Clinton to the Convention?
When the Democratic primary calendar ends on June 3rd, Senator Obama will have more delegates than Senator Clinton.
On what grounds could a candidate who is behind at the end of a race avoid conceding that he or she has been beaten? On the grounds that the race really isn't over!
After the primary calendar has ended, Clinton's campaign can only justify or explain her staying in the race if she makes the case that the Democratic Party still has not chosen a nominee conclusively. Clinton needs an argument that the game should go into extra innings. Overtime. Bonus round. Detention. Whatever. Clinton has now found that argument -- she says she will not stop campaigning until the issue of the Florida and Michigan delegates is settled to her satisfaction.
The Florida/Michigan issue get settled, of course, by the Democrats' Rules and Bylaws Committee... unless of course that committee's decision gets appealed to the Credentials Committee... unless of course that decision, too, gets appealed... to the floor of the convention.
Do you see where this is going? If there is an open, unresolved procedural issue involving the Florida and Michigan delegations, Senator Clinton will be able to cite that as her justification for staying in the race until the convention even though she is not ahead in the nomination contest at the end of the primary calendar.
If she can ensure that the Florida and Michigan issue stays unresolved until the convention (and by appealing it every step of the way, I don't see how that can be avoided), then Clinton stays in the race until the convention. Staying in until the convention buys her three more months of campaign time, three more months to make her case to the party and the country, three more months for some potential political unfortunateness to befall Senator Obama.
And it keeps the race for the Democratic nomination open, at least theoretically, for Senator Clinton to win instead of Senator Obama.
How could Clinton win at the convention? Seems to me that three months is a long time in this race, and if it gets that far, anything could happen.
Pffft! You say. Scoff.
Listen: you don't need a vivid political imagination to recognize that if what you really want is to be President of the United States -- a slim chance of becoming President (a fight at the convention) is better than no chance of becoming President (because you dropped out).
The Clinton strategy, as best as I can tell, is to stay in the race. You can't win if you don't play -- conceding the nomination is sure defeat, not conceding means there's still a chance.
The way for her to avoid conceding is for her to avoid conceding that the race is resolved.
As long as the Florida and Michigan dispute is alive, and it is being used as the basis of Clinton's claim that the nomination is unresolved, we should expect that Senator Clinton will stay in the race.
We should also expect that if the Democratic Party's committee system takes up the Florida and Michigan dispute through its rules as they stand now, Clinton's campaign will be able to keep the Michigan and Florida dispute alive until the convention. If there's a secret Democratic-insider plan to keep that from happening, it's time for that plan to become un-secret.
The pundit corps has been counting Clinton out and saying the race is over -- but saying it doesn't make it so.
If Clinton fights to stay in until the convention -- which seems utterly plausible to me -- then I believe the Democratic Party's nominee (Obama or Clinton) will lose the general election to John McCain. This last point is of course infinitely debatable -- but my take is that in November, the party that's had a nominee since February/March, beats the party that only got a nominee the last week in August.
So, how does the Democratic Party get a nominee before the convention? Seems to me there's two things that need to happen. One small, one big.
First, Obama's campaign should stop believing what most of the press says, and start believing what Clinton says -- she isn't budging. If they don't mind the prospect of a divided convention, then fine -- if they do mind that prospect, they'll have to fight for their desired outcome. Clinton is now arguing that taking the fight to the convention is OK for the Democrats -- even noble. This argument won't be defeated if it is ignored -- Obama's camp will have to rebut.
Second, if the Democrats are to avoid a divided convention, the Florida and Michigan dispute will have to be taken off the table -- settled in a way that avoids the risk of a rules dispute that stretches the nominating contest out through the convention. I can think of only one way to do that, but there may be others.
Here's my way: based on my read of NBC's delegate math, I think if the Clinton campaign won 100% of what they wanted on the Florida and Michigan dispute, Obama could still clinch the nomination -- even according to the most pro-Clinton math -- if 90 of the remaining 210-or-so undeclared superdelegates declared for Obama.
If they so declared before May 31st, the Rules and Bylaws committee would have no reason to take up the Florida and Michigan dispute because it would be a moot point -- Obama's camp could concede every Clinton demand on the subject and still win the nomination.
Otherwise? I'll be the twitchy one on radio row at the divided Democratic convention in Denver... spooked by the ghosts of 1968, 1972, 1980...
Rachel
PS -- I should note here, briefly, that I don't have a personal preference between Senators Clinton and Obama as to who would run a better campaign against John McCain, or who would be a better President. I think both Obama and Clinton would probably be pretty good general election contenders, and probably they'd each be a good president. (50% of my hate mail tells me I'm in the tank for Obama and 50% of it tells me I'm in the tank for Clinton - although the level of vitriol on each side has risen and fallen with the tide of the campaign).
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And you wonder why so many Democrats HATE Sen Clinton?
She has stooped to a NEW LOW, I really didnt think she would ever go there
I can NOW say I would campaign against ANYTHING she was involved in
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Hillary Clinton today brought up the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy while defending her decision to stay in the race against Barack Obama.
"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out.
"She was simply referencing her husband in 1992 and Bobby Kennedy in 1968 as historic examples of the nominating process going well into the summer. Any reading into beyond that would be inaccurate and outrageous
This is what RFK, Jr. had to say about it. If he is not upset, why are you? Could your HATE for the Clintons be so intent for political reasons and nothing else?
"Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has endorsed Mrs. Clinton, defended her remarks in a telephone interview Friday evening. "I've heard her make that argument before," Mr. Kennedy said, speaking on his cell phone as he drove to the family compound in Hyannis for the holiday weekend. "It sounds like she was invoking a familiar historical circumstance in support of her argument for continuing her campaign." {He} said his support of Mrs. Clinton has not wavered."
No one in the media analyzed the vote in Oregon....
The Clinton's (and BO has had to run against both of them) ran a 'trickle down campaign' and ended up with a $20M DEBT! Obama ran a grass roots campaign, out spent her BECAUSE HE HAD THE MONEY TO DO IT and ended up with a $37M surplus. That is huge indicator of his ability to fund the general election and of how they both would run an administration.
If the DNC rules committee denies BO the nomination, we will lose many of the new, energized voters, many of the young voters and the AA community. It will doom the Democratic Party for years. Right now we look like a chicken with its head cut off. As a life long Dem and a woman over 60, I could never vote for McCain but if HRC bullies her way to the nomination, I will not donate to her campaign nor will I campaign for her.
Do not worry a lot of us will campaign for her and donate her. Enough to beat McCain.
I just see a too uncanny resemblance to our current cast of administration characters in HRC's obsessive compulsion to power at any price. The willingness to ignore rules (laws), to her personal advantage. To distort and revise the facts and create her own arbitrary reality. To court and utilize the support of unscrupulous motives in supporters and contributors. The "It's the truth because I say it's the truth" theme that weaves in and out of her rhetoric. Then there's the lies, oh, yes, the lies.....
mr blue...you could not have said this better...I second your comments..
Absolutely on the money, mrBlue. Which raises the question of what, exactly, are the values of her supporters?
Well, if you ask I'll answer. Our values are honesty, integrity, hard work, professional and civil behavior, as well as experience wisdom and knowledge. I am missing some of these in Obama, and missing most of these from many of his supporters.
Wow! How can the arbitrary rules set by the DNC be compared with laws. These are farther apart than Washington from Moscow.
Rachel's analysis of Clinton's plan does have a lot of truth to it. This is why when the Committee meets on 31st May the members need to follow the Procedual Rules with no garffs to further strengthen Clinton's belief that nomination fight is not over, regardless of how they settle the two states even though the Rules were broken by their eairly participation in the primaries.
This would all be moot if the S Ds came of the fence and endorse their preferred nominee. Neither can reach the magic number as there is not enough delegates left in the race.
Rachel..I love you...I really do, but I've listened to you go on and on about this for two days. How do you think that Clinton is going to keep up this nonsense when she is flat-ass broke??? Do you think she is going to foot the bill for the 28-30 million dollars that it may take to keep her campaign going until the convention? That's a low ball estimate..
All of that high drama talking she was doing in Florida...
"Sooner or later she's going to get that fat dose of reality" - my bet is later. If money were an issue, it would have been an issue $20 million ago. She's showing all signs of going for broke.
While I agree with Rachel's assessment of the situation, she overlooks one very important point.
If Obama acquiesces to Clinton's demands, agreeing to seat Michigan and Florida "as is", that opens another line of attack. Obama will win the delegate math, but since he was not on the ballot in Michigan, he will receive 0 votes in terms of popular vote for that state. This allows Clinton to go forward, making the argument that Obama's nominatoin victory is illegitimate. Like Al Gore in 2000, She won the popular vote. How can the democratic party not choose their nominee based upon the popular vote. Forget that she refuses to add the popular vote from caucus states like Iowa, Washington, Nevada, etc since apparently caucuses are undemocratic and really don't count.
Worse of all, Clinton can make the argument that elite men stole the nomination from her. This all but assures her core constituency ( white women over 50) will not vote for him. This all but assures an Obama loss. She can run again in 2012. Meanwhile, between now and 2012 she and her supporter will work to "reform" the nominating process moving away from caucuses and super delegates to a winner take all primary system.
This is a sufficiently sneaky way to ensure an Obama loss while keeping her distance that most people won't pick up on it. It's sad but Hillary seems to be intent on destroying the democratic party for a generation.
Hillary is not destroying the Democratic party.
Don't be so ridiculous.
No, she is doing more than that, she is destroying American politics as a whole. She is sending it all down the gutter of ego-driven sleaze. Her arrogance is unprecedented.
Living in denial has its costs, Ammin, and your profile screams it.
Rachel is not advocating that he cave on MI and FL, she is advocating that the superdelegates need to declare for Obama before May 31, so that the Rules committee will have no reason to take up MI and FL. It would be a moot point if he has already wrapped up the nomination and made is so that IF he were to concede everythign she wanted on MI and FL she still could not win. If that is the case, the Rules Committee would probably refuse to even address the matter.
Oh, Rachel. Please stop the madness.
You said, "The pundit corps has been counting Clinton out and saying the race is over -- but saying it doesn't make it so."
Your attempts to keep this mess alive doesn't make the opposite true either. I love your show but everyday you beat this drum. And as much as I would love to say you have no preference between candidates, your comments continue to support Hillary and Bill's hijack agenda, sometimes directly.
And for the record, I don't support either candidate. I turned the channel once John Edwards left the scene. My loyalties lie with the party now. Let it go. It's over.
The party has designed this campaign to end at the convention, not before.
So far, everything is going according to design.
What is your complaint?
Just because your Queen is not winning.
She's not trying to keep the mess alive, she's the only one who seems to be really trying to end it. She's advocating that Obama make the case publically for the superdelegates to get off the fence. She's right. We're all living in a dream world if we think Hillary is just going to disappear after June 3
Hillary is starting to remind of the character Angela Lansbury played in the old Manchurian Candidate movie. Maybe she gets the VP slot and while on stage with Barack... I can't go on. It's too scary.
By the way, my wife love Rachel. While it would be great if you got your own show, you also have great chemistry with Keith. Maybe he can cure you or your gayness :)
That is a joke of course, so don't flame me.
I am writing in Ron Paul so I do not care who the candidates for the dem branch of the war party are.
GREAT to have Rachel Maddow contributing to HuffPost again!
I just want to echo others sentiments by saying that you are admired by many and your thoughts on these issues carry much weight with us.
Looking forward to more insight from Dr. Maddow!
When you're talking about the psychology of the American people (and American politics has become exactly that), this whole thing could actually work in Obama's favor: The feeling upon an Obama victory at the Democratic Convention, after all of the back and forth, would be that of a major victory, instead of a boring fait accompli victory. That should play very nicely -a rebirth-of-momentum is just what the doctor ordered.
The whole debate over whether to count the votes cast in Michigan and Florida is absurd to any fair-minded person - people in those states were told in no uncertain manner that their votes would not count. This is why I have come to blame the media for this whole discussion - why aren't news shows interviewing those who DIDN'T vote the day of the Michigan and Florida primaries? Why aren't they getting in our face about the fact that people didn't vote because they understood their votes would be pointless, except perhaps for symbolic purposes? This is the kind of thing the media usually jumps on - and I'm becoming a tad suspicious, considering the impact it would have.
There is a major issue with psychology and "fair-minded person." Many people think with feelings rather than logical facts. In addition, they want their candidate to win, which often results in a distorted perspective.
One thing is for sure, the media has had a major impact on many people. If the media says something, people tend to think it is fact.
Rachel is correct about the longer Clinton keeps the negativity going, the greater the potential that John McCain will win. It is my opinion, that many Democrats are afraid of the Clinton powerful connections. They are more concerned with their own career rather than what is best for the American people.
Thanks Rachel, for an insightful, if discouraging analysis.
The bottom line: It's all about Hillary. Screw Obama, screw the Democractic party, screw the nation.
We knew from the outset that Hillary would do ANYTHING to win. But "anything" is far more dishonest, damaging, distracting , divisive and shameful than I ever would have imagined.
Neither my wife nor I find any remaining credence in Hillary, now or well into the future. We started wanting to cast our vote for her, but Obama's civility changed our minds and our hearts. This country is in dire need of more leaders like Obama.
Dear Rachel,
You are brilliant and a fine human being as well! Whoever sends you hate mail
is a natural born hater- or maybe it's environmental. I have been promoting the
need of a new strong Fairness Doctrine with someone like KO or you as Czar!
Wouldn't it be great to show up on Faux whenever you felt it necessary to call
them out for a brazen lie? Of course the Czar would need a large staff just to
deal with the major players and regional offices as well. I think the Fairness
Czar should be a Cabinet position for at least eight years or until the MSM
stops trying to foster fascism in our beloved Democracy. I also favor what
I call SCOTUS13, where our new President, a Constitutional scholar, gets
to pick four new justices early on in 2009. Both these ideas will prove to be
very effective to keep the MSM and Bush court appointees from resisting
the many needed reforms, replacing the rule of corporatism w/ populism.
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