All the machinations last night nearly sent me into a tizzy. As two rare readers pointed out, the democrats are putting the voters through an exercise that borders on insanity - after having yelled and screamed about the last two elections for what was legally far less problematic. This nonsense is about power playing and refusal to accept defeat in the face of facts whereas the elections were following the constitutional set-up (electoral college, etc.). In the elections, the electoral college is the way we elect presidents whether one likes it or not. In the primaries, clear rules were disobeyed by two states and one candidate . . . all of which is now water under the bridge or over the dam (or wherever it goes) given backtracking solution that the party seems to have decided. What sanctions? What rules? Go ahead and break the rules cuz you'll get just about exactly what you wanted anyway.

From an ironic and head-shaking point of view, the part I like best about what was decided yesterday is that the only actual change is that the goal post for "number of delegates needed to nominate" was moved up by 93. The difference between Obama and Clinton is still around 175.

So it becomes ever more evident that Clinton's truly driving motivation is power no matter what. When the Michigan primaries were held she said it didn't matter much because the votes would pile up for her everywhere else. She flouted the rules and stayed on the ballot, just in case. When the votes didn't pour in, suddenly Michigan did matter. One can only conclude that she doesn't particularly care about the party, she just wants to be the nominee, come h*&^ or high water. Her spokesperson, Harold Ickes, was amazingly angry and vitriolic after the rules committee's decision. Which was decided by 19-to-8, by the way. Ickes (and, one assumes, Clinton) refuse to accept Obama getting any Michigan delegates. Which I find incomprehensible. What logic earns her all the Michigan delegates? She deliberately ignored the dnc sanction to stay off the ballot while Edwards and Obama followed the rule. So technically no one else received votes. But if all the votes for "Other" weren't for Edwards or Obama, who were they for? Wait! I know. Remember that famous statistic about how high Clinton's negatives are? About how 40+% of the voters wouldn't vote for her if she were the only person running?? Well, maybe she's heard that so often that she just thinks all those "other" Michigan votes were the people who simply won't vote for her even if it means voting for a blank space.

Labels: 2008 election, ridiculousness