Sunday, April 06, 2008

Reality Bites

Howard Dean seems upset that we will not all join him in his bout of CDS and are instead asking him to please get professional help on how to conduct legitimate elections.

The purpose of voting is to create outcomes viewed as objectively fair. They are intended to be cold, hard evidence of the will of the people, and are not to be confused with conventional wisdom, gut feelings, or informal surveys. As we have seen in a number of situations, what we believe to be true because of polling has not turned out to be true when actual ballots are counted.

Arguing that we cannot allow a revote of Florida and Michigan because it could change the outcome of the nomination process to Hillary's favor is simply a facile way to avoid the fact that failing to do so deliberately penalizes her and denies Hillary her actual electoral support. The POINT is to confirm the will of the voters, not make a guess or try to persuade us that we don't really want that candidate, even if we say we do. Confirming the the will of the people is a feature, not a bug, of elections.

Given his performace on the talk shows, Dean feels no obligation to count the votes cast for Hillary. Dean and the rest of the Obamacans (I refuse to call them Democrats as they are substituting their own desires for the interests of the Party) have bought into the narrative that Hillary is not a legitmate candidate (Everyone hates her! We all know that!) and, thus, those who vote for her are likewise illegitimate. They are turning upside down the principle that legitimcay is bestowed by the electoral process. The Obamacans have bought Obama's propaganda that he is the Inevitable One who is going to sweep to victory on the back of the Unity Pony, mostly because it reinforced their own CDS narrative of the evil Billary monster. Not even millions of votes by rank and file Democrats can shake their faith that no one can possibly actually support Clinton, so it is fine to manipulate the election in favor of another.

The problem for the Obamacans is that the country is bigger than their bassackwards opinion of it, and the people who vote for Hillary expect their votes will be counted. I hate to break the news to you, guys, but if Hillary has more votes and more delegates across all 50 states, she deserves to be the nominee. That's how elections work, y'know...

If Dean had been paying attention to electoral reality, as soon as we got into the February primaries, he would have advocated for Florida to be seated at 50% and would have revoted Michigan before Ohio and Texas while his preferred candidate was on a roll. Obama probably would heve eked out a narrow victory in Michigan and would have avoided looking like he personally was blocking votes in Florida. A Michigan win might have bumped his popular vote count up in Texas. But insisting on a revote would have meant acknowledging that Hillary was a legitimate contender with legitimate support which Obama would have to better through transparently legitimate wins of his own.

Now, it is too late for the Obamacans. The outcome of the primaries has been hamfistedly altered by the anti-Clinton faction in the Democratic Party. These people appear determined to stop at nothing to prevent a Hillary nomination and force their candidate on the electorate. They will literally do anything to win, including stealing votes, threatening super delegates, rigging delegate selection and throwing away ballots to get their way. They will do this even as their actions undermine their candidate's legitimacy and all but guarantees a loss in the general.

The fair resolution that every American understands and trusts is to put it to a vote. This will establish the legitimacy the nominee will need to be competitive in the general, and applies even more to Obama than to Hillary.

Anglachel

10 comments:

jangles said...

Anglachel: You are so clear, so logical, so exactly correct probably no one will believe you but us typical hillraisers.

sas said...

I have a master's degree in Mathematics, and am an upper middle class 58 year old woman. I'm one of Hillary's base.

This is what I wrote to the DNC today...

"Dear Democrats,

I am a female Pennsylvania Democrat, and I am angry.

Florida and Michigan have to either be re-done or accounted for as they currently stand. Hillary should be awarded the delegates she earned.

Obama will have NO legitimacy whatsoever, in my view, until all the votes are counted. How can he argue that he won by the will of the people?

If the Democratic party won't count all the votes, then it isn't very democratic, is it?

My candidate will be Hillary, whether she is nominated or not.

BTW, you are all so afraid of losing the black vote if Obama doesn't get the nod. You need to be worried about the women's vote if Hillary doesn't get the nod. We are the backbone of this party. I personally think the party has taken women for granted for too long.

Women will not vote in droves unless she is treated fairly."

Shainzona said...

Yea sas!!! I'm sending my own letter soon...I've been returning every DNC plea for $$ back to them in their postage paid envelopes telling them that when they seat MI and FLA delegates (and allow them to vote...two different things!!)THEN they can ask me for money.

I will write in Hillary if I have to.

Run, Hillary. Run!!!

Anonymous said...

I agree with you Anglachel but why is NO ONE mentioning this on any news networks except for conservative Frank Luntz on FOX News? Aren't there ANY Hillary supporters among the media elite?

My Name Is Earl said...

The DNC and the "elite" apparently don't care what will happen in the general. If Obama is the nominee, a goodly number of Dems in November will either be sitting at home or voting for Clinton as a write-in, vote for Nader or leave the Prez blank.

The Repubs will nominate for veep someone who appeases the conservatives and is younger than McCain and then McCain will win the general.

After the general in November, Dean, Brazile, Kerry, Kennedy, Richardson et al will wonder what the hell happened.

gendergappers said...

Poor old Howie battered from both sides. If he doesn't kiss up to Pelosi and BOcrats he gets the boot and if he does we give him the boot. I knew Howie [not in the biblical sense] during the years he was our gov. Because he was such a breath of fresh air after years of Repug Snelling, he got more passes than scrutiny.

I think he had a good idea to work the South instead of just ignoring those states but now he is, overall, a tool of the big turds who run the DNC and has lost whatever credibilty he ever had.

Now that he really has something to scream about he is silent.

PM Summer said...

If Obama is the nominee, a goodly number of Dems in November will either be sitting at home or voting for Clinton as a write-in, vote for Nader or leave the Prez blank.

Earl, don't forget that a lot of GOOD LOYAL DEMOCRATS will actually vote for McCain over Obama... because they feel that to do otherwise will be DISLOYAL to America. Obama can't be trusted. Better a moderate Repub than a FRAUD in sheep's clothing.

Eleanor A said...

I just had a conversation with my mailman in which we both agreed our huge, Democratic-for-8-or-so-generations families won't vote for Obama. I told him I'd most likely be writing in Hillary no matter what...we agreed the press is not fair to her...then he echoed the story about Wrightgate: This. Is Not. Going. To Go Away.

If Obama gets the nod he will win Illinois and maybe California. The end.

My own letter to the DNC in response to a fundraising email yesterday:

Um, are you going to count the votes in Florida and Michigan? Until you do, I'm going to have a lot of trouble making a financial contribution to the Party (I'll still contribute directly to candidates.) I don't think there's any excuse for monkeying with people's RIGHT to vote (not their privilege)...this is particularly true of Florida, where Republicans set the date of the primary by packaging the move in with a set of initiatives to ensure ballot integrity.

How unbelievably cynical are you, by allowing your staff to go along with a 100% penalty solution given this set of circumstances? Is your memory so short that you don't remember what happened in 2000? I do, because I was there to help count ballots and saw the distress and anger on the part of people whose ballots were messed with by Republicans. And yet you're allowing the Republicans to disenfranchise them AGAIN. And you're going on national television to encourage them!

Honestly, I'm hopping mad that you were on TV today, Chairman Dean, appearing to ensure that votes in Florida and Michigan are counted only after the superdelegates make public announcements as to who they will support. What part of "millions of people will write in Hillary Clinton whether or not she is the nominee, if it appears she is railroaded out of this election" do you not understand?

For the record, I don't think this problem will go away unless and until you count these votes. If anything, you're just ensuring the "enfranchise Florida and Michigan" picket lines in Denver are going to be louder and longer. I'll be on one of them, unless you fix this, ASAP.

Eleanor A
Nashville, TN

Unknown said...

HOWARD DEAN IS THE KING OF PUTZ'S. HOWL....

Jet said...

Here's an interesting solution to the whole MI and FL mess:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2008/04/06/a1e_deutch_commentary_0406.html