do end up in a de-facto tie, then the pressure on Hillary to get the Flroida and Michigan delegations seated will be intense, as will the pressure on Obama to stop it from happening. Who backs down? Which one of them concedes an excellent chance of being elected President in the name of party amity? If Hillary is denied, do her supporters go to an Obama which prevented Florida and Michigan from having a say in the Democratic nominee? If Obama is denied, do his supporters forgive Hillary for a political dirty trick which denied their man the nomination?
Fun, fun, fun - and, as I’ve said, buckle yourselves in for a long, political ride in 2008.
Tags: Barack Obama, Florida, Florida 2000, Hillary Clinton, Michigan Primary
February 6th, 2008
Down to the wire, it would seem - from NRO’s The Corner:
A Braynard Methodology Survey, conducted January 28 among 500 likely registered Republican voters (MOE 4% /w 95% confidence level).
Final Results:
Candidate Percentage
Romney 37.8%
McCain 35.7%
Huckabee 12.4%
Giuliani 11.4%
Paul 2.7%
“While McCain prevails among the over 65 age group who are retirees, Romney gets the win from strong support among those who are still in the workforce. The further the voter is from retirement and the more they depend on a strong economy to provide them with jobs, the more strongly they identify with Romney’s economy-focused message. Among voters aged 45-54, Romney’s support doubles McCain’s.”
It might, then, come down to who shows up tomorrow - retirees on the way to the golf course, or tired workers heading home after a day on the job.
Tags: Florida, GOP Nomination
January 29th, 2008
But there is a problem here:
CNA STAFF, Jan 23, 2008 (CNA).- John McCain has set his sights on Florida as the state’s primary draws closer. In a conversation with Catholics in Florida and CNA this afternoon, McCain maintained his support for embryonic stem cell research while emphasizing his hope that it will become an academic issue given the latest scientific advances.
When he was asked how he reconciled his otherwise solid pro-life voting record with his support for experimentation on “surplus” embryos, Sen. McCain called his decision to back the research “a very agonizing and tough decision”. He continued, saying, “All I can say to you is that I went back and forth, back and forth on it and I came in on one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever had, in favor of that research. And one reason being very frankly is those embryos will be either discarded or kept in permanent frozen status.” The senator, while standing firm on his decision added, “I understand how divisive this is among the pro-life community.”
Referring to the recent break through in stem cell research which allows scientists to use skin cells to create stem cells, McCain said that, “I believe that skin stem cell research has every potential very soon of making that discussion academic…. Sam Brownback and others are very encouraged at this latest advance….”
Which actually works against McCain - we stand firm for life because the cause of life is the true cause, and thus we were always certain that embryonic stem cell research was never needed. In a universe governed by God, there just could not be a need to deliberately kill the innocent for the supposed benefit of others. We in the pro-life side stood firm - with President Bush as the immovable object - and our faith was proved correct…recent research shows that there is no need to use embyronic stem cells. McCain fell for the liberal argument - and our worry is that if he attains the Presidency, that he’ll fall for such arguments again.
Liberals have a very high level of skill in casting their positions in a postive light - in a way, that is, which makes it seem that disagreement with their position is heartless. But if one takes a close look at it, their demands for a benefit to one always come at the cost to someone else. Time and time again, various GOPers have fallen for these arguments, always to their discredit and always to the advantage of that liberalism anethema to our core beliefs. A combination of MSM prodding and liberal heartstring-pulling worked on McCain - and we can only assume it will work again.
This does not mean that McCain shouldn’t be our nominee or our President, but it is a factor to take into consideration as we make our choices, now and in November.
Tags: abortion, embryonic stem cell research, Florida, John McCain
January 26th, 2008
Inevitable for sure… but still shocking, considering all the hype leading up to his entering the race.
Republican Fred Thompson, the actor-politician who attracted more attention as a potential presidential candidate than as a real one, quit the race for the White House on Tuesday after a string of poor finishes in early primary and caucus states.
“Today, I have withdrawn my candidacy for president of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort,” the former Tennessee senator said in a brief statement.
Thompson’s fate was sealed last Saturday in the South Carolina primary, when he finished third in a state that he had said he needed to win.
In the statement, Thompson did not say whether he would endorse any of his former rivals. He was one of a handful of members of Congress who supported Arizona Sen. John McCain in 2000 in his unsuccessful race against George W. Bush for the party nomination.
Reaction later.
UPDATE: So, what’s my reaction? I’m not sure what to think. I never understood the Fred Fever that boiled in the months leading up to his officially throwing his hat in. But he dominated in our online straw poll, and most bloggers I knew were all for him. I said some months ago that Fred Thompson’s best day happened before he got in the race, and that appears to be the case. While his message may have resonated, his performance otherwise was lacking. The big question now is whom will his supporters turn to now? There’s no simple answer. Thompson came into the race as an alternative to the original slate of candidates… I’m not sure if Thompson’s support was really about Thompson himself or if it was about a desperate desire to find anoint someone as the next Reagan.
Who will this help? Some are saying it will help Huckabee, but I’m not so sure. If it does, than that should be a concern for Rudy Giuliani, who is banking his entire candidacy on Florida and is in 3rd place with 19%, according to the latest Rasmussen poll, with Huckabee at 13%.
The fact is, it is a different race now than it was last fall. Thompson supporters may be more open to the original top tier candidates than they were. I guess we’ll find out soon who is really helped by Thompson’s departure.
Tags: Florida, Fred Thompson, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, South Carolina
January 22nd, 2008
If this is true, then only a massive win in Florida can save the day for Giuliani:
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani is trailing in the race for the Republican presidential nomination even on his home turf of New York state, a new poll showed on Monday.
The WNBC/Marist poll ahead of the February 5 primaries in New York showed 34 percent of registered Republicans support John McCain, compared to 23 percent for Giuliani. Among Republicans likely to vote, McCain kept his 34 percent support, while Giuliani was tied in second place with Mitt Romney at 19 percent.
McCain’s campaign has been boosted by wins in New Hampshire and South Carolina in the state-by-state race to pick the two candidates to contest the November 4 election to succeed President George W. Bush.
Giuliani, whose once large lead in national polls has evaporated, largely bypassed early voting states and focused on Florida, which votes on January 29.
The time is fast approaching when we’ll know for certain if Giuliani’s campaign plan is genious, or bone-headed. I’m leaning towards bone-headed…it just doesn’t make a lot of sense to completely ignore the early contests. Heck, even a strong third place showing would have been better than the non-existence Giuliani has been in during the process to date. Of course, I could still be proven wrong here.
Tags: Florida, GOP Nomination, New York, Rudy Giuliani
January 22nd, 2008
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