A Comment I Made On Another Blog
I have been having an argument with a Clinton supporter on another blog. He keeps saying "rules aren't iron clad, it's OK to change them when they're wrong" and the like.
I particularly liked my response to him, so I figured I'd cross post it here:
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Yes,
Let’s put it in different terms: In the NFL, they seem to tweak the rules each off season. This year they removed the “force out” rule, so that a force out is now not a complete catch. They’ve changed the instant replay rule numerous times.
But they never change the rules in mid-season, and certainly not in mid-game. Teams look at the rule set for that year and work on their game plan based on it. To change the rule set in mid season would screw up the teams’ plans, and what Clinton and her camp is essentially suggesting is that now that we’re starting the fourth quarter and they’re down by a pretty conclusive margin *according to the current rules*, now they want to go back and put the force-out rule back into play, and claim credit for two TDs they would likely have scored in the first quarters of the game had their pass not been called “incomplete” due to a force-out.
Actually, it’s more like when the teams have pre-season scrimidge games (I never could spell that right), and some teams play to win (to get early confidence) while others play their second string team (to get them some experience). Teams make different choices than they do a few weeks later, when the games count. So what Clinton is really asking for (in MI in particular) is that we suddenly count the pre-season games, because she played to win and the other team didn’t, knowing that the contest didn’t count.
Rules are not iron-clad. But changing them in mid-stream isn’t fair to anyone. And wrapping your demand for change up in flag waving “but we’re Democrats, we COUNT all the votes” is hollow at best if you only start saying it AFTER you won the contest, and don’t say anything like that before hand.
Besides, if she gets everything she wants AND manages to convince the majority of the supers to support her, but in the process so pisses off the Obama fans, some of whom will clearly vote for McCain because they can’t stand having been beaten unfairly, won’t that be something of a pyrrhic victory?
You play the hand you were dealt. If you don’t like it, you can quit the game the next time, or call for a different set of rules (Texas Hold’em instead of Five Card Draw, for example) next time, but you finish out the game you started and you don’t start lecturing people about how you’re the only one who truly respects the rules of Texas Hold ‘Em because you’re losing the game of Draw that you are in the middle of.
Liam.
posted by Liam at 5/29/2008 02:25:00 PM
4 Comments:
Let me get this straight.....
Party rules require that states lose at least 50% of their delegates for the violations Michigan and Florida committed, right? (I read this on the CNN website.) .... So, having never read much about the rules, I assume it's up to the party rules committee to decide the percentage between 50% and 100%? And a federal judge in Tampa threw out a lawsuit challenging the party's decision not to seat delegates in Florida, right?
If the rules are explicit, then I agree that rules should not be revised in the middle of a game, or election process. It's unfortunate that the states purposely violated the party election rules. And perhaps other rules of enforcement should have been in place ahead of primary planning that would have halted violations or at least explained sufficiently to the public the consequences of such violations. Rules governing a process should not be altered during that process, especially during the election process. It's not fair, to just about everybody. And you can't get an un-biased resolution, and that's why it goes to the courts.
I am not against Clinton fighting for every vote right down to the convention; but I am against Clinton fighting for every vote which is in violation of rules.
But then again, if I weren't an Obama supporter, would I feel the same way? I'd like to think so.
Thursday, May 29, 2008 8:32:00 PM
Exactly. And the DNC stated BEFORE the contests that if they were held in violation of DNC sanctioned dates, the states would lose ALL of their delegates.
To give her even half of the delegates is a heck of a "compromise". There are lots of voters in both states who say they didn't bother to come out because they knew it wouldn't count.
And, here's the really stupid part, Clinton is insisting that the MI delegates be seated as is, which is to say 55% of them for her and 45% for "uncommitted". None for Obama. Why? Because he followed the agreement with the DNC and removed his name from the ballot, she didn't. And when asked at the time why she didn't, she said "Well, we all know this isn't going to count, so I didn't bother, since it's not going to matter".
But of course now those are votes she wants to count, so now her duplicity matters, but she wraps it up in moralizing about how we can't disenfranchise the voters.
The thing is, I've talked to people in both states. They don't seem all that worked up about it. They seem MORE worked up about any compromise solution, because it's changing the rules after the game has been played.
But... I'm coming to suspect that the people who suggest that Clinton is just using this as one more excuse to stay in the race and try to convince the superdelegates to switch to her are correct. My guess is that one of two things will happen this weekend:
1) The committee gives her everything she's demanding, all of the delegates seated at full strength in the proportions as the votes were cast (less than 5% chance), in which case she says "See? This is a really close race! I was right to stay in it!" and she fights her way to the convention trying to grab as much superdelegate support as she can.
2) She gets anything less and immediately challenges it, which effectively voids the Rules & Bylaws committee's results and sends it to the Credentials Committee, which doesn't meet until August... and whose decisions have to be ratified AT convention before they're final anyway. In which case "it hasn't been decided, so I'm staying in until it is".
She's not looking to win on Saturday, she's looking for any excuse she can to keep this going, believing that she can eventually make the case that she's the better candidate to run against John McCain and convince the supers to switch to her.
Or at least, that's my perception.
And the sad thing is because super delegates are not pledged even after they endorse a candidate (witness the several which have recently switched from Clinton to Obama), even if they come out overwhelmingly for Obama in the next few days, since he won't have won it on pledged delegates, she can convince herself she's got a shot at persuading them to switch sides, and she'll STILL stay in it.
At this point, about the best option I can see is that the supers all come out and support Obama, and although Clinton is technically still in it, no one gives her any publicity any more as a national joke (sort of like the way we no longer hear much about Ron Paul, even though he's technically never conceeded and is still running his campaign).
Then again, a few weeks ago I thought she would come to an arrangement with Obama to help her raise funds to pay off her debts and would get out of the race, and I was wrong about that, so take my predictions with a grain of salt.
Liam.
Thursday, May 29, 2008 8:53:00 PM
Interesting. And it will be interesting to see which of your scenarios pan out.
I admit to knowing or understanding diddley about the whole primary/caucus process, so I appreciate the info.
But explain to me.... what's this talk I briefly heard of Pelosi (I never remember how to spell her name) trying to get super delegates to commit soon? Can that happen? Should that happen? And if it did happen, wouldn't that be just one more issue Clinton could take to the Credentials Committee?
It all gives me a headache. But hey, at least it's not boring!
Friday, May 30, 2008 6:33:00 AM
The whole process is kind of poorly (or well, depending on your point of view) set up. There's not enough power in the power brokers to really settle things (like in the days of the much-talked-about "smoke filled back room"), but there's enough in the super delegates to allow one side or the other to cite the boogeyman of disenfranchised voters.
What Pelosi and Reid and Dean can do as a team is encourage the uncommitted supers to state an endorsement and make it clear that in the absence of anything catastrophic (assassination, stroke, withdrawal by the candidate, revelation that the candidate was a Hitler Youth, etc), they aren't going to change their minds.
But the problem is that for the supers, the votes aren't final until they're cast. So even if Pelosi, Reid and Dean apply their pressure and get what they want, Clinton could still insist that she's close enough in the pledged delegate count (and, using her fuzzy "count only what aids me" math, claiming the lead in popular votes cast) to stay in the race until August trying to make her case to the supers.
She could also theoretically file suit against the party if she feels she can make a case for their behavior having been illegal or unfairly wronging her in some way. Heck, with our legal system, she merely has to assert it to get a court date (although she'd hopefully have to prove it to win).
But the problem is that although they speak otherwise, Pelosi, Reid and Dean don't really have the power to end it. That said, if the put on enough pressure and enough supers came out for Obama to give him an overwhelming majority, what they lack in ACTUAL power they might gain in popular power, if the main stream media relegated Clinton to the "isn't it cute what the monkey is doing this week" section of the newscast.
But the sad truth is that the rules are set up to allow anyone to keep pushing it as long as they want to, and as long as Clinton believes she has any chance at all of swaying the supers, she's going to stay in it.
I'm more convinced than ever that Clinton has never gotten over the fact that for a year she was the presumptive nominee (along with Giuliani, who had the good sense to back out when media projections didn't match primary performance) and I think she honestly feels entitled to this, and is just waiting for someone to realize that this upstart pissant shouldn't be allowed to steal HER Presidency.
I really feel she'd sell out the party and maybe even the best interests of the country if it would get her into the Oval Office.
Liam.
Friday, May 30, 2008 1:00:00 PM
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