Pelosi Should Recant, then Zip It Up on Pumping Obama

Thankfully someone stepped in and told Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to keep her mouth shut and butt out of the battle between Obama and Clinton over the superdelegates. That came from a group of top Clinton backers in a letter in which they demanded that Pelosi retract her hector of superdelegates to back Obama. The only thing wrong with their letter is that they took so long to write it. Pelosi popped off a week ago and sternly warned the superdelegates that they risked a palace revolt at the Democratic convention if they defied "the will of the people" and handpicked a nominee.

Pelosi's silly saber rattle had to rank as one of the most asinine lapses of judgment, common sense, not to mention political ethics by a top Democrat in recent memory. The rationale, if it can be called such, is this. Obama leads Clinton in the number of pledged delegates he's netted. Therefore, the superdelegates should slavishly fall in line and nominate him.

The checklist of things wrong with this would fill up a thick political primer. Here's just a few of them. There are still a half dozen primaries left and that includes the big, crucial and must win Pennsylvania primary April 22. The vote there won't even be close. Polls, surveys, and voter statements show that Obama will go down to a crushing defeat and if Clinton as expected picks up the bulk of the 128 delegate votes from her primary victory there she'll be in a virtual statistical dead heat with Obama in the number of pledged delegates. Even without the Pennsylvania win and despite the shrill drum beat calls from the rabid Hillary haters for her to stand down, their empty shout at her that it's impossible for her to win, and their slander that she's wrecking the party with her obstinate refusal to bow to Obama, she's less than five percentage points behind Obama in the number of pledged delegates. That's hardly a resounding mandate from the majority of delegates for Obama.

Here's another. Many of the superdelegates had committed or pledged to back Clinton before Obama's magical appearance on the national political scene. Pelosi almost certainly sans Obama would have been one of them.

Here's another. The superdelegates have the responsibility not just too blindly cheer lead a candidate because of his fleeting momentary, and always ephemeral popularity but to make a hard headed political assessment of which Democrat has the best chance to beat the GOP guy. Clinton's vote demographics among core Democrats are rock solid. She's backed by older women, Latinos, blue collar workers, and party regulars. Recent polls even show that she even has the backing of nearly one fourth of African-American voters.

She has won both the big states and the crucial swing states of Ohio and Florida, and soon Pennsylvania. Without them, no Democrat has a prayer of winning the White House. Polls show that in a head-to head face off with McCain, Clinton is in a statistical dead heat with him while Obama slightly trails him.

Here's yet another. The superdelegates are supposed to be the firewall to insure electability. Though Pelosi apparently confused that with Obama's media celebrity and his popular aura, it's anything but. The superdelegates, even if Pelosi can't, are supposed to be able to tell the difference between the two.

Then there's Pelosi herself. She is a superdelegate and she has not publicly committed to back either Obama or Clinton. That's fine so far. She's also the House majority leader and that means that she's supposed to be a neutral and impartial political arbiter and broker for the Democratic Party's interests in Congress. That also entails working with and unifying the discordant factions among the Democrats. In her naked Obama tilt badger of the super delegates she forgot all of that and became a partisan political hatchet woman for Obama.

The hard headed and strong willed Pelosi will probably do the wrong thing and ignore the demand that she recant her biased admonition to the superdelegates to get on board the Obama train. However, if she's got any political sense, or sense period, she'll at least zip it up, stop trying to massage things for Obama and let the superdelegates do their job and that's to pick the candidate that has the best chance to beat McCain. Right now, neither Pelosi, nor any other top Democrat, can say with certainty which one that is.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Comments

[ProudLiberalDan]

I didn't support Obama or Clinton, but I cannot agree with the author of this blogpost in the slightest.

Pelosi is Speaker of the House. She has a vested interested in having a Democratic nominee who will not only win the White House, but firm up the Democratic majorities so they can actually pass some progressive legislation. Having a Democrat with a Republican Congress leads the worst forms of triangulation against the base.

Tip O'Neil endorsed Walter Mondale in 1984 and no one batted on eye.

I think every Superdelegate should either endorse right now, or explain the criteria they will use in making the decision -- whether its pledged delegates nationally or in a state or district or whether it is the primary popular vote nationally or in a state or district, or whether they will vote based on their own conscience or the deal they cut with someone's campaign.

I prefer the national popular vote. The Presidency is our one national office and it should be chosen by direct popular vote using a form of runoff election.

But whatever, Pelosi has every right to endorse and as the Speaker of the House, I'm glad she spoke out about what her criteria is for her superdelegate vote. She should only be criticized if she contradicts herself when she actually votes.

[patrice37]

Earl, I think your gal's not doing so well, and you will soon find yourself without a heroine to, uh, pump. Why not start pumping McCain right now? You could be ahead of your own curve.

[Biscuit]

Pelosi is certainly right. The people should choose our nominee. To suggest otherwise, Mr. Hutchinson, is just wrong.

Speaker Pelosi and I are members of the Democratic party. We think that name means something.

[magen]

Earl-

There's no way for either candidate to get the required amount of delegates to win the nomination. So, in a democracy, the candidate with the most delegates should get the nomination. The only way for Hillary to get more delegates than Obama is if she wins ALL the remaining contests in LANDSLIDES, which you have to admit would be a miracle, and isn't going to happen.

Now, we have what I'm calling the "Billionaires for Hillary" (remember the protest group "Billionaires for Bush"?) trying to give us the situation of-

"Well, according to the rules that everyone agreed to in advance, the black guy won, but we're giving the nomination to the white lady, cause welllllllll, ahhhhhh, ummmmmmm, the rich people said so."

That's what you're endorsing?

[bookerone]

If Obama can't stand the heat he needs to get out of the race. Why are the Obama people so dead set on not letting Millions of Americans VOTE? Pretty un-American of them! Truth is they are beginning to see their guy has feet of clay. Hillary is the best choice. Obama is the mediocre choice.

[NABNYC]

Way to go in dragging this issue even further down into the gutter. Given all the top male Democrats in recent weeks who have come out strongly in favor of ending this self-indulgent and ultimately party-destructive tirade by the Clintons, why is it that when a woman of power makes the same comment, people go after her with such vicious assaults? The language used is horribly offensive and ultimately sexist: "keep her mouth shut" "butt out" "Pelosi popped off"
"Pelosi's silly saber rattle" had to rank as one of the "most asinine lapses of judgment, common sense."

The Clintons and their supporters keep showing how pathetic and desperate they are by these highly offensive attack pieces. No wonder Hillary's negatives just keep getting higher.

The Clinton surrogates who attacked Pelosi (other than the author of this piece) are rich people who have given lots of money to Hillary and think that because they are rich, they should be able to control everything that goes on in this country. They should be ashamed of themselves for using threats and coercion to try to buy the nomination.

[sssteverrr]

Pelosi did not "pump Obama". She said the superdelegates should support the candidate with the most popular vote and the most delegates. It just so happens that that candidate is Obama and Hillary supporters in their arrogance don't like it. So as has become a pattern for Clinton, who I used to support with conviction, and her campaign they lie and distort and scream and cry to get their way. It is shameful and UNDEMOCRATIC.

[CaptainObvious]

Did you read the letter? They want Pelosi to publicly say that not only should the superdelegates ignore the will of the voters, but that pledged delegates aren't technically bound to actually vote for the candidate they're supposed to.

In other words, a bunch of billionaires want our politicians to ignore the will of the voters, and once again do what THEY want them to do. This type of behavior is what lead to energy policies written by the Saudis, the war in Iraq and defense spending over 1 TRILLION dollars per year, relaxed regulations on corporations leading to illegal domestic surveillance, the sub-prime fiasco, and the current economic crisis, ad nauseam.

You must really have no understanding of what's wrong with our current system.

[arthuride]

It is time for Pelosi to step down as House Speaker and to resign her seat in Congress. She represents hysteria and slavish worship of fad--totally out of tune with the Democratic Party that I have supported the past 50 years. Pelosi is a disgrace not only to her gender (which is credited as being more reasonable and inquisitive, and not blindly following a course that seems easiest [there was an adage that women think with a million balls of enlightenment to get jobs done, but men think with just two balls, and they do that all the time--and poorly]). I, for one, will withdraw my financial support and my personal efforts if the superdelegates merely ape the few who voted in the caucuses and primaries as these voters are neither representative of the people, nor the ones that can be counted on to vote in November. I will help, financially and otherwise, anyone brave enough to run against Pelosi as her time is over.

[CaptainObvious]

You seem to be expressing a bit of reverse-misogyny. This type of hateful, feminist - supremacist rhetoric has no place in decent society.

Shame on you, arthuride!

[Alchemist83180]

Long in the making, partisan surrogates have officially begun to take over the Huffington Post - news at 11. Stay tuned afterwards for a special comment from Alec Baldwin. Because why not.

[OrcinusOrca]

Yet another piece of utter rubbish from Mr. Hutchinson. Do you actually read the crap you're writing before you post it? The Pennsylvania primary with their 158 delegates at stake will deliver a net gain of about 167 delegates for Clinton? Because that's what is necessary to erase Obama's lead in pledged delegates! A bunch of rich donors threaten to pull their money if their supported candidate isn't nominated against the will of the voters and you think that's alright? The Republicans should pay you, because so much effort to smear the potential Democratic candidate should not go unrewarded. Wake up, dude!

[idontthinkthisishelping]

This is a list of tired, logically baseless talking points the Hillary camp proper abandoned a while ago. So at least Hutchinson isn't officially with them. Unless he just doesn't read his morning faxes.

The division among Democrats in this campaign is the exact division in the country for the past 7 years. Roughly half "knew" God ordained W to lead us to the Promised Land, with a quick stop at Armageddon first; the other "knew" his is a punk working out issues with his father and to a lesser degree his enabling mother, and trying to quash those lifelong suspicions in his head that he was born weak by surrounding himself with "strong" soft, fat hawks who haven't been exposed to the violence on "Murder, She Wrote."

For what it's worth, the numbers have steadily been falling into the latter camp. And for what it's worth, same with this campaign.

Another similarity is that Bush "supporters" couldn't (or wouldn't) support him; they would simply attack Bill Clinton. Bush critics ("haters" -- sound dismissively familiar?) had empirical fact on their side. I'll bet most everyone (anyone?) who reads this believes the "other" candidate to be "W."

[margi]

Earl , how much do did you get from the clintons?t would be best if you could add your voice on CNN and Fox and write for NYT they badly need you. Shame on you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[AnninCA]

I agree. If she had made her endorsement public, then she could have said such a thing and it would have been in context. However, she chose an unethical route: to pretend to be informing the public of how it works. Alas, she misinformed, as you point out. The other statistic to consider is the extremely high rate of attrition of Hillary supporters to McCain if Obama is the nominee. Whatever excitement he generated over bringing in new people is now completely deflated by the reality that he will drive out nearly 30%. That is a horrible statistic. That statistic not only affects the presidency but also congressional seats, in my opinion. Once people actually change parties, it is hard to win them back.

Super Delegates need to think this through. What is particularly annoying is that under Pelosi's own nonsensical logic, she should be coming forward for Clinton. CA is Clinton country.

[arthuride]

Pelosi speaks only for herself. Many of the rest of us who financially support the Democratic Party with money and time have a right to criticize her grandstanding and arbitrary rule that superdelegates must kowtow to the transitory whim of caucuses and primaries where there were many crossover Republicans. Republicans can and will easily defeat Obama, and Pelosi is aiding the GOP with her insistance that superdelegates--in that position to think through all issues logically and pick the best candidate--must unwaveringly, adulteratively, and slavishly select and support the candidate who wins the caucuses and primaries. Most caucuses in Iowa in such metropolitan areas as Ames (Iowa State U), Iowa City (U Iowa), Cedar Falls/Waterloo (U Northern Iowa), etc that went for Obama did so because the students who stacked the caucuses (even though they can not vote in Iowa as Iowans as they are registered in other states) did so on whim and passion--not rational or educated decisions.

[Eternal]

It would appear Obama has a higher standard for winning. What do I mean?

In what many of us thought was a delegate race their seems to be quite a few new "paths" to the nomination for Clinton..

1. Get "close" in elected delegages.
OR
a. Win the delegagtes in "big" states
b. Win delegates in states she idenitifies as "important" to democrats.

2. Get close in popular vote.
OR
a. Finish close in absolute count as determined by some
b. Finish with a smaller gap in popular vote than at any point she chooses for comparison.

3. Win more "primary" states (after a date that she once again picks)

4. Prove he can't be elected (picking any poll she chooses to support that point)

5. Get super delegates to vote in mass to reverse the outcome of the primary elections. (unless of course they choose to support Obama0


The point or question, reverse the roles and no one would argue that ONE of those items was a legitimate claim to the nomination. For some Sen. Obama must win EVERY metric to win while Sen. Clinton needs any metric, why is that?

To your more specific point, Speaker Pelosi has every right to discuss her opinion on the process especially when she has been consistent in that opinion. Sorry if that does not fit your view, it's a reasonable position.