Stolen Nomination? You bet.
16-Aug-08
The 2008 Democratic Party nomination for the presidency was stolen from Hillary Clinton and given to Barack Obama by certain members of the party leadership.
Thanks to Bag News Notes,
which had a much different take
on this photo than I did.
Five states broke the primary timing rules, but only two—big states that Hillary was sure to win, Michigan and Florida—were penalized. The holding back of those two states gave Obama the ability to claim he was ahead in the race, even when he wasn’t. Unfortunately, a lot of people fell for that nonsense and started to consider him the frontrunner. That had an impact on media coverage and likely influenced the vote in later primaries. Paul Lukasiak documented this problem on several blogs, including InsightAnalytical, and found other evidence of what he calls “‘stop Hillary’ corruption” among certain members of the party leadership.
There was manipulation, if not outright fraud, in the caucuses. A group is making a film about it, and Lynette Long offers a preview. Pacific John, writing at MyDD, gave us a taste of what went on in Texas, but it wasn’t the only state with serious problems reported. Lambert reports on Texas caucus fraud and the general unfairness of caucuses at Corrente. Dr. Long has started a new website, Caucus Fraud, to document as much as possible of what happened.
Peniel Cronin’s final report, “Primary versus Caucus: How millions of voters were systemically disenfranchised and election results were skewed” has just been published at TalkLeft (pdf). The most significant findings:
Though voters in all 13 caucus states cast only 2.9% of the total 35.9 million votes those caucus votes control 14.6% of the pledged delegates and 15.5% of the Super delegates sent to the DNC Convention…
39 Primaries with 34.8 million voters gave Clinton a lead in both votes and delegates. Caucuses with 1.1 million voters gave Obama 300,000 more votes and 206 more delegates.
Alegre has more on the allocation of delegates, including this gem:
Hillary won the state of Nevada 51%-45%
…but by the time the contest reached the state convention, she ended up with 3 fewer delegates!
Hillary won the popular vote, according to ABC News. The information is no longer available on the ABC News website, but both No Quarter and Taylor Marsh documented it at the time:
POPULAR VOTE (all primaries and caucuses)
Hillary Clinton: 17,785,009
Barack Obama: 17,479,990
The popular vote count at Real Clear Politics shows Hillary in the lead when all the votes are counted, and even further in the lead when estimates are made for some of the caucus states.
Rather than being penalized for the tactical move of removing his name from the Michigan ballot, on May 31 Obama was rewarded instead, by the Rules & Bylaws Committee of the DNC. He was given delegates who didn’t vote for him, and was even given four of HILLARY’s delegates. There is no precedent for that kind of theft. Lambert explains at Corrente how the committee broke its own sunshine rules to decide on the delegate donation.
Had the RBC not halved the votes from Florida and Michigan and given to Obama delegates who didn’t vote for him, Hillary would also be ahead in pledged delegates. From Riverdaughter at The Confluence:
[N]ow we know why the RBC did what [they] did. She had over 100 delegates from Florida and 73 from Michigan. If he got zero from Michigan and both states had been able to seat with full strength, she could have added over 86 delegates and he would have lost 59. Hmm, that brings her total to 1725 and Obama’s to 1707.
If that’s not a stolen nomination, I don’t know what is.
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Digg this story to make sure it’s read far and wide.
Make Them Accountable / Media & Politics (Weekend Edition) wrote:
[...] Stolen Nomination? You bet. (MakeThemAccountable) The 2008 Democratic Party nomination for the presidency was stolen from Hillary Clinton and given to Barack Obama by certain members of the party leadership. Click through to read the deep, dark secret that the party leaders want to keep the public from knowing. [...]
Posted on 16-Aug-08 at 6:12 pm | Permalink
Hillary Democrats United » Blog Archive » Campaign Updates for 8/16/08 wrote:
[...] Stolen Nomination? You bet. (MakeThemAccountable) [...]
Posted on 17-Aug-08 at 11:01 am | Permalink
bjw1951 wrote:
I did a video on this a couple of months ago. Check it out!
The #’s Don’t Lie. Energize Our Hillary Base!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmikfM4TqAM
Posted on 17-Aug-08 at 1:05 pm | Permalink
Stolen Nomination? You bet. « NObama - Not Now, Not Ever wrote:
[...] read more | digg story [...]
Posted on 17-Aug-08 at 3:02 pm | Permalink
Make Them Accountable about a Stolen Nomination « Puma Alliance wrote:
[...] Them Accountable about a Stolen Nomination August 17, 2008 — pumaalliance Make Them Accountable.com ask the question that many Clinton supporters have asked and continue to demand answers for: Was [...]
Posted on 17-Aug-08 at 3:24 pm | Permalink
FaithChatham wrote:
The process we use for nominating a candidate should be race neutral. In Texas, Barack Obama had a delegate advantage before any votes were cast in the primary and before any voters signed in at the precinct convention/caucus. The process should be race neutral each and every year in each and every situation. Voters have the right to vote race if they choose, however, the process should not favor any district by granting more delegates based on previous years voting patterns or voting patterns on other races.
Polls consistently show that African Americans are more likely to vote for or have voted for Barack Obama than other candidates. In Texas, senatorial districts with the highest percentage of minority voters voted for the Democratic candidate for governor in the previous governor’s election than did voters in more racial diverse districts in the 2006 General Election. (That was a race between incumbent Gov. “Good Hair” also referred to as “Gov. 38%” because he won with only 38% of the general election vote, and Kinky Friedman and Scott McClellan’s mother, Carole Keaton Strayhorn and Democratic Nominee Chris Bells (who is at the best rather bland).
Districts where Chris Bell got the largest number of votes in 2006 received more delegates for the 2008 Presidential Race in than those districts where votes were split between the two independent candidates, Rick Perry and Chris Bell. Minority districts voted straight tickets and that gave them an advantage going into the 2008 precinct, senatorial and state conventions in delegate count.
I want to be very clear here: Because of the demographics in Texas, and voting patterns in the 2006 General Election, districts with more voters who voted for Obama or were likely to vote for Obama were granted more delegates per voter based on an apportionment of delegates per senatorial district by the Texas Democratic Party prior to the March 4th Texas Democratic Primary.
We knew before any votes were cast this year that voters in Senator Royce West’s district (23), a district where there were more votes cast for Chris Bell in the 2006 General Election (and which has a high percentage of minority voters) would be apportioned more delegates than districts which had fewer votes cast for Chris Bell in 2006 (and probably are more racially diverse than Senator West’s district).
The process we use to determine the delegates to nominate the President in Texas are not Race Neutral. I believe that people have the right to vote their race if they choose. We also have the right to vote for persons of other races if we choose. However, the process we use should be LEVEL and all candidates should have an equal chance of gaining the favor of voters and having each voter count equally when it comes to electing delegates to nominate the president.
This is not the case in Texas.
I have been called racist for pointing this out. I am not attacking African Americans. I am SPEAKING ABOUT PROCESS. This year, because race is a reality with human beings and people utilize it in various ways in relating to one another, the process for apportioning delegates between Senatorial Districts in Texas favored Senator Obama, because he represents the race of the Districts which already had been assigned the greatest number of delegates based on 2006 voting patterns in the General Election.
In the next election cycle, it is possible that race may favor a Latino candidate (or slate) over an African American candidate if something energizes the Latino community and we continue to see high voter registration and political participation in that minority community. I don’t think that the Barack Obama supporters who have been attempting to shut me up by calling me racist when I point out that the process this year did not give all candidates a level playing field realize that in four years what benefits their candidate this year may work against their candidate.
I think that the distribution of delegates should be based on the vote of the people and that each person’s vote, no matter what race, gender, social economic group, or where in the county, state or nation they reside, should count equally in determining the delegates who nominate our party’s presidential nominee. Anything less than that is not Democratic.
Posted on 17-Aug-08 at 4:41 pm | Permalink
STOLEN NOMINATION? YOU BET « Hillarysmygirl08’s Weblog wrote:
[...] STOLEN NOMINATION? YOU BET http://makethemaccountable.com/index.php/2008/08/16/stolen-nomination-you-bet/ [...]
Posted on 17-Aug-08 at 5:10 pm | Permalink
FaithChatham wrote:
If the delegates had been chosen based on the vote of 2.8million + primary voters in Texas, and each vote had been granted equal weight, Hillary would have 10 more pledged national delegates from Texas than Senator Obama. By including the results from the very flawed precinct/senatorial and state convention caucuses where 1 million sign-ins were tabluated, Senator Obama gets 5 more pledged delegates from Texas than Senator Clinton.
Senator Clinton won the primary in Texas. When a subsection of the whole (1 million of the 2.8 million who voted in the Democratic Pimary can overrule the choice of the greater number of voters, the system is sadly flawed.)
Posted on 17-Aug-08 at 5:12 pm | Permalink
gmagma wrote:
Good succinct summary of the numerical facts of the primary. Thanks for presenting Hillary’s case so well.
Posted on 17-Aug-08 at 6:08 pm | Permalink
nv1962 wrote:
Here in Nevada, it was old-fashioned Chicago style strong-arming, shouting down and bullying during the convention cycle, after the caucuses, that swung the result obtained during the preceding caucuses over, from Hillary Clinton’s advantage to the Selected One’s. That’s what explains the unforgivable stolen delegates in this state.
From what I understand, that’s what happened in Ohio and Texas as well, and in the latter case, aggravated by the totally absurd simultaneous combination of primaries and caucuses, held the same evening of the caucuses which, of course, keeps out and dilutes the votes especially of the elderly, those with a so-so health, and mothers with kids - you know, all those groups where Hillary Clinton scored extraordinarily well with her fight for a universal health care system; you know, that issue which Zero frontally attacked after obtaining all that lovely money he received from the health care industry, and which was so conveniently bundled to make it hard to trace.
But getting back to Texas, and speaking of disenfranchising voter segments that are absolutely critical for any Dem come next November: there’s one more demographically significant support group for Hillary Clinton. And yes, the Latino/Hispanic vote was also targeted by those dark forces behind the shenanigans in the Dem party in Texas. Just ask LULAC how - they initiated a lawsuit over it. Another of those things that got lost and shouted down amidst reflexive, hypocritical accusations of “racism!” by the tone-deaf Zero-cult.
Texas, Ohio, Nevada - plus of course Florida and Michigan: all cases of states that in a fine-tuned and carefully crafted plan of tactical maneuvers were designed to kill off Hillary Clinton’s path to victory but has one built-in and fatal flaw: come November, Zero will be reminded by what he did, finally getting the electoral invoice for his betrayal to democracy, but sadly leaving the rest of the country with another term without hope for progress.
Then again, that may ultimately have been the bigger strategic masterplan he pursues after all, along the theme of plus ça change, to make sure that the top-flight corporate interests are well looked after. Change you can bleed in.
Posted on 18-Aug-08 at 12:26 am | Permalink
nv1962 wrote:
Well drats… I thought the El Paso Times still had that article up (I copied the link without checking from an entry I posted on my own blog, albeit in Spanish) but if you google for “LULAC sued Texas Democratic Party over primary delegates” you’ll be able to find and read it. Outrageous. Still: apologies for posting a now dead link (hmmm… is that another of those “coincidences”?)
Posted on 18-Aug-08 at 12:34 am | Permalink
Make Them Accountable / Media & Politics (only one section today) wrote:
[...] It is NOT out of a sense of entitlement that we continue to support her. It’s OUT OF A SENSE OF ROBBERY! You really sound stupid when you don’t know what you’re talking [...]
Posted on 19-Aug-08 at 12:52 pm | Permalink
Hillary’s Voice » Campaign Updates and Media Headlines 8/19/08 wrote:
[...] supporters. It is NOT out of a sense of entitlement that we continue to support her. It’s OUT OF A SENSE OF ROBBERY! You really sound stupid when you don’t know what you’re talking [...]
Posted on 19-Aug-08 at 2:29 pm | Permalink
T. Marie wrote:
I have young grandsons who will be old enough to be drafted, and make no mistake, one of the first things a McCain administration will do is reinstitute the draft. My grandson’s will become cannon fodder for a McCain world and McCain wars to come. McCain scares the bejesus out of me. As Bill Clinton said tonight, “Obama will use the power of the United States as an example, not the example of the United States’ power”. For the safe future of my grandsons and all other young American men and women out there, I cannot support a McCain vote. I say this as an early supporter of Hillary. I have been a registered Republican my entire life. But in January 2008, I changed to a registered Democrat to vote for Hillary. But it is not to be. And I disappointed, sure! BUT for the sake of generations to come, I’ve moved on. I’ve resolved that I have no spare grandchildren to give to McCain to satisfy his warmongering. I’m voting for Obama and Biden.
Posted on 28-Aug-08 at 1:02 am | Permalink
caro wrote:
I don’t want your grandsons drafted either, but what makes you think Obama and Biden aren’t as warlike as John McCain?
I don’t think you know as much about that as maybe you should.
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2008/08/death-match-ii-hideous-horror-of-biden.html
Posted on 28-Aug-08 at 4:38 am | Permalink