The MI/FL Delegate issue has been resolved.

by: Brainwrap

Fri May 23, 2008 at 18:19:55 PM EDT

It;s over. Hillary just crossed a line--intentionally or not--that goes way, way beyond anything resembling acceptable behavior.

She just invoked Robert Kennedy's assassination in 1968 as one of the main justifications for her not dropping out.

If she chose her words deliberately, it was unforgivable.

If she chose her words in error, it was a gaffe of gargantuan proportions.

Either way, I don't think we need to worry about what's gonna happen on the 31st, because I think Hillary Clinton just ended her Presidential--*or* VICE-Presidential--ambitions forever today.

Hillary under 60%, loses 70% of black vote, on MLK birthday primary

by: David Boyle

Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 21:07:24 PM EST

    See DetNews, the pithily-titled Michigan blacks reject HI[sic]llary;
HuffPo, Michigan Results Reveal Some Dangerous Trends For Clinton,

...the exit poll results from this strange contest reveal some troubling trends for the New York Senator. ...
    Among black voters, Clinton was crushed by "uncommitted," 26-70. If that kind of margin among African Americans continues into future primaries, she faces major problems in the heavily black January 26 South Carolina primary....

...Clinton was perfectly positioned. She had no serious opposition. She also had the strong support of top Michigan Democrats such as Governor Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow.
    Usually, a prominent presidential contender running a primary campaign without serious opposition and with strong in-state support from party leaders can count on winning 90 percent or more of the vote. ...
    A remarkable 40 percent of Michiganders who participated in the primary voted for nobody, marking the "Uncommitted" option on their ballots. ...
    Ominously for the Clinton camp, the former First Lady was losing the African-American vote -- in Wayne County and statewide -- to "Uncommitted." African-American leaders such as Detroit Congressman John Conyers, who backs Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, had urged an "Uncommitted" vote. ...
    It is hard[] to believe that Clinton will get very far claiming Michigan handed her a meaningful victory Tuesday night. When two out of every five voters choose nobody rather than a prominent candidate who is running with little or no opposition, that candidate's got no reason to celebrate.

    I hate to disagree with Eric B., but despite his post title, Clinton, Romney cruise to bigger than anticipated margins (Open thread), I, not to mention DetNews, HuffPo, & Nation above, don't think Hill did too good. At. All.

    With comments like the Mich Lib one recently about needing a Caucasian fella on the ticket (Why? I'd vote for an Obama/Sebelius ticket, no white guy there), I think it is good to be sensitive, racially and otherwise, when making comments, maybe. And with the Daily Kos observations today, John Kerry:  Kicking ass, defending the right to vote, and flying to Nevada (on John Kerry's fighting the Clinton attempt to disenfranchise largely Latina/o workers' vote), and Say Goodbye to Howard Dean, (about the DNC entering the legal fray against the Clinton disenfranchisement attempt, and the likelihood of the Clintons booting Dean, in favor of Terry McAuliffe, if they win), it looks not just like a Michigan Dem struggle against Granholm/Brewer/Dingell's complicity with disenfranchisement, it looks like a national battle, of the reformers against the unworthy Establishment. I hope we'd all be on the side of the reformers.

    (While the DNC can't per se oppose the Clinton campaign, it's nice to see them at least opposing a Clinton initiative. Maybe Dean knows that not only will he be booted if the Clintons return to power, but decency itself will be booted as well.)

    --The message, as always, is, be active and take back your party. Find replacements for the people I mention above who need to be replaced. Run yourself if you have to. Be inclusive to minorities and to people in general. Promote the right over the wrong, and progress over stagnation. Keep the dream alive. MLK would expect no less of you.

Granholm bashes "uncommitted"...while not committing to Michigan

by: David Boyle

Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 19:39:27 PM EST

"She's committed to us. We are going to stand behind someone who stands behind us."

"Their choice is to be committed for uncommitted? Or to be committed to someone who has stood for us?"

, and DetNews, Clinton cruising over 'uncommitted' (which despite its title, queries

But will she capture a large enough percentage to avoid embarrassment Tuesday?

    Gov. Jennifer Granholm said this morning at a Clinton rally in Southfield that her candidate "is committed to Michigan."    
    "Her opponent in this state apparently is 'uncommitted,' which is not an opponent," Granholm told reporters after speaking to 100 Clinton supporters at the Westin Hotel. "That is why we are encouraging voters to get out and vote for Hillary Clinton. She is not uncommitted to Michigan, which the other candidates apparently are."    
    Clinton opted not to campaign in Michigan because she made a pledge to uphold the party primary calendar, which is tilted to early races in Iowa and New Hampshire.

   There are multiple truth problems with JG's words here, including the fact that, uh, Clinton pledged not to campaign in Michigan (as noted above)! so that Dennis Kucinich, whatever his other problems, is more committed to Michigan than Clinton, cf. George Bullard in DetNews, Re Michigan, at least Kucinich shows up.
    As well, like it or not, Gravel and Kucinich are opponents of Clinton, too, so JG is inaccurate by not mentioning them as opponents, mentioning only "uncommitted" as an opponent. (Cheap rhetorical trick?)
    Last but not least, Granholm (who USED to say that Michigan Liberal is her favorite blog--is that still true??--, so that she may read here frequently) may have borrowed the "committed/uncommitted" wordplay of yours truly on 1/9/08, "Ironically, then, if you are COMMITTED to change, you may have to vote UNCOMMITTED on 1/15." ...I wonder how much she might owe me for "copyright infringement"! No wonder the writers went on strike...

    Now what is really interesting, is Jennifer Granholm's lack of commitment to staying in Michigan herself and doing her job, instead of running off to D.C. with Hillary, if she wins, and then leaving the Michigan mess to her new "Chief Operating Officer" (!! "Michigan Incorporated"??), and to John Cherry, whose, to be blunt, "charisma issues" might prevent him from becoming governor in a normal election.
    See Tim Skubick, the "Off the Record" video of his JG interview on 10/12/07, at c. 13:45-15:45 on the video. (Check WKAR if the above link doesn't work) TS asks JG repeatedly if she will pledge not to leave Lansing, and JG refuses again and again to answer, talking about "speculation", dodging the issue, and leaving a deep suspicion about her own commitment to Michigan. (She does say that fixing Michigan should take longer than a year and a half, and that she doesn't want to go to D.C. ...o.k., then why can't she pledge to stay in Lansing? Whom does she think she's fooling??)

    Repeatedly refusing to pledge to stay on the job in her own state, throwing (or even subtly massaging...) the election for a pal who can give her a cushy slot in D.C., and taking millions of taxpayers dollars to do it, plus the voter list graft, plus holding the DNC-rulebreaking election even after 4 Dem candidates correctly avoided it, plus Michigan's collapse in general...how committed is politician Granholm to Michigan, or staying in Michigan, or anything? Can she be believed when she mocks "uncommitted" voters like the great John Conyers and says voting Hillary is better?
    Probably not. If you vote, vote "uncommitted"...and commit to doing something about Granholm's, Dingell's, Brewer's, Anuzis's, McManus's, and Bishop's noxious dedication to doing the wrong thing re the 1/15 primary, and so many other wrong things as well. Thanks for your commitment to Michigan and to Michigan rank-and-file Democrats!

Clinton disenfranchising Latinos...then pitting them against blacks?

by: David Boyle

Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 13:47:58 PM EST

    On the morning after Clinton's victory, I talked to Sergio Bendixen, one of her pollsters, who specializes in the Hispanic vote. "In all honesty, the Hispanic vote is extremely important to the Clinton campaign. [...]," he said. "The fire wall doesn't apply now, because she is in good shape, but before last night the Hispanic vote was going to be the most important part of her fire wall on February 5th." The implications of that strategy are not necessarily uplifting.
    ...he was also frank about the fact that the Clintons, long beloved in the black community, are now dependent on a less edifying political dynamic: "The Hispanic voter-and I want to say this very carefully-has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates."

    Ouch.
    I got the Lizza reference by reading DKos's Bob Johnson in The dark heart of the Clinton campaign: a strategy designed to make race THE issue by Bob Johnson; Johnson not only critcizes BET's own Clinton-supporting Bob Johnson for possibly raising "drug issues" about Obama, but also notes

    The question of who stands to benefit from making the campaign about race has only one answer: Hillary Clinton. ...
    Now, there is a certain irony in Lizza's noting of Camp Clinton's Hispanic strategy at the same time that Clinton surrogates are seeking to disenfranchise the culinary union members in Nevada, many of whom are Hispanic. (One would hope the Obama campaign would be quick to point out this hypocrisy.)
    But the pattern from the Clinton camp is quite clear: they want to make the campaign about race. They want to make Obama into the second coming of Jesse Jackson, 1984 & 1988.

    Well well. Disenfranchise Latina/os, then pit them against African Americans, maybe? --Perhaps not explicitly, as in printing flyers that say, "Hey Hispanics, vote against Black Barack" or something, but still...read what Ryan Lizza and Bob Johnson (of DKos) say. And such double-playing of Latina/o voters doesn't sound very nice to me.

    As for the relevance of all that to Michigan, see my earlier diary Hillary DISSES MLK. ...Big mistake, on Hillary's clumsiness or insensitivity on racial issues. It seems that the Clintons have learned little since I wrote that diary; and maybe John Conyers, and many others, are right to urge an "uncommitted" vote after all.  

Why Kos should withdraw his support for Romney in Michigan

by: David Boyle

Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 13:38:37 PM EST

    It was alarming yesterday to see Kos actively supporting a Republican like Mitt Romney (I thought Kos wasn't a Repub any more...), and then to have the "Democrats.COM" gang send at Kos' request a mass e-mail, irresponsibly titled "Voting Fun in the Michigan Primary", endorsing that, too. What?

    Actually, Kos' diary has an irresponsible, joy-riding type of title too, Let's have some fun in Michigan! He argues that keeping Romney in the race, by Dems voting for him and thus preventing a catastrophic Romney loss in Michigan, will keep an additional moving part in the Repub machine to muck it up, rather than letting Mich maul Mitt and knock him out. (Which would make life simpler for John McCain and other Repubs)
    True, maybe, but is it worth the price? And what if, uh...Romney becomes President? with our help??

    Democrats should vote for Democrats, and help stop Hillary too, in Michigan, by voting for uncommitted delegates. And Kos should publicly withdraw his misguided support for Romney, before he does any more damage.

(more below)

Vote "uncommitted", not for racist Ron Paul (or hope-less Hill)

by: David Boyle

Wed Jan 09, 2008 at 17:12:09 PM EST

    See the poor man's Michigan Liberal, the New Republic, Angry White Man: The bigoted past of Ron Paul.,

    ...Martin Luther King Jr. earned special ire from Paul's newsletters, which attacked the civil rights leader frequently, often to justify opposition to the federal holiday named after him. ("What an infamy Ronald Reagan approved it!" one newsletter complained in 1990. "We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day.") In the early 1990s, a newsletter attacked the "X-Rated Martin Luther King" as a "world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours," "seduced underage girls and boys," and "made a pass at" fellow civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy. One newsletter ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that "Welfaria," "Zooville," "Rapetown," "Dirtburg," and "Lazyopolis" were better alternatives. The same year, King was described as "a comsymp, if not an actual party member, and the man who replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration."
    While bashing King, the newsletters had kind words for the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. ...

    Hillary hasn't been good on MLK issues, but Paul is much worse.
    Do you want to vote for Adolf, uh, Ron Paul now? Maybe not. I hope.

    There is also the ethical issue about messing with somebody else's primary; I don't really like it, any more than I would appreciate 10 zillion Repubs crossing over and making Mike Gravel the winner. Dems should vote...DEM, etc.
    And finally, there is also the "dilution" tactical problem, i.e., one Dem thinks, "I'll vote for that loser Huckabee and he'll win the Michigan vote, haw haw", but another thinks "I'll vote for that loser Ron Paul and he'll win the Michigan vote, haw haw", so that the "loser" votes may be spread out too much and let Romney or McCain slip through anyway--and ALSO let Hillary slip through.
    This is what professionals call A Bad Result.

    See, too, Daily Kos today, cartwrightdale, Changing my vote from "Ron Paul" to "Uncommitted" (in Michigan),

    ...I stated a few days ago that Senator Clinton needs to say, on record, unambiguously and as Shermanesque as possible, that she will not challenge the Michigan delegate ban under any circumstances, and not accept delegate votes from Michigan under any circumstances.  If she won't commit to this statement, she is patently unqualified to run in the Democratic primary to begin with, as she would be advocating the strategy of stealing an election.  I spent the last day or so trying to get an answer from the Clinton campaign, and no one will commit to this statement that I've talked to so far.  Which is terrifying.  
    Therefore, I have changed my mind about the strategic advantage of voting for Ron Paul.  It is now the clear strategic advantage, if you're in Michigan, to vote "uncommitted".  Voting "uncommitted" in the Democratic primary allows the delegates to be freed up to support who they like, should the convention prove a close one.  
    Yes, most Michigan Democrats I know still plan on staying home, or voting in the Republican primary, but I hope the word gets out in time that there is a better option.  Voting uncommitted isn't the same as not voting -- it's stopping Hillary Clinton from the potential of hijacking an election with invalid delgates (should the final totals be close).  And that in and of itself is even more valuable than assuring Ron Paul keeps being a pest.

    As for Hillary, by the way: congratulations on her slim 2-point victory over Barack in NH last night, although Barack's 9-point Iowa victory over her was proportionately more impressive.
    However, as Maureen Dowd notes in Can Hillary Cry Her Way Back to the White House?,

    ...Gloria Steinem wrote in The Times yesterday that one of the reasons she is supporting Hillary is that she had "no masculinity to prove." But Hillary did feel she needed to prove her masculinity. That was why she voted to enable W. to invade Iraq without even reading the National Intelligence Estimate and backed the White House's bellicosity on Iran. ...
    Hillary sounded silly trying to paint Obama as a poetic dreamer and herself as a prodigious doer. "Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act," she said. Did any living Democrat ever imagine that any other living Democrat would try to win a presidential primary in New Hampshire by comparing herself to L.B.J.? (Who was driven out of politics by Gene McCarthy in New Hampshire.)
    Her argument against Obama now boils down to an argument against idealism, which is probably the lowest and most unlikely point to which any Clinton could sink. The people from Hope are arguing against hope. ...

    Hope against hope. Heh.
    And with Hillary confirming in her victory speech that she'll get us out of Iraq "the right way", it implies she knows better than other Dem candidates what to do there. Which she didn't when she voted to send us to war there, causing far more tears in the families of our dead soldiers than she herself has shed recently; and I don't think she knows better now about Iraq, either. So much for Hillary.

    So if you want a viable change candidate like Barack Obama (cf. the other poor man's Mich Lib, the Huffington Post, Obama Wins Key Support Of Nevada's Largest Union today) or John Edwards to win--and no lawsuit knocks over the primary, and if you don't want to boycott the primary, and maybe even if you like Richardson--, vote "uncommitted" and make sure all your friends do, too, and spread the word the best you can. --Kucinich is campaigning here, so he's violating the pledge not to campaign, maybe? and who wants to vote for a dishonest candidate? And Dodd is out. And Gravel...is Gravel, God bless him.
    Ironically, then, if you are COMMITTED to change, you may have to vote UNCOMMITTED on 1/15. Funny, I know, but that's life.

    Peace.

Hillary DISSES MLK. …Big mistake

by: David Boyle

Tue Jan 08, 2008 at 14:50:15 PM EST

    See, e.g., not only the Drudge Report headline earlier this morning, "HILLARY UNLOADS: YOU'RE NO MARTIN LUTHER KING..." (linking to NYT, "The Caucus", Clinton's Civil Rights Lesson,) but multiple recommended-list diaries on Daily Kos yesterday, including DemDog, Hillary Goes Negative...on Martin Luther King, Jr!!!  [UPDATED], and Geekesque, (UPDATEDX2) Desperate Clinton:  LBJ, not Martin Luther King, is real civil rights hero. The latter diary also has several negative opinions of Hillary's words, by African-American bloggers.

    Excerpting from "Desperate Clinton":

"[from DetNews link in Geekesque diary,]

Obama challenged Clinton's claim in a weekend debate that he was raising "false hopes" about what he could deliver for the country. Obama told his audience that hope made President Kennedy aim to put a man on the moon and Martin Luther King Jr. to imagine the end of segregation. ...

    Well, Clinton had her chance to respond, and oh boy did she deliver up a doozy [from Politico link in Geekesque diary]:

"Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act. It took a president to get it done.  The power of that dream became real in people's lives because we had a president capable of action."

    Just how awful is this, on so many levels?  "It took a President to get it done?"

    NO.

    It took a nation to get it done.  It took a mass uprising to get it done.  It took brave men and women to brave Bull Connor's thugs, firehoses, and dogs.  It took an overriding popular will to see it throught.  It took courage.  It took inspiration.  It took the the blood of martyrs and patriots.""

    Amen.

    The Michigan nexus is, how is Hillary's mega-flub going to play in the state of the late, great Rosa Parks??

    I wonder what John Conyers would think...

MDP, no Denver rooms for thee at DNC

by: David Boyle

Mon Jan 07, 2008 at 14:40:23 PM EST

     Michigan Democrats no longer can count on getting hotel rooms at their national convention in Denver.
    The Democratic National Committee's Rules Committee last month stripped Michigan of its 156 national convention delegates as punishment for scheduling an early presidential primary in violation of party rules. State party officials had until Saturday to come up with an alternative to the Jan. 15 contest, but declined to do so.
    That decision caused the DNC to informally tell state Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer that the party no longer has reservations at the Red Lion Hotel Denver Central during the Aug. 25-28 convention, state party spokesman Jason Moon said Monday.
    "We think that those hotel rooms will be given back to us," Moon added. ...
    The Red Lion Denver Central is a 300-room hotel about 15 minutes from downtown Denver. State delegations fight hard to lock up the best hotels with enough room for their delegates, family members and political activists. ...

    The primary may still be legal to hold as of today, but somehow, I don't know if all the MDP conventioneers can fit in one cardboard box in the mile-high Denver streets at night, now that their "Red Lion" rooms are gone. Maybe 2 really BIG boxes.

Blogging 4 Michigan on Obama/ism: "arrogant", "flawed", "dangerous"

by: David Boyle

Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 18:58:22 PM EST

1. wizardkitten, Thoughts on the NH debate,  

    ...Obama strikes me as intelligent, thoughtful, definitely someone you want on the team, but also inexperienced and arrogant. Sorry bandwagon jumpers, but it seems the times that he faces criticism or tough questions, he tunes out and dismisses it with a wave of the hand. You get the impression he won't listen to your concerns if he doesn't agree with you. There is also the problem of this idea that Republicans are just going to join with him and sing "Kumbaya". Has he not been paying attention these past seven years? Still, I see incredible potential there; I just want a bit more seasoning. He hasn't been put through the fire yet, and I'm not sure how he will react when it happens. ...
    But the person that could walk in and be president right now is Hillary Clinton. ...

2. Christine, Purple Is The New Capitulate,

    ...Obama's vision is downright dangerous to the larger progressive agenda.

Obama is running his campaign on change and hope.  He's tapped into a powerful current:  Americans are desperate for both.  But the type of change that Obama is selling is fundamentally flawed.    

Obama wants us to believe that he can bring together the Democrats and the Republicans.  He wants us to believe that he can walk into the White House, butter up Congress like a biscuit, and then get all his legislation passed.  There will be no opposition, because he's so sweet.  

And he won't just save America ... speech that good works all over the globe.  Just imagine:  the world will live together in peace and the American Dream will be within everyone's reach.  Mike Bishop and Governor Granholm will be homeys.

But Obama has a fundamental flaw in his vision; his premise is that it is possible for Republican Party to compromise, for the sake of good government.  It's a false premise.  It is not possible. ...

(You remember the color blue?  It's one of those colors that Barack Obama doesn't see, except when he's counting potential electoral votes that he doesn't have to campaign for)

Progressives need a candidate who is willing to stand up for progressive values, not someone who will capitulate to the GOP for the sake of seeing purple.  How do we know that Obama is that guy?  He certainly hasn't mentioned our values in any of his speeches.  In his Iowa victory speech, he never once mentioned our values. ...

    And to keep things interesting, here's the "Hillary Clinton's Heated Response" YouTube video from the NH debate last night, here. (Cf. Jake Tapper of ABC, "Political Punch", Hillary's Debate Moment,

    It won't come across on the transcript, but Sen. Hillary Clinton got angry during the debate tonight.

She was bickering with Sen. Barack Obama about their differences on health insurance, and whether Obama's plan leaves millions of Americans uninsured.

And then she ... well ... she got angry.

Frankly, I don't even really understand what she was saying. What I was getting was how angry she is. Not about an issue, so much, as about the fact that Obama is beating her.

The clip, I predict, will be played again and again and again.

Pundits will say that her tone made male voters recoil. And led some female voters to sneer.

Clinton people are spinning this as her projecting strength. I do not think that will be the widely-head [sic] view. ...

UPDATE: She just had another weird moment, too, where she seemed to blame Natalie Sarkisyan's death on John Edwards' inability to get the Patients Bill of Rights passed in the House.

I should add that this angry Hillary Clinton is NOT one I've ever seen at the Senate, on the stump, or in interviews. But I feel her performance tonight, in contrast to Obama's coolness and Edwards' Southern drawl, feeds into stereotypes about her. ...

    Comments?? Keep them civilized, please. Thanks!

Who should primary Dingell? --Hieftje, Kolb, or Rivers? Vote

by: David Boyle

Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 02:25:58 AM EDT

  Suggest your own, but here are three options:

1) John Hieftje, Democratic mayor of Ann Arbor;

2) Chris Kolb, former Democratic state representative from Ann Arbor (53rd District);

3) Lynn Rivers, former Democratic congresswoman, who ran against Dingell in 2002.

  I know the three above are a little heavy on the western side of the district, but feel free to suggest others from Dearborn or wherever.

  Michigan doesn't need a rulebreaking early primary, it needs a reformed auto industry, and a serious turnover in its Democratic (and Republican) leaders. Unless you feel that Michigan Democratic leadership really is the best possible leadership available...