Jon Corzine, Clinton Superdelegate, Hints At Switching Support

Election process stories are everywhere, and this morning, one of the more talked about twists on the road to the White House occurred on CNBC's "Squawk Box," when New Jersey Governor and Clinton superdelegate told the roundtable that if his candidate failed to win the popular vote, he "reserved the right" to switch his vote.

Feet of clay? Not entirely: Corzine's standard for popular vote majority explicitly include the states of Florida and Michigan being counted.

CORZINE: I'm a superdelegate. I'm going to look at delegate selection, who has the most. I'm going to look at the popular vote. who has the most votes.

Not the popular vote, and not the numbers. Can that person win given the fact that that person may be able to take all the big states that the other person couldn't?

CORZINE: I think it would be a very hard argument to make. No, I'm a very aggressive supporter of Senator Clinton, I think you need, at least a popular vote.

Are you saying as a superdelegate and a Hillary Clinton supporter, if she does not have the popular vote you would take your superdelegate vote and support Barack Obama?

CORZINE: I don't think it will have to be a question.

Reserving the right...

CORZINE: Kind of reserving the right.

You almost made a headline there, you know that? You pulled back, though.

CORZINE: Reserving the right. I do think the popular vote, but I believe Michigan and Florida need to be included in that and that's very frustrating that it's being blocked.

[WATCH.]

When asked to respond, the Clinton campaign didn't seem too fazed by Corzine's statements, and reaffirmed their belief that Clinton would successfully make her case: "A lot is going to happen between now and the end of the primary period. The unanticipated will happen. We are confident in our opportunities going forward. We expect continued successs...[Corzine] is a strong supporter of Senator Clinton, we'll see how it comes out."

Nevertheless, Corzine's statement led NBC's Tim Russert to offer a prediction of his own: "After May 6, if in fact the race in Pennsylvania is close and Obama wins North Carolina, I think you'll see a lot of superdelegates begin to coalesce, I really do."

Comments

[BitJam]

02:24 AM on 04/04/2008

Hillary complains bitterly about voters in MI and FL being disenfranchised, but her plan to change the measure of success from pledged delegates to popular vote severely disenfranchises ALL the states that decided to hold caucuses instead of primaries.

She wants to count the two states that knew their votes would not count because they broke the rules but she wants to virtually ignore the caucus states even though they all played by the rules. This is Clinton in a nutshell.

[monique]

08:51 PM on 04/03/2008

What a misleading headline.

He did not hint at anything.

He said what is very obvious -- Clinton needs to achieve a majority in the popular vote.

[gregjones]

07:58 PM on 04/03/2008

Hillary Clinton has chosen to associate herself with The Family (also known as the Fellowship), a very conservative, fundamentalist organization started by Abraham Vereide...In public, they host prayer breakfasts; in private they preach a gospel of "biblical capitalism," military might, and American empire. Citing Hitler, Lenin, and Mao, Doug Coe, the Family's current leader, declares, "We work with power where we can, build new power where we can't." The Family avoids the word Christian but worships Jesus, though not the Jesus who promised the earth to the "meek." They believe that, in mass societies, it's only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God's "dominion" on earth. Insofar as The Family has a consistent philosophy, it's all about power - cultivating it, building it and networking it...Google: Hillary's Religion Scary....WHY ISN'T THE MEDIA EXPOSING HER 'RELIGION'

[FJRinLA]

07:02 PM on 04/03/2008

THE CLINTON INSURGENCY IS IN FULL SWING

CALLS FOR HER WITHDRAWAL ONLY FEED IT!

BIG-STATE GOVS OF NJ, OH, & PA WILL HAVE TO CAMPAIGN AS HARD FOR OUR NOMINEE AS THEY HAVE FOR HILLARY

Fueling the current Clinton Insurgency against Obama AND the entire DEM party is the Clintons’ belief THEY were robbed of this nomination.

This belief provides them internal psychic comfort and external rationalization for ANY and EVERY behavior we have seen and may keep seeing RIGHT THROUGH 2012.

Does anyone think this ends at the Convention? The Clinton Insurgency may just go underground to expand their support of McCain's candidacy. If unsuccessful, it will move to the Senate where Hillary as Lieberman REDUX, could caucus with McCain to deny President Obama any success.

Last month the Campaign to Elect Hillary officially became the Campaign to Defeat Obama via this new political Insurgency.
Indeed, Hillary's campaign is a daily quest, not for the nomination (she knows that's already lost), but to deny Obama the Presidency itself, and anything that would aid him.

Insurgencies like hers define victory in prolonging the battle and denying the favorite his expected result, while spoiling it so that ultimate victory is worth less each day it continues. This new Clinton campaign can only be by design of our Chief Democratic Architect, former President Clinton, himself.

We all know this in our hearts. The only question facing loyal DEMS, to paraphrase Sean Connery from "The Untouchables" is: What are WE prepared to do?

[ampay]

12:37 AM on 04/04/2008

I agree with your assessment whole-heartedly. She will make sure Obama fails either before or after he makes it to the White House. She needs to make it look like voting for Obama was a huge mistake. If she doesn't, her political career is over. And she's not about to let that happen. She'll have nothing to live for. She's now officially the vast semi-right wing conspiracy.

[julescator]

06:57 PM on 04/03/2008

Oops- I meant crap !

[julescator]

06:55 PM on 04/03/2008

Hillary Clinton will change the rules as they suit her. This is no longer a primary about the issues (as Obama is trying to make it) it has become Gee How can we get Hillary to win? What fuzzy math can we do to Make Hillary win. If you have to do all that to get a candidate to win then perhaps you have the WRONG candidate. If the American people wanted Hillary Clinton, she would have won by Feb.4th as she thought. The fact that her campaign spends more time trying to "figure" out how they can make her win without the vote of the American people is very telling. I think this has become the Hillary Show. It is becoming more and more obvious to me that I would never vote for her. She does not play well with others and I can't imagine for one minute that she could lead this nation. She is the least trustworthy of All 3 candidates, Obama is the MOST trustworty. I think all this other carp is just noise.

[MrDeadeye2U]

06:41 PM on 04/03/2008

The trick with this is that the Democratic party is a political organization and not a constitutionally imbued body. Hence there is no "One man, one vote" component to this. If you don't like the party go start your own or take over the leadership and change the rules and if others don't like the rules then they can leave. It is established that political parties can make and apply their own rules, that's why you won't see a legal challenge to the MI & FL contests.

Parties put forth their candidates based on their own rules and the leadership could make the rules such that they simply select a candidate. The state party components each have their own rules of selecting delegates for representation at the national convention to officially select the party nominee according to the rules currently in place. Popular vote has no place in this because, as has been frequently pointed out, some states use a caucus process which really has no popular vote component.

This is a delegate contest and the candidate with at least 2,024 delegates wins.

[benwha]

05:07 PM on 04/03/2008

this is so frustrating to see the Clinton campaign wanting to emphasize popular vote for two reasons:
1. It doesn't take into account states that have caucases
2. If it was about pop vote, wouldn't you change your campaign strategy.

This just all seems so seedy to me...

[cynicalismo]

10:04 PM on 04/03/2008

You're right. It doesn't take caucus states into account. But then again, why should it? The caucuses aren't really a model of democracy in action. The rules governng them are, to say the least, arcane. I fervently hope that all states will hold primary elections in 2012.

The will of the people , those people who are Democrats, is to win the election, carry forward a progressive agenda and end the war in Iraq. The will of the people will be thwarted if the wrong candidate is chosen and the Republicans retain the White House.

What the Democratic Party must do at the convention, if neither candidate has enough delegates, going in, to clinch the nomination is what political parties always do: select the candidate who offers the best chance to win the general election. I can't say who that might be, but it is something that all the delegates must determine through consensus.

I will support the candidate that the delegates to the Democratic Convention in their collective wisdcom select. Will you?

[pineapplegal]

10:17 PM on 04/03/2008

I agree!!! What kind of crap is that? To include "popular" votes from a state where Obama wasn't even on the ballot???

[dblamps]

04:51 PM on 04/03/2008

She needs to win the popular vote..
And, have all the votes count..

[benwha]

05:09 PM on 04/03/2008

Even then, with the caucas states and the fact large number of Republicans voted for her, the pop vote shouldn't be a decider should it?

[EyeWantOneNation]

05:39 PM on 04/03/2008

The popular vote expresses the will of the people....doesn't that count for something ??

[cynicalismo]

10:19 PM on 04/03/2008

You know for a fact that large numbers of Republicans voted for Hillary?

That's strange. I know for a fact that large numbers of Republicans voted for Obama. I heard this from my housekeeper who says she overheard a couple of illegals discussing it while waiting for the bus. She's pretty sure they were illegals because she couldn't understand a word they were saying.

So...what was the source of your indisputable info?

[Beaucat]

04:35 PM on 04/03/2008

Let's see. Clinton is trying to get super-delegates to ignore the will of the majority of voters and nominate her. So by doing that she's encouraging disloyalty and saying it would be a good thing when it benefits her.

But then, the Clintons are apoplectic because they think Bill Richardson was disloyal for endorsing Obama. And they just can't get over this perceived disloyalty.

Why does anyone still trust those people?

[gmt217]

04:23 PM on 04/03/2008

I support counting Florida's vote totals, but how can you count Michigan's?

Michigan is just not a legit vote, given that people had a choice of voting for someone (Hillary) or voting for no one (Uncommitted)?

I'm sorry that their state government did that to them, and I hope anyone who supported moving that primary up is now in their final term in public off EVER -- the voters should completely rout them out of office the first chance they get.

But it's ridiculous to think you can *legitimately* count votes when their was one name on the ballot.

[EyeWantOneNation]

05:50 PM on 04/03/2008

I agree with your assessment of MI...especially when all the candidates signed a pledge to take their names off the ballots in these 2 states, and Hillary left hers on in MI.

As for FL...I have a problem there. The candidates pledged to take their names off the ballots (which they did) and not to campaign in these states. Hillary flew in for a few fundraisers (not considered campaigning) and Obama ran an ad on cable that couldn't be removed from the Florida area. Was there "equal non-campaigning" on both sides ??

Clinton had name recognition in FL...many Floridians say in polls since the vote, that they know more about Obama now, and may have voted for him. I spent the first 2 weeks in March in Florida, and many of the news stations were doing "man-on-the-street" reports about the votes. 95% in the Tampa-St.Pete area said they would have voted for Obama.

A re-vote is the ONLY way to settle this...and that's not going to happen. As a blogger noted recently: "We are a nation of laws, and rules. FL knew what the rules were, and chose to break them. There is no reward for breaking the rules! "

[bish66]

09:04 PM on 04/03/2008

Nobody forced them to take their names off the ballot and not only Clinton was on the ballot, Kucinich and Dodd were available as well. I heard an interview with Howard Dean where he claimed that not even campaigning was forbidden there.

What will happen, if Obama loses Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, Kentucky, West Virginia, Puerto Rico. Will he step down or will he go on trying to buy himself some delegates?

[MrDeadeye2U]

06:26 PM on 04/03/2008

My solution is simple.

Give Hillary those voter that went for her and give Obama those that voted against her. In either state the voters had an opportunity to vote for her and if they did not then that was a conscious choice and we should respect it.

Just a thought.

[SickOfSpin]

06:41 PM on 04/03/2008

MrDeadeye2U--There is a problem with your logic...When Michigan voters were told that our delegates would not be seated, THOUSANDS of voters just stayed home. After all, how rewarding is it to vote "uncommitted" when there were two, top tier candidates being included in that category? Hill's voters, at least, still had her name on the ballot...even though she had agreed with Obama and Edwards to honor the DNC's decision to disqualify Michigan--She only began to show her "care and concern" for Michigan's voters when it became clear she was falling farther and farther behind in the delegate count and needed our delegates from the Kangaroo Court primary that was held.

[ampay]

12:42 AM on 04/04/2008

That's a good thought.

[Disparaged]

02:27 PM on 04/03/2008

Like people can't figure out that no one wants to be on the losing side! Give me a break!

[SubparDude]

02:22 PM on 04/03/2008

:

Put your seat belt On and drive on over to Obama...!

But watch Your Speed.


:

[LBM]

03:14 PM on 04/03/2008

The point is that she will have the popular vote which is giving super delegates a reason to switch to her when that happens. This is all just defense of the Clinton strategy. Super delegates are free agents who can choose on whatever criteria they'd like. The popular vote goes to Hillary's favor.

[SubparDude]

03:23 PM on 04/03/2008

:

Obama currently +700,000 votes.

The Clinton "assurances" of future votegetting no longer wash.

Do the Math.

Obama Has Won.

:

[ampay]

12:46 AM on 04/04/2008

What???

[RIBassist]

02:08 PM on 04/03/2008

Another breathlessly hyperbolic HuffPo headline for a ho-hum story (who writes these things?). All Corzine is saying is that when he gets to the convention, he's going to vote in accordance with the will of Democratic voters. Wow, what a revelation! Could it be that he wants to keep his job? Duh!

What we're seeing here is the result of a large number of SD's who jumped on the Clinton bandwagon VERY early in the primary season based on the "inevitability" of her nomination. Now that it's becoming clear that she probably won't get it, they're starting to fret. Most of these people are elected officials, and feel obligated to vote with their constituents. Others are appointees, and they're hoping for ambassadorships to warm sunny countries, or at least to have a middle school named after them or something. So they're trying to position themselves to move into the winner's column, even if they didn't sign up with the winner in the first place. It's all politics, it's all exactly what we should expect.

What it's not, in this case, is news....

[gojackets]

02:40 PM on 04/03/2008

I disagree. The reason I think it is news is that it undercuts Hillary's current rationalization on continuing her campaign.

The chances of her catching up to Obama in pledged delegates or even in the popular vote is very, very small. Her only realistic path to the nomination is to persuade the superdelegates that Obama is unelectable and have them hand her the nomination. Now one of her major supporters is saying that unless she wins the popular vote, he might be unwilling to go along. I think that's a pretty major deal. Considering that Nancy Pelosi almost got her head taken off for saying almost the same thing, I think the Clinton campaign probably thinks so, too.

[beright]

01:50 PM on 04/03/2008

Hillary's bluffing. She ain't got sh--, and she's too quacked out to admit it.