Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Kos:
Okay, today we found out that counting the fake Florida primary is, according to Hillary Clinton, like:
Woman’s Suffrage
Civil Rights
Florida 2000
ZimbabweIt’s also like the Big Bang, Jesus, and cute kittens.
Actually, Kos, McCain is like Jesus.
What else is it like?
I would argue it is like the Grinch that Stole Christmas. And the War of the Roses. And the Reichstag Fire.
Have fun, and consider this an open thread.
More relevant than ever:
I will say this one more time. All the times over the past few years when the Republicans would repeat their mantra that the “Democrats are worse,” they were not talking about the Democrats, they were talking about the Clinton family.
And they were probably right.
Consider this an open thread.
*** Update ***
Now that I have calmed down, that probably was a little over the top.
*** Update #2 ***
Crazy person. Point and laugh:
Desperate to get attention for her cause to seat Florida and Michigan delegates, Hillary Clinton compared the plight of Zimbabweans in their recent fraudulent election to the uncounted votes of Michigan and Florida voters saying it is wrong when “people go through the motions of an election only to have them discarded and disregarded.”
“We’re seeing that right now in Zimbabwe,” Clinton explained. “Tragically, an election was held, the president lost, they refused to abide by the will of the people,” Clinton told the crowd of senior citizens at a retirement community in south Florida.
I think it is time to stop taking her seriously. Let’s run a contest to see who can come up with the stupidest comment from any member of a Clinton campaign between now and June 3rd. Winner gets a 25 dollar gift certificate to Amazon or a $25 donation to their charity of choice.
And no, you can not use crazy statements from Hill-bloggers.
No graceful exit in sight For Our Lady of Inevitability:
Hillary Rodham Clinton says she is willing to take her fight to seat Florida and Michigan delegates to the convention if the two states want to go that far. In an interview with The Associated Press, Clinton was asked whether she would support the states if they continue the fight.
The presidential candidate said Wednesday, “Yes I will. I will, because I feel very strongly about this.”
Clinton is calling for delegates from both states to be seated at the convention based on the primaries. Both states were stripped of their delegates because they voted early, violating national party rules. Clinton won both states; Barack Obama’s name wasn’t on the Michigan ballot.
Translation: “If this party doesn’t give me the nomination, I am gonna blow shit up.”
Once again, the hostage crisis metaphor is appropriate. A roll down memory lane, when Hillary discussed the Michigan election last October:
What a contemptible wretch Sen. Clinton has turned out to be, and I find it stunning that many Democratic blogs who routinely bitch about the various and numerous violations of rules, law, and international agreements by the Bush administration sit by and swallow this nonsense from the Senator Clinton.
*** Update ***
After courting the white vote for months in Appalachia, Mrs. Nixon informs us that seating Florida and Michigan are akin to the Civil Rights Movement. No. Seriously:
“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.”
What an asshole.
*** Update ***
Chait nails it:
This gambit by Clinton is simply an attempt to steal the nomination. It’s obviously not going to work, because Democratic superdelegates don’t want to commit suicide. But this episode is very revealing about Clinton’s character. I try not to make moralistic characterological judgments about politicians, because all politicians compromise their ideals in the pursuit of power. There are no angels in this business. Clinton’s gambit, however, truly is breathtaking.
If she’s consciously lying, it’s a shockingly cynical move. I don’t think she’s lying. I think she’s so convinced of her own morality and historical importance that she can whip herself into a moralistic fervor to support nearly any position that might benefit her, however crass and sleazy. It’s not just that she’s convinced herself it’s okay to try to steal the nomination, she has also appropriated the most sacred legacies of liberalism for her effort to do so. She is proving herself temperamentally unfit for the presidency.
Misogynist!
Lisa Caputo, one of the Clinton hacks on MSNBC tonight, just claimed (fraudulently) that Hillary had the popular vote but was behind in the delegate math, and that this felt like “Al Gore in 2000 when it had to go to the Supreme Court.”
Matthews, apparently still high from the hair dye he used last week to turn his hair tomato red, did not correct her, as Clinton is only ahead in the popular vote if you include the vote tallies from the non-elections in Michigan and Florida and do not count the vote in caucus states. These fucking hacks will say anything.
The pause in Clinton bashing is officially over. Have at it. If they feel free to peddle this divisive bullshit, to hell with being nice back. I have had enough of this Rovian crap.
*** Update ***
Via the comments:
Bingo. According to the RCP source most Clinton supporters use. The only metric she can be ahead in is with not counting IA, NV, ME, WA , and counting FL and MI while giving Obama 0 votes in MI. And even with that Aunt Annie style twist on the numbers Clinton is still only +26,967.
There is a word for this. It is called LYING.
*** Update #2 ***
Yep, called that. Obama released his April numbers today to rain on Hillary’s Kentucky Fried parade:
News has learned that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., hauled in $31.9 million in April (including $600,000 for the general election) to continue his battle for the Democratic nomination against Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. Two hundred thousand new donors joined Obama’s effort last month.
Obama has an mighty $37.3 million on hand with $9.2 million tucked away for the general election.
Camp Obama proves (again) that big money comes in small packages. It’s been a pattern since last year but the numbers are still impressive: 1.475 million total donors overall making 2.93 million contributions. The average contribution is $91.
The clicks come in small waves: 94% of the contributions to Obama’s effort were under $200, 93% of contributions were $100 or less, 77% were $50 or less, and 52% were $25 or less.
Hillary raised somewhere between ten and 20 million.
I thought they would release them today. Face it- Obama’s campaign is good.
*** Update #3 ***
Commenters rain on my self-congratulatory parade:
Obama’s campaign is good. But they had to release the numbers today. The 20th of the month is the FEC deadline.
The strategy was in not releasing them earlier, so that when Clinton released her weaker numbers today, it would be a sharper contrast.
Sometimes having a comments section sucks.
*** Update #4 ***
Howard Fineman gave the most amazing analysis just a moment ago, which literally was “Everyone knows Obama has won, and it is only a matter of finding a way to let Clinton wrap it up without blowing up the party.”
In other words, my hostage metaphor remains accurate. Knowing the Clintons, they will probably keep fighting on, spreading bullshit, and whipping their supporters in a froth because, let’s face it. This is all about them.
*** Update #5 ***
Line of the night to Ron Reagan- “If Appalachia was a country, Hillary Clinton could be President.”
The best thing about this After Hours is that everyone wants to just SCREAM when the Clinton surrogate brings up the nonsense about the popular vote. They are quite literally laughing at the Clinton campaign now, which is a shame, because when you look back at the nomination a lot of people HAVE in fact voted for Hillary. But to do this popular vote nonsense when it is delegates that matter and to include the Michigan and Florida popular vote and not from the caucus states is just maddening. Even the pundits can’t take it anymore.
AWESOME NEW CLINTONIAN BULLSHIT- BREAKING FASTPost + Comments (213)
WSJ with some reporting from inside the Clinton campaign:
Inside her campaign, Sen. Clinton isn’t asking for advice, forcing advisers to hold off discussions on what she wants from the process if she loses — from dealing with campaign debt, to her role in an Obama bid for the White House. “The campaign has broken down to those who drink the Kool-Aid that Hillary can still win, and those who don’t, and are considering their options,” one operative said.
Campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe says he has assured Sen. Clinton that she will have funds to compete through June 3, adding that he will worry about any campaign debt after that. “We’re still getting tens of thousands of contributors online, who love Hillary’s fight,” Mr. McAuliffe said.
Sen. Clinton’s campaign is racking up large debts, though. The campaign disclosed $12.6 million in debt at the end of March, not including a personal loan of $5 million from Sen. Clinton herself. One week ago, officials said the candidate had lent her campaign an additional $6.4 million and put total debt at $20 million.
Were the April fund-raising numbers released and I missed it? Or is the Obama campaign holding on to their numbers in case there is a bad news day they need to massage (something they have done very well, so far- the Edwards endorsement after WV was a perfect example).
Speaking of which, for those of you who are so inclined:
Does anyone know the intricacies of campaign financing? At what point would it be better to hold off from donating so that you can spend your surplus cash on donations that can be used in the general?
Ben Smith brings us this quote from Hillary:
“It’s been deeply offensive to millions of women,” Clinton said. “I believe this campaign has been a groundbreaker in a lot of ways. But it certainly has been challenging given some of the attitudes in the press, and I regret that, because I think it’s been really not worthy of the seriousness of the campaign and the historical nature of the two candidacies we have here.”
Later, when asked if she thinks this campaign has been racist, she says she does not. And she circles back to the sexism. “The manifestation of some of the sexism that has gone on in this campaign is somehow more respectable, or at least more accepted, and . . . there should be equal rejection of the sexism and the racism when it raises its ugly head,” she said. “It does seem as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by the comments by people who are nothing but misogynists.” ‘
Without comment:
***
Look, there is no doubt Hillary has been subjected to sexism during this campaign, but if you want to know why Hillary really lost, you have to look no farther than this quote from her. Her entire campaign has been one gigantic attempt to redefine reality to how she wants to see it, ignoring the things that upset her and that don’t fit the new new narrative of the day as passed on by Howard Wolfson and Mark Penn. Hillary did not lose because she is a woman- she lost because they ran a crappy campaign. From the comments last night:
Hillary came in to this contest with a bunch of cash, the lead in super delegates, and the polls saying that she was going to steamroll the competition without problem. She had the Clinton name, donors with deep wallets, and a husband who was a popular former President who could also advise her and give her the inside scoop on campaigning.
She had it all, and she squandered it all away. Her and her campaign thought she had it sewed up, and they spent their campaign cash like there was no tomorrow. Huge salaries, huge parking bills, nice hotels for everyone and all the trimmings. After all, after sweeping up on Super Tuesday, the cash would be rolling in hand over fist. So why worry when her win was inevitable? She came in to the primary season as a powerhouse, she was going to clear the table and sweep up the winnings.
One problem. One candidate was deadly serious about winning, and he put together a team of people who he could count on to do the best they can for him. People who believe in what they are doing, and who know that if they want to win then they have to have a plan to get out there and earn it. So while Hillary was making the press rounds and drinking up all of the attention, Obama and his team rolled up their sleeves, planned and got to work.
This race is like the story about the tortoise and the hare. The hare knew the race was as sure as won, but the tortoise ignored the hare and quietly plodded along, keeping the goal line in sight the whole time. The hare got lost along the way, and now the tortoise is almost across the finish line.
How many versions of Hillary have there been this campaign? Right now we are on the gun-toting/whiskey-drinking model, but there have been numerous other incarnations of the candidate this election. You can’t blame that kind of message incompetence, that kind of demographic slicing and dicing, that transparent phoniness on sexism. You just don’t.
And more to the point- is there ANYONE, and I mean ANYONE, who thinks that we would have even ever seen this populist version of Hillary, trouncing around Appalachia in pick-up trucks, getting to her roots with the white man, swilling whiskey and munching on pizza, if she had not lost on Super Tuesday and if she had sealed up the election in February? Is there ANYONE who thinks Hillary would give a shit about the Florida and Michigan delegates if she had the nomination sealed up?
Of course not, and you all know it. No one reading this can honestly state that the Annie Oakley revival tour we are watching right now would have happened, because we all know it would not have. Terry McAuliffe himself stated they had a “27 state plan,” and all these other states would just have been after-thoughts had Clinton not blown it in February. Her campaign would be back in DC, plotting out there 50+1 plan for the fall, doing oppo research on McCain, all while having catered food brought to their luxury hotel rooms and with Mark Penn drawing a couple more million a month while still logging billable hours for Burston-Marsteller.
It is this kind of nonsense, this kind of willful suspension of reality, that has been the trademark of the Clinton campaign since Day One. Yes, Sen. Clinton, there has been sexism in this race. But it isn’t why you lost, and it wasn’t the only “ism” on display.
*** Update ***
BTW- I can’t be the only one who thinks this Richard Cohen piece is a dazzling display of beltway incoherence, as well as being factually inaccurate.