Hillary’s not Finished Yet
by Jeff Davis
Don’t be deceived by her apparent rolling over and playing dead. Hillary Clinton is still very much in play in the Democrat presidential primary. According to ABC News: “Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton told a gathering of supporters last week that she’s looking for a strategy for her delegates to ‘have their voices heard and respected’ at the Democratic National Convention where Sen. Barack Obama is expected to be nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate.”
Despite all the hoopla, she has not actually released her hard-won delegates to vote for Barack Obama on the first ballot. Hillary may even be maneuvering to steal some Obama delegates. There’s just one little problem: Unless Obama pulls a “John Edwards” and winds up neck deep in a scandal, he’s going to be the nominee. Obama beat Hillary by about a two hundred delegate margin (with some 30 delegates going to John Edwards).
There’s a trend in politics for people to jump on the bandwagon of the winner. If Hillary does force a vote, any delegate voting for Hillary can pretty much forget about getting a job with the Obama administration. If any delegate change happens, it seems likely even more delegates will switch to Obama just to get on the good side of the winner. Still, if Hillary does force a vote and does keep all her delegates, that will be serious sign that the Democrat Party is going into the election with a major split.
The ABC article notes “Sources close to both Obama and Clinton told ABC News that the New York senator is highly unlikely to allow her name to be formally submitted for a roll-call vote on the convention floor. The Obama campaign wants to avoid such a vote, since it would underscore the party’s splits and remind voters of the divisive primary campaign between the two Democrats. The refusal to publicly announce her intentions is widely seen as a bargaining chip Clinton is holding on to as party officials negotiate logistics regarding her convention speech and other activities, according to several Democrats who are closely involved in the matter.”
In other words, she is turning the screws on Obama for the Vice Presidential slot. Hillary has already made a lot of supportive remarks regarding Obama reportedly in exchange for him asking his supporters to help her with her estimated 20 to 30 million dollar campaign debt. Most of this debt was run up when it was already certain that Hillary couldn’t win. Hillary did make a good showing in some of the last few primary states, but Obama wasn’t squandering his money fighting Hillary once he had the delegate battle won. Many Obama supporters have made it abundantly clear that they don’t want their donations going to pay off Hillary’s campaign debt.
The ABC article continues “Lanny Davis, a longtime friend and supporter of the Clintons, called the idea of putting Clinton’s name into nomination a ‘completely idiotic idea that leads to nothing but party disharmony.’ Still, the fact that some Clinton supporters are clamoring for a chance to vote for her at the convention is partly Obama’s fault, he said. Davis, who described himself as 100 percent behind Obama in the general election, said Obama should be doing more — in symbolic and substantive gestures — to make clear he values and needs the support of former Clinton supporters.”
The truth is Hillary DOES want to split the Democrat Party. An egomaniac (like Hillary) always puts their personal interest ahead of the party. Obama has been dissing Hillary (probably not returning her calls), and he damned well better cough up that VP nomination or there will be hell to pay.
This harpie is never going to give up as long as she thinks she has the tiniest chance of forcing herself on the ticket. Obama needs to decide which is worse: incurring the wrath of Hillary and fighting feminist sabotage at every turn or adding Hillary to the ticket and adding a food tester to his staff and a bullet proof vest to his warddrobe. (Every president in the last 48 years with an ambitious VP has been the target of an assassination attempt.) Hillary is not finished yet and her latest actions suggest she’s making a last stand battle to get added to the ticket.