Hillary Questions The "Principles" Of The Democratic Party [UPDATED]

Here's some great hillpocrisy for you. Today she took some time out of her busy schedule to trash on the Democratic Party:

I think that what's happened with Florida and Michigan raises serious questions about the principles of our party.

Again, she clearly only cares about Michigan (and by Michigan I mean only the voters who voted for her) and Florida because they were essentially held in information blackout and thus went to her by decent margins. Let's take a look back at what Hillary was advocating a few months ago:

I personally did not think it made any difference whether my name was on the ballot. You know, It's clear this election they are having is not going to count for anything.

How's that for principles Hillary? But hey, if you want to know why Florida and Michigan can't be seated as is, maybe you should ask your top spokesman Terry McAuliffe, who made the stakes clear in 2004 (the last time Michigan broke the rules):

"I'm going outside the primary window," [Michigan Sen. Carl Levin] told me definitively.

"If I allow you to do that, the whole system collapses," I said. "We will have chaos. I let you make your case to the DNC, and we voted unanimously and you lost."

He kept insisting that they were going to move up Michigan on their own, even though if they did that, they would lose half their delegates. By that point Carl and I were leaning toward each other over a table in the middle of the room, shouting and dropping the occasional expletive.

"You won't deny us seats at the convention," he said.

"Carl, take it to the bank," I said. "They will not get a credential. The closest they'll get to Boston will be watching it on television. I will not let you break this entire nominating process for one state. The rules are the rules. If you want to call my bluff, Carl, you go ahead and do it."

We glared at each other some more, but there was nothing much left to say. I was holding all the cards and Levin knew it.

Oh, you mean there are rules, rules that have a purpose, and they knowingly violates these rules even after they knew of the consequences? Apparently for Hillary rules are meant to be broken, even if breaking them means anarchy in future primaries. On wait, they do know this, they signed a pledge saying as much back in 2007:



Chuck Schumer got one thing right, Hillary changes her position based on what helps her, but Obama has been 100% consistent and 100% in compliance with the DNC rules that everyone agreed to at the beginning. Hillary is the only one here saying one thing and then spinning around and saying the completely opposite for political gain.

But what is really disappointing here is that Hillary would go after the Democratic Party like that, and say that there is something wrong with their principles because they made rules and created consequences for breaking those rules as a way of enforcement. She is basically saying to the people of Florida and Michigan that the Democratic Party is out of touch and doesn't care about them, and I think it is safe to assume she is implying that unless the Democratic Party gives her what she wants and ignores the rules, they will suffer loses in Florida and Michigan in November, which is no doubt what she would like to see since she won't be the nominee.

And of course she went on to repeat her outright lie that she is ahead in the popular vote, which couldn't be further from the truth. Kos did a great job of summing this argument up today:

One of the wonders of this primary season has been the ability of the Clinton campaign -- including Hillary herself -- and their supporters to engage in some of the most patently ridiculous and bald faced lies, knowing that everyone else knows they are engaging in patently ridiculous and bald faced lies.

Chief among those lies is the fiction that Clinton leads in the popular vote.

Aside from the idiocy of the argument itself -- 1) this is a delegate race, and 2) unlike the 2000 presidential election, you can't compare the popular vote from contest to contest since each state has different rules (caucus or primaries, open, closed, or hybrid -- the way the Clinton campaign and its supporters shamelessly stretch this argument is almost embarrassing.

Clinton is "leading" the meaningless popular vote, but only if:

1. You count the unsanctioned contests in Florida and Michigan, where candidates were not allowed to campaign;

2. You give Obama zero votes in Michigan's Soviet-style election, where Clinton was essentially the only name on the ballot; and

3. You don't count the caucuses in Iowa, Nevada, Maine, and Washington.

In reality, Obama leads by over half a million votes, for whatever that's worth (not much). But don't worry, the Clinton argument is so asinine, it has gotten little traction among super delegates.

In fact, it's so insulting to people's intelligence, that it's hurting the credibility of anyone stupid enough to use it.

I'd like to expand a little bit on his first point. This is a delegate race, that is what the agreed upon rules state and there is no mechanism in those rules to accommodate a win by any other metric than delegates. Now if they had decided popular vote would decide the nominee from the beginning, and if Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington were counted (and Florida and Michigan counted fairly--NOT Hillary's way), then the primary could have been decided in that manner, but that means that the strategies would have been very different. Her bringing up ridiculous measures of victory like popular vote, for the Republican system ignores the fact that if we had been playing by different rules Obama wouldn't have chosen the same strategy he did, so you can't assume the results would have been the same. If it had been winner-take-all you can be sure Obama would have fought like hell for California and the bigger states. If it had been all about the popular vote you Obama and Hillary would have focused more on running up the turnout in their home states while focusing on the most populous states and ignoring the majority of the US. But popular vote wasn't the goal, and this was never winner-take-all, so Obama went with the best strategy for winning the most delegates, and he won. Now Hillary can whine and go "but what if.." or "but the Republicans.." or "if only.." and she can try to change the rules and play the victim like she was robbed of the nomination, but those were the rules, the rules she agreed to, and the rules that must be followed. This is about fairness, not about what works best for Hillary. She doesn't seem to understand that. I, for one, am sick of hearing her lie and spin about the popular vote, Michigan, Florida, and all her false excuses for losing. Basically I'm tired of watching Hillary act like a child. It is undignified and embarrassing to the Democratic Party.

Update: Hillary highlights her attack/threat against the Democratic Party:

If we fail to [seat the Michigan and Florida delegates], I worry that we will pay not only a moral cost, but a political cost as well. We know the road to a Democratic White House runs right through Florida and Michigan. If we care about winning those states in November, we need to count your votes now. If Democrats send a message that we don't fully value your votes, we know Sen. McCain and the Republicans will be more than happy to have them. The Republicans will make a simple and compelling argument: why should Florida and Michigan voters trust the Democratic Party to look out for you when they won't even listen to you.

And then she put counting the delegates from Florida and Michigan (oh, except Obama's) on the same level as the struggle against slavery and other historic fights:

"This work to extend the franchise to all of our citizens is a core mission of the modern Democratic party," she said. "From signing the Voting Rights Act and fighting racial discrimination at the ballot box to lowering the voting age so those old enough to fight and die in war would have the right to choose their commander in chief, to fighting for multi-lingual ballots so you can make your voice heard no matter what language you speak."

Those people, she said "refused to accept their assigned place as second-class citizens. Men and women who saw America not as it was, but as it could and should be, and committed themselves to extending the frontiers of our democracy. The abolitionists and all who fought to end slavery and ensure freedom came with the full right of citizenship. The tenacious women and a few brave men who gathered at the Seneca Falls convention back in 1848 to demand the right to vote."

Yes, she is comparing the issue with Florida and Michigan, whose votes wouldn't even change the outcome of the primary, to universal suffrage and the fight against slavery. Oh, but of course she doesn't have a problem with disenfranchising everyone who voted for Obama or Edwards in Michigan, or the people who voted in Iowa, Nevada, Maine, and Washington. Funny, the fight for HER voters in Michigan and Florida is suddenly the latest battle for human progress, but everyone else's voters can go to hell. And apparently she doesn't care that the voters in Florida and Michigan didn't really have a choice, as long as voters were put in boxes, it was "democratic" and should be counted. Many a third world dictator would agree whole heartedly. Oh but wait, there is more:

"In Florida, you learned the hard way what happens when your votes aren't counted and the candidate with fewer votes is declared the winner," she said. "The lesson of 2000 here in Florida is crystal clear: if any votes aren't count, the will of the people isn't realized and our democracy is diminished."

So there you have it, in the same breath she lied and said she was ahead in the popular vote, she compared Obama to Bush stealing the 2000 election, and she committed brazen hillpocrisy by saying "if any votes aren't count, the will of the people isn't realized and our democracy is diminished" when HER OWN PLAN doesn't count the votes of half the voters in Michigan and completely ignores the voters of FOUR other states!! The ridiculousness of this is astounding, I mean just amazing that she can talk like this with a straight face. How shameless and small, invoking the memory of the great struggles of American history to serve her own political agenda, while committing the same acts of disenfranchisement that she is being all self-righteous about. Shameless.

Next thing you know she'll be saying Christ died for the votes of Florida voters, and only her voters from Michigan, and so that the people of Iowa, Nevada, Maine, and Washington got ignored. "You better seat those delegates or Jesus died for nothing!!" Hell, she acts like she has a divine right to the nomination and the presidency, it is only a matter of time before she invokes the will of providence as a new measure of victory.

Update #2: Oh, and I should also add one more thing. You know those super fair and democratic Republicans who Hillary is saying will get all the angry Democratic voters? They cut the delegates from Michigan and Florida by half for breaking the rules. So I can only assume that Hillary would be ok with her delegates from both states being cut in half as well, since that is how the Republicans do things, which is pretty consistently the measure by which she addresses all problems.

Update #3: Here is a statement by a Florida voter who is tired of Hillary speaking for them. This voter is not being disenfranchised. This voter is not being punished.

Update (5/22): NY Governor and Hillary supporter David Paterson profoundly disagrees with Hillary's Michigan-Florida claims:

Paterson, a superdelegate, said he doesn't believe the DNC should change the rules after the fact on Florida and Michigan and added that he's not buying her claims about leading the popular vote if the ballots cast in those states were counted.

"I would say at this point we're starting to see a little desperation on the part of the woman who I support and I'll support until whatever time she makes a different determination," Paterson said, adding: "I thought she was the best candidate and I thought she had the best chance of winning."

On Clinton's claims regarding the popular vote and likening the fight to set the Florida and Michigan delegates to the civil rights movement, Paterson said:

"You have to rule out the undecideds in Michigan. You have to assume she won 100 percent to nothing in Michigan. I don't think anybody in their right mind would do that, nor would they see it as a civil rights issue."