Monday, May 12, 2008

Tin foil hat idea of the day

I don't know how this idea popped into my head, but I haven't been able to shake it since. I am wondering if the Clinton campaign actually played a part in encouraging MI and FL Democratic parties to break the DNC rules and move their primaries up, knowing that there would be contention and confusion as a result. Could this have been "an ace up the sleeve" that the Clinton campaign was hoping to play out in the event of a close contest?

There's a lot of talk about there never being a Plan B or any post-Super Tuesday strategy, but maybe there has been all along. My suspicions have been raised a bit more after DiFi put her lot back in with Hillary after first questioning whether Clinton should continue or not. This tells me that something nefarious must be in the works.

I have no doubt that Clinton had fully intended to not abide by her signed pledge to discount the voters in Michigan. There's absolutely no reason why she would have kept her name on the ballot after all other candidates withdrew their names. The same goes with Florida. While perhaps not actively campaigning in FL, she and Bill were certainly campaigning for Florida from a distance, as evidenced by their "on to Florida" announcement, and the [victory] celebration held in Florida after the election.

My reasons for suspecting this are thus:

If MI and FL ultimately get counted, then Clinton benefits from winning the popular vote. Never mind that Obama wasn't even on the ballot in MI, Clinton has still been adding those votes to her tally. As for the other votes for "not committed," those can't arbitrarily go to Obama since there were many other candidates to divvy those votes between. But this really isn't so much about the popular vote, nor the elected delegates, but more so about the super delegates from those states. These super delegates - if seated - will have the power to vote for Clinton, and they will do everything they can to spin that as justifiable based on the number of votes Clinton got from the contests, regardless of them being valid.

Perhaps this is what Clinton was planning all along. She must have known that Howard Dean was not really in her corner, and that he could be problematic if the contest came down to a close race between her and say Edwards. By many accounts, this issue with MI and FL is potentially a huge problem for Dean, and if he's not careful, it could get bad for him. There almost seems like an internal struggle over the soul of the Democratic party between the more progressive members and the right-leaning DLC, the Clintons' bloc. This issue with MI and FL has the DLC stink all over it. Could the Clintons and the DLC have been planning all along to fracture the party in an effort to heal it under one common identity, the "Third Way" as it were?

Imagine this scenario: If the race were to have been close, and it was between right of center Clinton, and left of center anyone else, MI and Fl could be used to fracture the party. Since Clinton "won" those states, she would have more credibility in being the one chosen to heal the fractures. Once the party was united behind her, it would eventually be beholden to the DLC's ideology. Clinton would have the presidency, and would own the soul of the party, cementing the Clinton legacy. A win win for the Clintons.

Crazy idea, I know. But I had to get it out there.

Regardless of the Clinton campaign promising to be united behind one candidate, I don't see them following through with that unless SHE is that candidate. I fully expect some serious funny business at the convention if the MI and FL super delegates are seated and allowed to "vote their conscience." There is no way that Clinton is just going to give up. As evidenced by the way they have been campaigning, doing everything possible to tear down a fellow Democrat, and running a scorched earth campaign, it would be foolish to think they would stop now. There is simply too much on the line. Clinton has already jeopardized her next senate run by poisoning the Democrat's well with this campaign. The theory that she has done so to increase her chances of running in 2012 by weakening Obama enough to lose against McCain in 2008 doesn't hold water. She is simply not that patient. By now she is already regretting that she didn't run in '04, and four (or eight) years is a long time to wait for another shot.

No, Clinton wants this bad, and she wants it now.

As many have rightly noted, the Clintons are at their most dangerous when they're down. In this election, Clinton's selfish blood-lust for power and a campaign tactics have been downright scary. She has proven herself to truly be a monster. Some monsters are just so terrible, that the only way they can be stopped is by decapitation.

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