In 2008 Nancy Pelosi helped to corrupt the Democratic primary process along with other higher ups in the DNC by forcing Barrack Obama down the throats of the majority of Democrats who voted against him as the Democratic presidential candidate.
What her motives were no one but Pelosi and those around her really knows, but speculation is that she wanted to be the Democratic party's Queen Bee, something that would have never been possible had Hillary Clinton been elected.
Her other motivation might have been the same malady that infects and has infected so many Democrats for at least the last 15 years -- they are afraid of Republicans and they are afraid to lose and they act accordingly. But there is no doubt about one thing. The majority the Democrats won back in 2006 and increased in 2008 was lost for only one reason -- Barrack Obama and his inept, duplicitous and deceitful presidency that reneged on most things that was promised. And it can all be traced back to the deceitful way Obama's nomination was engineered.
Pelosi and Howard Dean for that matter were so needlessly and foolishly afraid that a contentious but honest and open Democratic national convention to choose a presidential nominee would somehow weaken the Democrats chances of winning the White House that for a period of time, they tried, hoped and applied pressure to get Hillary Clinton to take her name off the ballot at the convention, in spite of the fact that neither Clinton nor Obama had won the pre-requisite 2/3 majority of delegates needed to win the nomination. And in spite of the fact that Clinton had won the popular vote and had landslided Obama in 13 of the 15 biggest states in the country.
Their disdain for the democratic process and the majority of Democratic voters, more than 18 million, has now, thanks to Obama's predictably dismal performance, come back to haunt them and has cost them the House of Representatives and given them only the slimmest of margins in the senate.
In trying to force Obama;s nomination, they had in their arsenal a bevy of politically corrupt journalists, not the least of which was Jonathan Alter of Newsweek who tried in his articles, to elbow Clinton out of the race, writing pieces saying Clinton should quit, that the math was against her in spite of the fact that Clinton hadn't just won, but landslided Obama in every big state in the country except for Illinois and Texas which she still won. And showing that math isn't Alter's game either, in the end the math showed that far from Obama being a certain winner, neither candidate had won the prerequisite number of delegates during the primaries with Clinton finishing only 63 delegates behind Obama. It should be noted that it was only the Democratic party's apportionment system that even made it that close. Had the Democrats chosen a nominee the same way the country elects a president, Clinton would have beaten Obama by more than 1,000 delegates. And Obama's 63 delegate margin could be directly traced to the Democrats arcane caucus system.
But even before then the DNC corrupted the system with its shameful and blatantly corrupt handling of the Florida and Michigan fiasco. In both states, Clinton didn't just win but landslided Obama in the primaries. The idea that Obama's name wasn't on the ballot in Michigan was as false a contention as there was. Michigan was another example of Obama's double dealing and anyone who wants to look into what really happened in Michigan and how Obama insured that anyone in Michigan who wanted to vote for him knew what button to push can easily look it up and find out for themselves.
But the bigger point is how the DNC and Obama himself while preaching that "every voice must be heard" did all he could to silence the voices of the voters of Florida and Michigan because he didn't like what they had to say. And neither did Pelosi or the DNC. The elections were fair and the results valid. That the DNC was willing to punish 1,600,000 Democratic voters who did nothing wrong ( except vote against the DNC's preferred candidate) instead of punishing the 4 or 5 people including the governor of Michigan who were responsible for changing the date of their primaries, is perhaps one of the darkest chapters and one of the greatest stains the Democratic party will ever carry. And with the press happily corrupt and in Obama's pocket, they were all too glad to publicly dismiss the results of those primaries and not count the delegates Clinton won fairly and squarely in burying Obama in both elections. This added to and created a bogus lead in Obama's delegate count further fueling the expectation game that Obama would be the nominee. But it didn't work out that way. And neither candidate finished with enough delegates to secure the nomination.
The process, according to Democratic party rules, was then supposed to be turned over to super delegates who would be charged with casting votes to give the nomination to one candidate or the other. Pelosi tried to corrupt that process too, by making public statements to the affect that super delegates were bound to cast their votes according to which candidate won the most delegates during the primary.
That obviously was preposterous and absurd since if that was the case there would be no need to have any super delegates at all since the Democratic party could simply have changed their rules making the nominee whoever won the most delegates period. Either Pelosi was incredibly ignorant of the Democratic Party's own rules or she was sending a public message to super delegates to vote for Obama. But what made it even more insidious and corrupt was that by making that statement publicly, a statement no one in the DNC had the integrity to step forward and say was incorrect, Pelosi was adding more public expectation that Obama would be the nominee since most people had no idea what the Democratic Party's nomination rules were.
Creating the expectation that Obama would win created another problem : had Obama not won the nomination, the threats circulating on the convention floor, spread by Obama supporters was that it would inflame the majority of African American voters, creating the false belief that racism and Clintonian double dealing played a part when, ironically, it was double dealing on the part of Obama and the DNC that in fact gave Obama the nomination. Nevertheless by creating these expectations based on a dishonest presentation of the role of super delegates, the DNC ran the risk of alienating African Americans in the general election if Obama was not the nominee.
But even this wasn't enough for Pelosi and the upper echelons of the DNC. In a poll taken by Politico,com two days before the first roll call vote, more than 200 of the 400+ super delegates who had publicly declared for Obama in June after Pelosi had horse whipped them into making a public commitment ( which wasn't even binding) two months before they had to, were now deserting Obama and telling Politico they were "undecided".
With those already committed to Clinton if the 200 former Obama super delegates now claiming to be undecided cast their votes with Clinton she would have been the nominee. If half switched to Clinton it would have gone to a second ballot where the momentum would have been on Clinton's side.
So Pelosi and the DNC took the next step of trying to head off a super delegate vote which would have made Clinton the nominee, by breaking the Democratic party's own rules, and pressuring Clinton delegates to switch their votes to Obama on the first ballot.
Democratic Party rules as stated in the 2008 Call to the Convention clearly states that delegates elected as per the results of primary voting, are required to vote for the candidate they were elected to vote for. Only if there was no nominee after a first ballot could the horse trading begin and delegates were free to switch their votes. In 1932 it took four ballots to nominate FDR.
But Pelosi and the DNC would have none of an open convention. Clinton delegates were not only being pressured,there were stories of Clinton delegates threatened with being stripped of their credentials if they didn't switch their votes to Obama.
So, doing what Democrats seem to do best politically, act like they are afraid to lose, and with Pelosi being motivated by wanting to be the Democratic Party diva, they rigged the roll call vote, forcing many Clinton delegates to change their votes to Obama and virtually forced Clinton to go along with it. The California delegation, it should be noted, refused to go along with the charade and word was relayed to me at the time by someone who claimed to have first hand knowledge, that Gloria Allred who was either leading the California delegates or was simply a delegate herself, got into a shouting match with a representative from the DNC who was trying to pressure the California delegation, a state where Clinton had beaten Obama in a landslide, into going along with the program.They refused. So when the roll was called California was skipped.
Now two years later, the Democrats have lost control of the House mostly because of Obama, his ineffective and dishonest presidency, and largely because Obama sold out the public option on health care.
Whether Democrats will understand that message or not remains to be seen but there is a good bet they wont. The public option was the single most important piece of legislation since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and in a June 2009 poll 72% said they wanted it. As recently as February 2010, 58% said they wanted the public option. But Obama didn't have the backbone,courage or conviction to see it through even though the votes were there in the House and Senate to pass it. Obama was pathetic in challenging Republican lies about it and proved that in terms of the powers of persuasion, he couldn't sell a hand warmer to an Eskimo and the country is worse off for his having sold the public option, and with it, his Democratic base down the river.
Beyond that Obama had proved in over 13 years in the Illinois State senate and the US senate that he was a do nothing par excellence. He accomplished nothing in those years - zero - and set a record by voting "present" more than 100 times so he didn't have to vote for or against anything. He continued his non accomplishment in his first two years in office, highlighted by his selling out on the public option and a stimulus that was far too small to do anything about unemployment and a financial reform bill that was tepid. He also showed, as did other Democrats that they are anemic when it comes to articulating a cogent message. But having to articulate a message wouldn't have been necessary had Obama not betrayed the people who voted for him and actually accomplished something. He didnt.
On Tuesday, they paid Obama and Nancy Pelosi back. And now the House of Representatives is back in the hands of the people who caused all the problems in the first place. And the DNC has no one to blame but themselves.
What her motives were no one but Pelosi and those around her really knows, but speculation is that she wanted to be the Democratic party's Queen Bee, something that would have never been possible had Hillary Clinton been elected.
Her other motivation might have been the same malady that infects and has infected so many Democrats for at least the last 15 years -- they are afraid of Republicans and they are afraid to lose and they act accordingly. But there is no doubt about one thing. The majority the Democrats won back in 2006 and increased in 2008 was lost for only one reason -- Barrack Obama and his inept, duplicitous and deceitful presidency that reneged on most things that was promised. And it can all be traced back to the deceitful way Obama's nomination was engineered.
Pelosi and Howard Dean for that matter were so needlessly and foolishly afraid that a contentious but honest and open Democratic national convention to choose a presidential nominee would somehow weaken the Democrats chances of winning the White House that for a period of time, they tried, hoped and applied pressure to get Hillary Clinton to take her name off the ballot at the convention, in spite of the fact that neither Clinton nor Obama had won the pre-requisite 2/3 majority of delegates needed to win the nomination. And in spite of the fact that Clinton had won the popular vote and had landslided Obama in 13 of the 15 biggest states in the country.
Their disdain for the democratic process and the majority of Democratic voters, more than 18 million, has now, thanks to Obama's predictably dismal performance, come back to haunt them and has cost them the House of Representatives and given them only the slimmest of margins in the senate.
In trying to force Obama;s nomination, they had in their arsenal a bevy of politically corrupt journalists, not the least of which was Jonathan Alter of Newsweek who tried in his articles, to elbow Clinton out of the race, writing pieces saying Clinton should quit, that the math was against her in spite of the fact that Clinton hadn't just won, but landslided Obama in every big state in the country except for Illinois and Texas which she still won. And showing that math isn't Alter's game either, in the end the math showed that far from Obama being a certain winner, neither candidate had won the prerequisite number of delegates during the primaries with Clinton finishing only 63 delegates behind Obama. It should be noted that it was only the Democratic party's apportionment system that even made it that close. Had the Democrats chosen a nominee the same way the country elects a president, Clinton would have beaten Obama by more than 1,000 delegates. And Obama's 63 delegate margin could be directly traced to the Democrats arcane caucus system.
But even before then the DNC corrupted the system with its shameful and blatantly corrupt handling of the Florida and Michigan fiasco. In both states, Clinton didn't just win but landslided Obama in the primaries. The idea that Obama's name wasn't on the ballot in Michigan was as false a contention as there was. Michigan was another example of Obama's double dealing and anyone who wants to look into what really happened in Michigan and how Obama insured that anyone in Michigan who wanted to vote for him knew what button to push can easily look it up and find out for themselves.
But the bigger point is how the DNC and Obama himself while preaching that "every voice must be heard" did all he could to silence the voices of the voters of Florida and Michigan because he didn't like what they had to say. And neither did Pelosi or the DNC. The elections were fair and the results valid. That the DNC was willing to punish 1,600,000 Democratic voters who did nothing wrong ( except vote against the DNC's preferred candidate) instead of punishing the 4 or 5 people including the governor of Michigan who were responsible for changing the date of their primaries, is perhaps one of the darkest chapters and one of the greatest stains the Democratic party will ever carry. And with the press happily corrupt and in Obama's pocket, they were all too glad to publicly dismiss the results of those primaries and not count the delegates Clinton won fairly and squarely in burying Obama in both elections. This added to and created a bogus lead in Obama's delegate count further fueling the expectation game that Obama would be the nominee. But it didn't work out that way. And neither candidate finished with enough delegates to secure the nomination.
The process, according to Democratic party rules, was then supposed to be turned over to super delegates who would be charged with casting votes to give the nomination to one candidate or the other. Pelosi tried to corrupt that process too, by making public statements to the affect that super delegates were bound to cast their votes according to which candidate won the most delegates during the primary.
That obviously was preposterous and absurd since if that was the case there would be no need to have any super delegates at all since the Democratic party could simply have changed their rules making the nominee whoever won the most delegates period. Either Pelosi was incredibly ignorant of the Democratic Party's own rules or she was sending a public message to super delegates to vote for Obama. But what made it even more insidious and corrupt was that by making that statement publicly, a statement no one in the DNC had the integrity to step forward and say was incorrect, Pelosi was adding more public expectation that Obama would be the nominee since most people had no idea what the Democratic Party's nomination rules were.
Creating the expectation that Obama would win created another problem : had Obama not won the nomination, the threats circulating on the convention floor, spread by Obama supporters was that it would inflame the majority of African American voters, creating the false belief that racism and Clintonian double dealing played a part when, ironically, it was double dealing on the part of Obama and the DNC that in fact gave Obama the nomination. Nevertheless by creating these expectations based on a dishonest presentation of the role of super delegates, the DNC ran the risk of alienating African Americans in the general election if Obama was not the nominee.
But even this wasn't enough for Pelosi and the upper echelons of the DNC. In a poll taken by Politico,com two days before the first roll call vote, more than 200 of the 400+ super delegates who had publicly declared for Obama in June after Pelosi had horse whipped them into making a public commitment ( which wasn't even binding) two months before they had to, were now deserting Obama and telling Politico they were "undecided".
With those already committed to Clinton if the 200 former Obama super delegates now claiming to be undecided cast their votes with Clinton she would have been the nominee. If half switched to Clinton it would have gone to a second ballot where the momentum would have been on Clinton's side.
So Pelosi and the DNC took the next step of trying to head off a super delegate vote which would have made Clinton the nominee, by breaking the Democratic party's own rules, and pressuring Clinton delegates to switch their votes to Obama on the first ballot.
Democratic Party rules as stated in the 2008 Call to the Convention clearly states that delegates elected as per the results of primary voting, are required to vote for the candidate they were elected to vote for. Only if there was no nominee after a first ballot could the horse trading begin and delegates were free to switch their votes. In 1932 it took four ballots to nominate FDR.
But Pelosi and the DNC would have none of an open convention. Clinton delegates were not only being pressured,there were stories of Clinton delegates threatened with being stripped of their credentials if they didn't switch their votes to Obama.
So, doing what Democrats seem to do best politically, act like they are afraid to lose, and with Pelosi being motivated by wanting to be the Democratic Party diva, they rigged the roll call vote, forcing many Clinton delegates to change their votes to Obama and virtually forced Clinton to go along with it. The California delegation, it should be noted, refused to go along with the charade and word was relayed to me at the time by someone who claimed to have first hand knowledge, that Gloria Allred who was either leading the California delegates or was simply a delegate herself, got into a shouting match with a representative from the DNC who was trying to pressure the California delegation, a state where Clinton had beaten Obama in a landslide, into going along with the program.They refused. So when the roll was called California was skipped.
Now two years later, the Democrats have lost control of the House mostly because of Obama, his ineffective and dishonest presidency, and largely because Obama sold out the public option on health care.
Whether Democrats will understand that message or not remains to be seen but there is a good bet they wont. The public option was the single most important piece of legislation since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and in a June 2009 poll 72% said they wanted it. As recently as February 2010, 58% said they wanted the public option. But Obama didn't have the backbone,courage or conviction to see it through even though the votes were there in the House and Senate to pass it. Obama was pathetic in challenging Republican lies about it and proved that in terms of the powers of persuasion, he couldn't sell a hand warmer to an Eskimo and the country is worse off for his having sold the public option, and with it, his Democratic base down the river.
Beyond that Obama had proved in over 13 years in the Illinois State senate and the US senate that he was a do nothing par excellence. He accomplished nothing in those years - zero - and set a record by voting "present" more than 100 times so he didn't have to vote for or against anything. He continued his non accomplishment in his first two years in office, highlighted by his selling out on the public option and a stimulus that was far too small to do anything about unemployment and a financial reform bill that was tepid. He also showed, as did other Democrats that they are anemic when it comes to articulating a cogent message. But having to articulate a message wouldn't have been necessary had Obama not betrayed the people who voted for him and actually accomplished something. He didnt.
On Tuesday, they paid Obama and Nancy Pelosi back. And now the House of Representatives is back in the hands of the people who caused all the problems in the first place. And the DNC has no one to blame but themselves.
In 2008 an offshoot of the Denver Group created commercials warning Democrats of the danger of an Obama presidency. Now two years later the commercials seem prophetic.
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14 comments:
The Democratic chickens have come home to roost.
You can call them "Just returns"
"The DNC has no one to blame but themselves."
And the country as a whole gets to suffer. It seems to be a repeating theme anymore: accountability on the backs of the American public.
Thanks for the summation. Dismal as it is, you've managed to capsulize what we all saw and heard during the 2008 primary. And now we have these last two wondrous and wasted years to reference.
Oh, happy days!
This is what is referred by me as the revenge of the disenfranchised and disillusioned Clintonistas..
this might happen again in 2012, you know. Us Clintonistas has deep memories..
Incumbents defeated:
Democrats-50
Republicans-2
I think this indicates that the American people feel the Democrats are to blame for everything.
Yes you are right they deserve it but we don't.
At this point the only thing I can think of to shake the DNC is a low suit. Yes democrats who were alinated from the party at any time since 2007 to present should all file a class action complaint against the leadership of the DNC. Of course it is easier than forming a third party to which most Americans seemed to be conditioned from birth against.
Absolutely. The primary turned me into a 'former Democrat.' It was a predictor of how Pelosi Dems would govern -- with Byzantine, authoritarian confusion. The healthcare legislative process was a mirror image of the primary mess.
Pelosi said it was harder for a woman to become House Speaker than President. That statement is as revealing as it is ridiculous. Pelosi only had to navigate internal House misogyny. Besides party sexism, Clinton also had to navigate the ravaging public -- an irrelevant factor in Pelosi's authoritarian worldview. It also reveals that she saw Clinton as a rival on a very petty level -- and was willing to act out her pettiness as House Speaker.
Ah Karma...ain't it... something! Pelosi sure got what she deserved.
Can't say they weren't warned.
Now, if the economy gets better by 2012 (which is more than likely), Obama and most of the Republicans will be winners in the next election, the other democrat candidates can kiss most of the 2012 elections (other than presidential) goodbye. If the economy doesn't get better? Well then democrats can kiss the white house goodbye as well. Lose/lose situation for the democratic party at local, state and federal level.
"1. Under DNC Rules, pledged delegates are never required to honor their pledges to vote for the candidate voters elected them to represent, on the first round of voting at the Presidential Nominating Convention. "
I would suggest you download the 2008 Democratic Call to the convention and read the rules about the nominating procedure and then we can go from there.
I don't know all the in's and out's of the DNC rules and I don't know what Ms Allred knew or didn't know or if she received information or from where. What I do know, because I was there, in the room, is that Ms Allred was protesting and screaming like a banshee about delegates being pressured to change their votes from Clinton to Obama as well as being deliberately misinformed about voting times, roll call times and just about everything else. It was chaos, with delegates from other states coming in to the room in tears, complaining about intimidation from the Obama people (remember the big men in Foster Grant's guarding the elevators?). Why this was never a huge story in the media I'll never know. It was a travesty.
Sophie
I don't know all the in's and out's of the DNC rules and I don't know what Ms Allred knew or didn't know or if she received information or from where. What I do know, because I was there, in the room, is that Ms Allred was protesting and screaming like a banshee about delegates being pressured to change their votes from Clinton to Obama"
This is exactly the information I had at the time from someone else in the room so Im glad you can confirm it. That the media ignored it is the single biggest media travestly since ignoring evidence of no WMD in Iraq before the war. That CNN has the gall to call themselve "the best political team on television" and miss the biggest political story since Watergate, the rigging of a presidential nomination is why I do believe the Democrats got what they deserved in the last election and why the news media is truly useless.
Ms. Allred was screaming because fellow delegates had asked her to look up their pledge obligation under CA law, which information I had summarized and was distributed in their delegate packets. She did, and confirmed, delegates are not only "pledged" but arguably pledged forever! She asked for and was denied the opportunity to explain this CA state law to the CA delegation. She nonetheless managed to announce this legal obligation subsequently at a march to celebrate women's suffrage, which event was covered by the press.
As I said, D rules only require pledged delegates to use their "good conscience." But even if party rules had defined "pledged" means "pledged," breaking club rules is not an actionable offense. However, breaking the law should trigger consequences. This harassment of Clinton pledged delegates in vote binding states to change their votes to Obama even BEFORE the convention, constituted a criminal conspiracy. But of the 13 A'sG in these vote binding states I notified, only one intervened: AG Thurbert Baker (D) in GA.
Know what might be the reason the press did not cover the issue of D's conspiring to subvert state vote binding laws? They had no idea these laws even existed. Just like Ms. Allred. But once she found out, in all the press interviews she has done since, why hasn't she blown the whistle?
Successfully coercing Clinton pledged delegates from vote binding states into changing their votes to Obama obviated the need for the bribed super delegates (unpledged PLEO's) to vote 'on the record' to ensure Obama's nomination. So, once word got out at the Convention about vote binding laws, Obama's D's had to improvise their plan to steal the nomination. All of this is extensively documented and explained in the series of articles I wrote and posted on my blog, links to which I provided in my previous comment.
As me said in a previous post, this is the revenge of the disillusioned and disinfranchised Clintonistas and might happen again in 2012..
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