But if the national party does not agree, she says, the states should re-do the primaries.

"If there is to be any difference between my proposal that we count these votes and any other course of action, it should be a complete re-do of the primary and nothing else is fair," she says.

and this is intresting

University of Central Arkansas poll:

Clinton 51%, McCain 36%

Obama 27%, McCain 43%

COSPONSORS(3), ALPHABETICAL [followed by Cosponsors withdrawn]:     (Sort: by date)

      Sen Cantwell, Maria [WA] - 9/27/2007
      Sen Kerry, John F. [MA] - 3/23/2007
      Sen Obama, Barack [IL] - 6/27/2007

If a candidate is fighting for something, you know it.  You know it because they have surrogates on every talk show, you know it because they're making that issue the headline every day.

And on this issue, Obama gets D's from me, I'm afraid.

Ah, it seems like only yesterday that the Dems wore the white hats regarding vote counts in FL!

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071217/moser

...to nobody's surprise, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a law in May scheduling the state's primary for January 29. (In most states, primary dates are set by the parties.) The primary date was wrapped up in a bill mandating a paper trail for the 2008 election--a popular measure the minority Democrats could not afford to oppose. Besides, the loss of delegates was largely a toothless penalty, since according to precedent the Democrats' eventual presidential nominee controls the seating of delegates--and surely wouldn't alienate folks from the nation's largest swing state by turning them away.

But the DNC did not leave it there. In August the rules committee voted to strip all the state's delegates unless Florida came up with an alternative to the January 29 voting. "I understand Florida's dilemma," DNC rules committee member Donna Brazile told me later. "But this is not about states' rights; this is about a process we're trying to keep some control over." Two weeks after the DNC vote, Democratic chairs in the "First Four" primary states jacked up the ante with their notorious "four-state pledge" demanding the candidates focus exclusively on them. The signees--including John Edwards, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton--agreed to do no campaigning in Florida or any other state that might try to jump the gun. And under party rules, "campaigning" means just about everything: e-mail messages; calls to voters; TV, radio or newspaper ads; rallies; hiring campaign workers; holding press conferences. The only thing Democrats are allowed to do in Florida--where folks have been complaining for years, with some justification, about being used as an ATM for the party--is fundraise.

fwiw, I agree with you. I think she isn't "really" pushing for a revote, and if there is no revote I think she's toast.

She might also be toast with a revote, but I think that is less certain.

The only logical conclusion is that she disagrees w/both of us - she thinks she has a better chance of getting the nom w/o the revote.

I think we're about two posts away from.

"DO IT MY WAY OR YOUR ALL COWARDS, DAMMIT!"

The thesis of the post above is that the voters who voted on Jan. 29 wasted their time.

Bad Post, BTD.

The FL Repubs got a twofer on their decision to move the FL date earlier--they got to create a problem within the DNC, and, now, they'll get to say they're the good guys on letting votes count.

DNC should do say seat the delegates with, as menitoned earlier, one half vote for each delegate. Not good enough for FL, but covers both FL and MI.

First, a getting a revote to work looks almost impossible right now. And not because of the DNC or Obama but because of local Florida politicians, almost all of whom are Hillary Superdelegates. Hillary can't exactly put them on the hot spot, because she'll need them come November. So pretty much all she can do is stay out of it.

Second, it lets her focus on the argument that the delegations should be seated as is. Personally, I don't think that's likely to happen, but even if it doesn't, the whole mess creates legitimacy problems for Obama. She needs that kind of uncertainty if she's going to win over Supers at the convention.

Finally, if she can push the perception that this mess is all Obama's fault, it gives her an additional attack angle.

This morning, on NPR, Senator Clinton admitted to breaking her pledge to the DNC.  She stated:

    "... we all had a choice as to whether or not to participate in what was going to be a primary. And most people took their names off the ballot, but I didn't. And I think that was a wise decision because Michigan is key to our electoral victory in the fall.["]

This is a direct and unequivocable violation of her pledge to the DNC and Democratic voters.  She signed a pledge not to campaign OR PARTICIPATE.  Here's the relevant section of the (pledge pdf):

    THEREFORE, I (Hillary Clinton), Democratic Candidate for President, in honor and in accordance with DNC rules, pledge to actively campaign in the pre-approved early states Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina. I pledge I shall not campaign or participate in any election contest occurring in any state not already authorized by the DNC to take place in the DNC approved pre-window (any date prior to February 5, 2008).

By her own admission, she has broken her pledge.

As she stated, she had a choice to make - and she chose to break her word.

Senator Clinton caught lying - admits to breaking her pledge on Michigan

I've noticed that DailyKos is extremely pro-Obama, while TalkLeft appears to be extremely pro-Clinton. If you read both sites side-by-side you will notice that these positions are affecting even the attempt to be objective on both sides.

But every once in a while there is a story or diary that is objectively verifiable.

Clinton's backpedaling on her Michigan pledge is one such example.

I originally thought MI and FL should not be seated because they broke the rules. I still lean in that direction, but unfortunately now it seems that there is just too much agitation to seat the delegates for it not to happen.

So, for what it's worth, now I think the following: The original FL results should be seated according to the original vote - both Clinton and Obama were on the ballot, after all.

I believe Michigan is a tougher case because Obama was not on the ballot and because of Clinton's inconsistency regarding her pledge. I think MI should have a new primary because Obama was not on the original ballot, and I strongly disagree with Clinton's claim that such an election can fairly be called a real primary.

That is what seems most fair to me if the original penalty is not going to be enforced, and as someone who voted for Clinton in the primaries but who has since switched to supporting Obama. I'll vote for whichever Democrat gets the nomination, but at this point I think Obama is the best matchup against McCain and he is winning by popular vote, pledged delegates, and states won.

If not, I think this is a careful dash through a minefield by Clinton.  She has to 'do one thing' and 'make it look like another.'

Until somebody leaks, we're just guessing about the strategy.

With every day that goes by, pressure builds on Dean and the National Democratic Committee.  It's THEIR goddam job to protect the party and find a tenable solution.

it is my considered view that the Clinton campaign is not really interested in revotes in Florida and Michigan. Instead it appears that the Clinton camp merely wants to create some type of appearance issue against the Obama campaign.

I didn't doubt your sincerity in calling for a FL revote for the sake of voters but the cynicism in the way the Clinton campaign has exploited this issue has been evident for quite a while, IMO.

As far as I see, is noone gets to the 2,000+ majority then all bets are off: it is not about
plurality but majority. Neither one will have a legitimate claim to the nomination.

It is the responsability of both camps to find a way out.

It could be that this is the biggest gamble of all by the Clinton camp.  She named the "either/or" which puts the ball back in the DNC/Fla/Mi court and keeps the pressure on everybody else to find a solution, dammit, and don't 'blame it on me!'

IF there are no revotes in FLA and MI by the time the convention rolls around in August the pressure from everywhere but the Obama camp will be so great that they'll have to seat those delegates.  That's my guess.

She also knows that seating the delegates as currently allocated is not going to happen.

Her only way to win is to snare an outsized percentage of the S-Ds.

If the MI and FL issue is settled, the nomination process is legitimized and Obama can slowly, but surely work his way to getting enough delegates (both pledged and S-Ds).

Keeping the MI and FL from being settled allows Clinton to argue that the process itself is out of order and that it is up to the S-Ds to come in and save the Party because Obama is obviously not up to winning the GE.

That's why Clinton hammered Obama on the C-in-C issue.  That's why Penn says Obama can't win the GE.  They need to de-legitimize Obama in the eyes of the S-Ds, not the voters.

Look at the states remaining and make a reasonable allocation of the delegates.  Clinton will take some states; Obama others.  The remaining contests can't give Clinton enough to overtake Obama.

Now allocate Florida and Michigan.  She has a sizeable lead in FL and they're tied in MI.

Even adding in these totals don't get Clinton even in either delegates or popular votes (as difficult as that can be to determine in some cases).

Once the nomination process is over, the remaining S-Ds can split between the two, but Obama will have the obvious pledged delegate advantage which would make it very difficult for S-Ds to go against.

The vice presidency is on her mind. She even mock-offers it to Obama, in essence publicizing her desire to run alongside Barack Obama.

Vice President is a prestigious title these days, and the presidency is always there if Barack Obama decides, say, that he'd rather run a hot dog stand than continue being president. :)

"From the viewpoint of legitimacy of elections, this is a mess," said Rick Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and an expert on election law and administration.

"Yes, we had a contest, but it was a contest run under unusual rules," said Professor Hasen, who is politically neutral. "Candidates were not allowed to campaign, and voters were told by the D.N.C. their votes wouldn't count. That kind of election doesn't comport with our usual democratic norms."