“When Senator Clinton was campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire, she said that states like Michigan and Florida that won’t award delegates, ‘don’t count for anything.’ Now that Senator Clinton has lost badly in South Carolina, she’s trying to assign meaning to a contest that awards zero delegates and where no campaigning has occurred. Senator Clinton’s own campaign has repeatedly said that this is a ‘contest for delegates’, and tonight, Florida awarded zero. Senator Obama is disappointed that Florida will have no role in selecting delegates for the Democratic nominee, but looks forward to competing and winning in Florida during the general election,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.
« | Main | A Penn Memo On Florida » Obama Campaign Dismisses HRC's Florida "Victory"29 Jan 2008 11:24 pm Comments (29)
The Obama campaign is repeating talking points from the Union Leader editorial today. There is no proof in their assertions and the Obama campaign was said to be "laughing" at the results of Florida today, not to mention calling it a "beauty contest." It seems they know understand that they may have offended the voters of Florida. Day late and a dollar short. Clinton wins this news cycle. 
Earlier today Obama was snubbing Florida voters and yesterday he was snubbing Senator Clinton. His campaign offered three different explanations for the incident at yesterday's State of the Union and all three are completely different and contrary to reports from CNN and the pictures of the NY Times. Sorry Bill Burton if I don't buy your spin tonight, quite frankly your spin all day has made me dizzy and queezy.
You Clinton supporters crack me up. Hillary had an impressive showing in an uncontested state, presumably on the power of her famous name. It's nice that Hillary Clinton's famous. If you folks want to have a real primary election (or caucuses, whatever) in Florida some time soon, I'm all for it and I'm sure the Obama campaign would be too.
HILLARY HAD MORE VOTES BY NEARLY 30% THAN ANY CANDIDATE IN FLORIDA. Democrat, Republican, or Independant. You can't laugh that off and sweep it under the rug. The fact is that most of the states from now on will go virtually "uncontested", since there is little time between now and Feb 5, and there will be little time or money for the remaining half of the states beyond that day. So far Hillary has won 4 out of 6 states that have cast their ballot. She got at least 50% support in every one of them. Crack Alabama spent 3 months and about 30 million dollars in Iowa. That is a one time thing, he can't do that again. South Carolina was a majority black state and Obama riled them up with all the racism accusations. That is also a one time thing. He will be lucky to win 2 more states from now until the DNC.
For the sake of the livelihoods of numerous Democratic consultants following this primary season, I sincerely hope that the Clinton campaign strategy for building momentum into 2/5 isn't built around accusing Obama of dissing Florida and having Clinton go on TV making a mountain out of Obama turning his head on camera. A quick look at Taylor Marsh's website shows that there's nothing else going on, though.
I am a big Hillary supporter and I like to laugh at the vanity of obama supporters but calling obama crack alabama is not very usefu and it is very offensive.
CLOSE TO 1 MILLION FLORIDA DEMOCRATS TOOK THE TROUBLE TO GET OUT AND VOTE FOR HILLARY. What to you expect her to do, thumb her nose at them? Over half a million took the trouble to get out to vote for ATTITUDE DUDE, and that is essentially what he has done to them. "Thanks a lot suckers, but I got better things to do...". BTW - I see the Obama campaign tried to sneak another $70,000 worth of "cookies" back into the jar under the cover of a primary night. Eventually maybe they will reach the $200,000 the CHICAGO PAPERS FINGERED THEM FOR MONTHS AGO.
That's right, "southpaw." Keep telling those 1.5 million Florida Dems that (a) they are stupid and (b) that their votes aren't "real." You are so smart. It looks like Barack has no problem trying to win the nomination based on the delegate count rather than the popular vote - no surprise coming from a guy who won his first election by having every other candidate disqualified from the ballot. And don't think people didn't notice Barack's use of the term "beauty contest." Who participates in beauty contests? Silly, frivolous girls. The same kind who throw tea parties, right?
For those of you Clintonistas bragging about how many people came out to vote for Hillary, a word of advice. Go look at how many people voted in the Republican primary in total. THAT is what Hillary will be going up against in November. And you can be damn sure that total number will grow over the months leading up to the election. The best thing that could happen to the Republican party is if Hillary becomes the Democratic nominee. It'll bring them all back together. It's a war they've been waiting to fight for YEARS.
Basic fact # 1 - all of the campaigns considered this an exhibition until a week or so ago. Possible Interpretation # 1.1 - Clinton needed a good story in the wake of S.C. and took the chance of being viewed as an opportunist to claim a quasi-victory. Possible Interpretation # 1.2 - Obama, on the other hand, had no choice but to play this like he did as one of the losers. Basic fact # 2 - Clinton won a lot of votes last night, many more than Obama. I don't see how that's open to much interpretation, except... Basic fact # 3 - the exit polls show that among people who voted within the last month, Obama was much more competitive. Possible Interpretation # 3.1 - Clinton's early votes were before Obama even won Iowa and are reflective of name recognition. This advantage is not going away any time soon. Possible Interpretation # 3.2 - Obama's exit poll numbers show that he is chipping away at Sen. Clinton's national lead.
All this squabbling over what Florida means and does not mean is missing the real development that is going on in the dem race. HIllary is trying to push "The Snub"story as the reincarnation of "the cry." This is a power play for female votes using the scorned woman tactice that has so often worked for her. Halperin, serious "journalist" that he is, has decided tonight that this is the top story on "The Page," not McCain's victory, not Rudy dropping out, not even Hillary's beauty contest victory. There are some in the media who are actively trying to slander Barack Obama as an ungracious boor snubbing poor innocent HIllary. The only person in the media who is giving this its proper context is Maureen Dowd,who gives the whole story in her Wednesday column: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/opinion/30dowd.html?hp The rest of the media is involved in an insidious, under the radar campaign to stop Obama's momentum with a manufactures controversey. These corporate media institutional vioces must rescue Hillary for the sake of their profits for the next 4 years that will be much higher under the circus of Billary than the unity of Obama. The Obama campaign needs to be very vigalent about what is going on. This story, however trivial it may seem, is about ten times more important than Florida in terms of what will happen super tuesday. Iflow information female voters have are fooled into thinking that Hillary is being beat up upon unfairly, we will see a repeat of NH with a huge gender triabalistic backlash. Already today, "the snub"was used to ignore the Sebelius endorsement. Big media wants to hide Obama's female endorsements because they are complicit in the slanderous narrative being pushed to make Hillary the beneficiary of a gender backlash by Feb 5th.
Robert Ethan and LawSchoolDem are the same person and have been trolling on the Ben Smith blog for some time. They bash Obama and lavishly praise Hillary. When this dude posts as LawSchool, he usually softly criticizes Obama and lovingly praises Hillary. When he posts as Robert Ethan, he gets mean and personal against Obama, and doesn't do that much praising of Hillary. More Obama hate than Hillary praise. Most people over at Ben Smith's blog believe he works for Hillary. I think he is Mark Penn. Don't come to my blog whoever you are: http://www.politicalinaction.com
All this bickering is disgusting. We have had 8 years of a president who thinks he can do anything he wants and doesn't have to pay attention to rules.... for example our constitution... If Hillary acts like this about delegates from MI and FL how would she be as president? Rules were made and agreed upon. Agreements should be honored, not manipulated for personal gain. If a democrat can't have this level of respect, should I stop believing in democracy ?
More importantly, LawSchoolDem's praise of Hillary provides no convincing reasons why we should join in that praise, and even the worst of Robert Ethan's allegations against Obama pale in comparison with what in Billary is seen as, even admitted to be, business as usual for them. While I am on board with most of the Democrats' platform issues, the most important issue in this election is precisely the one that Obama has made the focus of his campaign: making the political process itself more transparent and believable and less of a game. HRC has stayed far away from this issue, as she should if she wants to move the game forward at the expense of the country and her party.
According to MSNBC, Obama got 22% of the white vote, 70+% of the black vote, and Clinton got twice as many Hispanic votes as he did. That's not a good sign if you're an Obama fan.
It doesn't matter anyway. If my calculations are correct, Edwards/Obama basically got 50% of the delegates anyway. Florida never mattered, and even if the delegates are seated--they won't be--they still won't matter.
Obama fans must be shitting in their pants about his prospects on Super Tuesday to be dismissing the Florida Democactic primary as some sort of "beauty contest" because it awarded no delegates. BASIC FACT NO 1: Florida is a more representative primary that Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina combined. BASIC FACT NO 2: Hillary won the primary by almost 300,000 votes more than Obama. Would Obama be dismissing the Florida primary if he had won it? I think not. Does he - deep down - discount the votes of the 568,930 Floridians who voted for him as irrelevant? I think not. As for John Kerry's suggestion that the Florida vote was illegitimate because none of the Democratic candidates campaigned there - WHAT BULLSHIT. All the Democratic candidates had their names on the Florida ballot, unlike Michigan. And, in the absence of any advertising or campaigning from any of the Democratic candidates the Florida vote is probably a MORE accurate reflection of voters' choice of candidates. Finally, I think the vote puts paid to the common suggestion put about that Hillary is a polarizing figure. The votes of 856,944 Floridians doesn't seem too polarizing to me. Having said that I wish Hillary and Obama well for Super Tuesday. May the best candidate win.
Obama fans must be shitting in their pants about his prospects on Super Tuesday to be dismissing the Florida Democactic primary as some sort of "beauty contest" because it awarded no delegates. BASIC FACT NO 1: Florida is a more representative primary that Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina combined. BASIC FACT NO 2: Hillary won the primary by almost 300,000 votes more than Obama. Would Obama be dismissing the Florida primary if he had won it? I think not. Does he - deep down - discount the votes of the 568,930 Floridians who voted for him as irrelevant? I think not. As for John Kerry's suggestion that the Florida vote was illegitimate because none of the Democratic candidates campaigned there - WHAT BULLSHIT. All the Democratic candidates had their names on the Florida ballot, unlike Michigan. And, in the absence of any advertising or campaigning from any of the Democratic candidates the Florida vote is probably a MORE accurate reflection of voters' choice of candidates. Finally, I think the vote puts paid to the common suggestion put about that Hillary is a polarizing figure. The votes of 856,944 Floridians doesn't seem too polarizing to me. Having said that I wish Hillary and Obama well for Super Tuesday. May the best candidate win.
Are you kidding me? of course no one in the Obama campaign would be dismissing it. But then again, this would mean that the charismatic upstart who still overcomes a sub-100% recognition rate would have given the former first lady, establishment front-runner a black eye without setting foot on the state. These things just don't happen in real life. That's why the have campaigns. That's why candidates air ads. That's why the give speeches. That's why they have GOTV efforts. That's why the go on local news. That's why the give interviews on local radio shows. And on and on and on. If the Clintonistas want to celebrate, go ahead. But the signs of trouble are still there for anyone intellectually honest to have a look at them,. PS. That's the reason more people voted in the Republican primary than the Democratic one contra to what's happening in all other states. There were no stakes or campaigns to mobilize the voters.
The Obama campaign needs to get out in front of this Florida "victory" with a sports analogy: it will help point out the unsportmanslike conduct of the Clinton camp, and resonate with every man and woman who has ever engaged in a competition where there are rules. Imagine if this February, every team in the MBL unanimously agrees that pre-season games will not count for the play-offs. Then in March, the Washington Nationals -- seeing a tough regular season ahead -- play hard and win some pre-season games. After winning, the Nationals coach holds a press conference touting his team's record and says he now believes these games should count for play-off berths. How would baseball fans react? It would be seen as nothing but a craven attempt to change the rules after the fact. HRC is the most unsports(wo)manlike candidate in this race. I just hope and pray the rest of the electorate will wake up and realize that these tactics betray a pattern of putting winning at any cost. I am an Obama fan, but I believe Hillary has depth and commitment and the capacity for good character. But like many, many others who have followed this race -- including lions of the Democratic party -- I find the conduct of her campaign to be disturbing at the very least, and destructive to our party's chances to win the WH in 2008.
Hillary Clinton IS Track Flick! Which to be honest isn't the worst comparison in the world I mean she's a hard worker! LOL. But, Obama as Paul Metzler (the Chris Klein character) is also kinda spot on, all charm and talk and no ideas (except for hope and unity), or specifics. Really creepy part is though, older congresswoman Tracy looks like Hillary too! Its in the end of the movie too funny! http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/01/is_hillary_clinton_indeed_trac.html
I mean Tracy Flick from the film election lol!
Am I the only one who thinks that Hillary’s efforts to have the Florida delegates seated is duplicitous? The Democratic Party decided, for better or worse, not to seat the Florida delegates and, more significantly, all candidates, including Hillary, agreed not to campaign there. Now Hillary appears to be going back on her word. She is OPENLY calling for the seating of the Florida delegates and held a “victory rally” there after agreeing not to campaign. This is typical Clintonism: splitting hairs, going back on her word, and trying to have it both ways. What’s more, if Hillary is successful in her push to get the Florida delegates seated, what will this mean for the authority of the Democratic Party in the future? It will become a free-for –all with States competing to hold their primaries at the point most likely to make their delegates king makers, regardless of the party’s efforts to keep the process somewhat orderly and fair. As a loyal Dem I don’t get why the Democratic Party isn’t slapping her down on this one. What’s worse, the talking heads on TV keep repeating that the “victory” in Florida gives her a big boost going into Super Tuesday. It just kills me that the MSM repeats her talking points verbatim instead of calling her on her BS
Even at best, I think Clinton's Florida gambit would be a wash: for every voter she gained through some sort of momentum effect, she would lose a voter who thought she was violating her promises. And at this point I am not sure there is much momentum out there anyway, so it might be worse than a neutral tradeoff. In any event, I suspect the big news for the next several days will be that John McCain is now the presumptive nominee on the Republican side. And as Democrats start thinking about that fact, I suspect it won't be good for Clinton.
Obama people: ignore history at your own peril: denying delagates and convention controversies make for amazing television: try reading about Fannie Lou Hamer and the mississippi delegation
More people voted for Clinton in FL than the totals of Obama's support in IA, NH, NV and SC.
This has been pointed out many times now, but if Clinton believed the DNC's decision was wrong, she should have said so from the beginning and she should have refused to pledge not to participate in the Michigan and Florida primaries. In other words, the DNC was not stupid. By getting the candidates to pledge not to participate in Michigan and Florida, they knew it would be impossible for the winning candidates to retroactively claim the contests were legitimate contests. Of course, Clinton is not stupid either, and she understood the implications at the time she made her pledge. But she made the pledge anyway because she knew she would get hammered in Iowa, NH, NV, and SC if she refused to go along with the DNC's decision. And yet now Clinton wants to have it both ways: suddenly, after all the other early states voted, she has "found her voice" on this issue and she wants to reverse the DNC's decision. Note she did not "find her voice" on this issue back when Michigan held its primary, because of course Michigan, unlike Florida, was not after the last of the early primaries. In short, the current argument from Clinton supporters essentially ignores the fact that right up through South Carolina, Clinton was supporting the DNC's decision. Only afterward did she suddenly announce that in her view Florida and Michigan should count, and that is one of the most brazenly unethical strategies I could imagine.
I wondered why National Public Radio made such a point of asking Hillary Clinton whether Florida should count. Hillary's reply: well, you know, blab ... blab ... blab ... makes me know that I do not fully comprehend all the strategies behind the strategy, but one thing's certain, this woman spends one hell of a lot of time shopping. Where she finds time for politics is beyond me. Maybe she's left that to her other half entirely. There's just no way this woman doesn't shop 8 to 10 hours per day. She has the money, but where does she find the time? Maybe her brand of politics isn't all that taxing. Maybe that's what life in the White House is, one gigantic publicly funded shopping spree, with a chance to roll again at the end of the day. Gee, did I ever choose the wrong occupation. Somebody ought to do a story on Hillary's wardrobe. How many walk-in closets, pantsuits, shoes? For a counterculture girl who only wants change, she's cultivated some mighty bourgeois tastes: http://theseedsof9-11.com
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It doesn't look like the Clinton campaign will win this news cycle. A zero delegate win next to the much bigger news of McCain leaping closer to the Republican nomination just can't be spun into a great victory easily.
Posted by Meng Bomin | January 29, 2008 11:32 PM