alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

March 30, 2008

In Other Scorched Earth News

by AltHippo @ 2:09 am. Filed under Uncategorized

I haven’t seen much coverage of this WaPo story on the blogs, at least yet. The point of the article is that HRC is indeed looking at taking her campaign to the convention in August:

A day after Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean urged the candidates to end the race by July 1, Clinton defied that call by declaring that she will take her campaign all the way to the Aug. 25-28 convention if necessary, potentially setting up the prolonged and divisive contest that party leaders are increasingly anxious to avoid.

“I know there are some people who want to shut this down and I think they are wrong,” Clinton said in an interview during a campaign stop here Saturday. “I have no intention of stopping until we finish what we started and until we see what happens in the next 10 contests and until we resolve Florida and Michigan. And if we don’t resolve it, we’ll resolve it at the convention — that’s what credentials committees are for.

As that old sage once said: Timing is everything. It would have been a completely different gesture for HRC to insist on delegates being counted in Florida and Michigan back when it became clear that they wouldn’t be counted. I’ll be the first to say that I don’t like the way things have unfolded in Florida and Michigan. But, it was also clear at the time that these votes would amount to a protest of the DNC rules that put Iowa and New Hamphshire ahead of everyone else. It’s a good point. But, you can’t come back and say that this wasn’t really meant as a protest vote. We now expect it to count for real.

Since Clinton (meaning HRC) is bringing up the idea of taking this to the convention, I have to wonder if this wasn’t the essence of her strategy over the last 30 days? I have the same question regarding her position on Florida and Michigan. Right now they’re a done deal. If there’s a re-vote, that means legal challenges can drag on until the Democratic convention. At least.

I would love for someone to explain to me how this is going to help put a Democrat in office this year. Right now, it looks like a scorched earth approximation.

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2 Responses to “In Other Scorched Earth News”

  1. Jamelle Says:
    March 31st, 2008 at 12:09 pm

    Long time no comment on my part.

    I agree, Clinton seems to - at this point - be committed to doing all that she can to damage Obama’s chances at winning a general election. I originally had hoped that Clinton would be too concerned about her legacy to damage herself this much.

    I guess not.

  2. AltHippo Says:
    April 1st, 2008 at 10:15 am

    Jamelle,

    Following on your comment, I noticed this at TPM:

    And so we have this vicious cycle in which the longer Hillary’s odds become the further she has to up the ante to keep her candidacy credible — in other words, the more forcefully she has to question the legitimacy of the nomination process and the more aggressively she has to push the idea that Obama can’t win the general election or is not qualified to be president. (For example, the argument that the Clinton campaign now appears to be making to funders and the press is that Obama literally cannot win the general. And thus she’s not only entitled but actually obligated to do whatever it takes to ensure that he’s not the nominee.)

    I thought this was an interesting way of putting it, as it places the behavior of the campaign in the context of system theory, which was a big part of what I studied in school. The idea is that all systems, be they natural or man-made have a point of instability. The nature of the instability may not be directly observable, but its effects tend to be erratic and destructive.

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