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May 9, 2008 - 8:30am.
A Red Herring is defined thusly:
(wikipedia) Ever since Hillary lost 11 contests in a row, the states of Florida and Michigan have become an almost daily topic for her, a former president, even a former first daughter. Aping their points were Mark Penn, Howie Wolfson (almost daily, in the mornings), McCauliffe, Davis, Gurin, and countless others, pretending to wear the white hat, demanding equality for "Everyone", and somehow claiming that imposing rules that everyone agreed to was just plain unfair. Let's look at Florida and Michigan. Both states have a strange mix of religious conservative Republicans, union members, liberal activists, and pretty much everything in between. The biggest differences between the two states are:
On the other hand,
Despite these huge similarities and minor differences, the democratic leadership was seriously out of touch with the DNC, their voters, and more importantly, several hundred people who really, REALLY want to go to a party in Denver in several months. In both states, the party leadership agreed (Florida being the most outrageous about it) to break their own pledges and rules, and move up their primaries, anxious for their local businesses to be stiffed by Hillary's campaign as much as other small businesses in earlier primaries. OH NO! A couple of hundred individuals MIGHT NOT BE SEATED IN A CONVENTION. THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING! You see, if 341 pampered individuals (Florida has 185, Michigan 156) don't get to cavort, party, carry silly signs, wear really ugly hats and pins, lose their voices screaming, make big, boring intro speeches on TV, sit in a big meeting with many white, red, and blue balloons and hoping to be sober enough to see them fall down and go boom - if these few individuals cannot voice their support for someone, anyone, something really bad will happen. I will try to be subtle about this: EACH AND EVERY OF THE 10,000,000 MICHIGAN VOTERS, AND EVERY OF THE 18,800,000 VOTERS FROM FLORIDA WILL VOTE AGAINST THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY! That's right, the fate of 341 folks will determine whether union members in Michigan, progressives and moderates in Florida, and all the members of both states' democratic parties will boycott the general elections, refusing to vote for local congresscritters, a senator or two, mayors, state house and senate members, and other local officials. Yup, if 341 people don't get to sit down in Denver, ALL HELL WILL BREAK LOOSE! From that fateful day forward, there will never be another democrat in Detroit, Miami, Ann Arbor, Ft. Lauderdale, and many other cities and towns. Never again any of the 28,000,000 voters ever punch the D button, pull the D lever, push the D chad, or press the D button. Talk about red herrings. Hillary's claims have been and remain reprehensible. Ridiculous. WIthout basis. Silly. Inane. insulting. and simply stupid. Does anyone (with a brain, a sense of integrity, and the slightest smidgeon of hope for our country) really believe that both states' populations will retaliate in the general election, simply because 341 party members were punished because their party broke the rules? Bull & shit. Hillary and her team know better. But their constant drum beat of lies and bull want people to ignore the plain fact: Not seating 341 people will have absolutely no impact several months later on the votes of 28 millions voters. Come on. Do you really think that issues like Iraq, the economy, mortgage crisis, separation of church and state, the destruction of the EPA, the crimes within the EPA, the . . . hell, this list is growing each day. But the point should be obvious. When Hillary and her team claim that not seating 341 individuals at a pre-ordained, wasteful, boring three day party (at least for everyone not involved) they are full of it, and they know it.
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Actually, Rob, it was the
Submitted by 33rdSt on May 9, 2008 - 12:45pm.Actually, Rob, it was the legislatures in the two states who made the decisions about when to hold the primaries, not the state party. In Florida, the legislature is dominated by Republicans. In Michigan it is split between the two houses. Florida has a Republican governor; Michigan a Democrat.
But everything else you have written is pretty dead spot on.
The Florida and Michigan
Submitted by Flapsaddle on May 9, 2008 - 8:13pm.The Florida and Michigan delegations are to Clinton's nomination hopes as was Florida and its "chads" were to Al Gore's presidential aspirations. They are suddenly vital to Plan B because Plan A has assumed room temperature. In Gore's case, "fairness" in Florida became an issue only after the Vice President managed to lose his home state of Tennessee and West Virginia, a state whose tendency to vote the Democratic party borders on a pathology.
The same thing has happened to the Clinton campaign, because she - and virtually all of the rest of the chattering class - assumed that her nomination was a foregone conclusion, her entitlement for having paid her dues as a loyal soldier and for sticking with her philandering spouse. These two states are suddenly important because Clinton and her staff assumed that all of those primaries and caucuses, starting with Super Tuesday, weren't really that important.
I'd agree: It is a "red herring", a distraction made necessary by the Clinton's - both the former POTUS and the former FLOTUS - assumption that her nomination was an automatic and incontestable entitlement.
Most sincerely,
T. J. Flapsaddle
Personally, I think the
Submitted by DejaVuAllOver on May 9, 2008 - 8:23pm.Personally, I think the nomination is likely to be far more important than the election. If Hillary gets the Dems' nod, we all get to choose between two evil, arrogant, trigger-happy zionistas who will start WWIII with Iran. The first (and last) all-nuclear world war. I hate to disagree with you, Rob, but the future of the human race, the country, the planet and life from bacteria on up REALLY DOES depend on Michigan and Florida, the way I sees it. And I think even Hillary and her handlers know it.
My calendar says it is
Submitted by 33rdSt on May 10, 2008 - 5:55am.My calendar says it is Saturday but there is a lot of doomsday here! Wow! Bottom line on Florida 2000 was those 1800 (or was it 18,000) dolts in Palm Beach County who couldn't follow the arrow from Gore's name to Gore's punch and thus voted for Pat Buchanan instead! (That's why the exit polls called it for Gore!) If I knew I had won the election but for a bunch of ninnies who don't know how to mark a ballot, I might have dragged it out figuring out a way to make the win official too! Even Pat Buchanan knows who really "won" despite what the ballots say.
The difference between that and MI/FL 2008 is like the difference between jai alai and football. Both involve a ball. Both can trace back to sports played centuries ago by indigenous populations, long before Sir Walter Raleigh invented tobacco. But the similarities pretty much end there.
Make no mistake: Michigan and Florida delegations will be seated. And they will vote in the first ballot for the nomination. It is even increasingly conceiveable that the delegates will be seated in rough proportion to the ballots cast. By the time the various committees meet to consider the matter, the race will be over and it won't matter. So Senator Obama will be able to afford to be gracious and split the delegates 55/45 as Senator Clinton wants. But it will be too little, too late. And thus a red herring.
It's funny that someone like
Submitted by marijuasher on May 11, 2008 - 10:37pm.It's funny that someone like DejaVu thinks that somebody like Obama will be content with terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah shooting another 10,000 missiles into pre-1967, sovereign Israel is really in line for a disappointment.
When Barak says something nice about Israel, or acknowledges her right to exist in the Middle East, will you choose to whine about that in a public forum, too, and start making up nasty names and psychotic terminology? Oh, please do so. Just to admit that you couldn't identify the policies of a "Zionista" if one was sitting in front of you reading them aloud.
As a centrist Michigan
Submitted by mitchigann on May 12, 2008 - 12:36am.As a centrist Michigan voter, I have to say that the Republicans handled the situation better than the Democrats. The Republicans took away half the seats, but still let the candidates campaign in the states. The contests still mattered, but there were clear consequences for breaking rules. It was a more balanced and intelligent response than the DNC's.
Of course, it also helped the Republicans that they settled their primary race so quickly.
Mitch at http://www.mitchgann.com/blog
If I did not know better, I
Submitted by Flapsaddle on May 12, 2008 - 10:37am.If I did not know better, I would be inclined to think that the Democratic party is being secretly controlled by a cabal of Karl Rove's finest.
Most sincerely,
T. J. Flapsaddle