Tag Archives: Hillary Clinton

I am a superdelegate.

10 Feb

An article is making the rounds on social media with a clickbait headline, “The DNC Just Screwed Over Bernie Sanders and Spit in Voters’ Faces.”

Having apparently slept through the 2008 primary season, the author is shocked to learn that by the rules of the Democratic National Committee there are  a number of delegates to the national convention that are elected federal officeholders, party officers and members of the Democratic National Committee.  In 2008, the very same dynamic was at play. Clinton had many elected officials behind her and there came a point when some feared that it was those superdelegates who would decide the nomination.  Those fears did not come to pass.

DNC-kicking-donkey-logo1Since I was elected a Democratic National Committee member representing Minnesota in 2012, this time I get to experience the fun from the inside! Given that I will not be running for reelection to the DNC, I was really hoping my SUPERdelegate status would mean I was getting wined and dined by our candidates.  Alas, Hillary hasn’t called and all I get from Bernie are emails.  No flowers, cards or Edible Arrangements.  Not so super at all.

What I did get today was two calls from reporters.  As concern grows with some Sanders’ supporters that Clinton will “steal” the nomination through superdelegates, I have been called to be identified as a candidate supporter.  Since I might be listed soon as one of the Council of Elders ruining our democracy, I thought maybe I’d state here what I told them and how I feel about this whole thing:

  • I am a Clinton supporter and expect I will be casting a vote for Clinton at the Democratic National Convention this summer.
  • I support reforming our delegate system to eliminate even the possibility of superdelegates deciding a nomination.
  • I do not believe super delegates will decide the nominee.  They didn’t last time and, if it came to that, the party would be so fractured and the process would be so divisive that it would not be a tenable set-up for a general election win.
  • I will be listed as a  Clinton supporter because I am one (more on that in another post); that said, in the unlikely event of the convention coming down to superdelegates deciding over the will of the voting electorate of primary and caucus goers, I would not participate in that.  What that means, who the heck knows.  It’s a far-fetched hypothetical.

That is all.

Have a super day.

UPDATE:

A friend wrote with some math.  There are 4763 total delegates – 712 of those are supers.  That’s 14.9% of the total.  Not exactly an overwhelming and right now about 60% or so remain uncommitted.  So everyone chill, please. 

One of the arguments for having superdelegates is that, if these folks did not have reserved delegate spots they would likely run for national delegate positions and, as party elected officials and leaders, would likely win many of these positions.  So you’d still have a “party elder” problem in the delegate pool. 

 

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Shorter Hillary: Ladies is pimps, too. #Benghazi

22 Oct
Brush your shoulders off.

Brush your shoulders off.

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“Some Democrats” Suck – Or Maybe Not

9 May

This week Hillary Clinton took a surprisingly bold stance on immigration, one that goes further than President Obama and that both reporters and partisans have acknowledged put Republicans in a box.

Sorry Marco, you can't backtrack your way back to supporting immigration reform.

“Sorry Marco, you can’t backtrack your way back to supporting immigration reform”

How do we know it put Republicans in a box?  Because the response from the other side has been, for the most part, crickets.

This morning The Hill covered the issue, also acknowledging the corner into which Clinton had painted Republicans, but with a caveat:

Hillary Clinton has thrilled immigration activists with her embrace of a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

It’s also thrilled Democrats, who think Clinton has taken a smart political step to solidifying support among Hispanics for their party in next year’s presidential election.
They argue the GOP’s restrained response to Clinton shows Republicans are worried about the issue, particularly given the nation’s rising Hispanic population.

“It’s definitely a very aggressive approach in attempting to court the Hispanic vote,” said Mercedes Viana Schlapp, who served as a Spanish-language spokesperson for President George W. Bush.

In part because they have backed immigration reform in the past, Republicans hope former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) could make inroads with Hispanics. But even some GOP critics of Clinton such as Schlapp acknowledge that Clinton may have made the party’s task more difficult.

So what’s The Hill‘s caveat? “Some Democrats privately fear Clinton may have promised too much,” they tell us.  Now we’re used to DC reporters allowing politicos to comment anonymously.  But, guess what? — they don’t even have anonymous sources for this one.

Go read the whole article.  They state as fact that “some democrats privately fear” but don’t even bother to tell us who these people might be or where this might have been heard.  Maybe some are saying it — they just don’t give us any actual evidence this is the case.

Earlier today, I committed a Twitter sin — I forwarded the above article before reading it, reacting to the headline, which used that “Democrats privately fearing” line that no one said.  My take: “Screw those Democrats.”

But it turns out The Hill may be making those Democrats up.

Now, if they looked hard enough I imagine the journal could dig up a weak-kneed Democrat to say something along those lines.  Or maybe, just maybe, this actually just was the correct political move for Clinton and for the Democratic Party.  Maybe that’s why the Republicans the story did quote pretty much said so.

The reality is that the politics of immigration have changed dramatically in the past few election cycles.  For many Latino voters–even those who do not list immigration reform as their top issue–nonetheless see the issue as a litmus test for the question “Does this politician like us?” Pollster Latino Decisions calls immigration a “gateway issue” for Latino voters.

And with Latinos in 2016 poised to be an even greater share of the electorate that in the past two cycles voted upwards of 70% for Obama — Republicans are right to be quaking in their boots.

Maybe The Hill couldn’t find a Democrat to actually say those words to them is a sign that the mainstream of the Democratic Party is finally getting that.

This Latino can dream. 

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Children at the Border: This is what Progressive Leadership Looks Like

23 Jul

The situation at the border is horrific. Thousands of unaccompanied minors are arriving to the United States and turning themselves in to Border patrol agents. I have no doubt that if these images we’re seeing from the border came from an other place in the world, we’d be calling it what it is, a refugee crisis. The Beltway reaction has been largely political and cowardly. Anti-immigrant politicians have tried to seize the opportunity to reframe the immigration debate around border security after losing so much ground since the 2012 elections, when the Latino vote walloped the GOP for being anti-immigrant and obstructionist on the question of immigration reform.

The debate has opened rifts in the GOP, exposing e party’s problem with expanding its base. Discussing the issue, Bill Kristol said to Latina Republican Ana Navarro, “You’re not as Republican as me” (psst, Ana… He means you’re brown).

But Democrats haven’t fared much better. The president quickly called for quick processing and deportation of minors. As did Secretary Clinton, who heartlessly said the children “should be sent back.”
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The White House played dirty with Maryland Governor O’Malley when he stated, “It is contrary to everything we stand for to try to summarily send children back to death.” They leaked a conversation the governor had with White House senior adviser Cecilia Muñoz, suggesting that the a Governor had hypocritically told them he didn’t want the border children sent to Maryland. If you read the Politico article this story was leaked to, however, it is clear that is not at all what the governor said. He was advising them not to send children to a specific facility in Maryland, an area that is extremely conservative and where children are likely to receive the same harassing welcome they’ve seen in some parts of Texas and California. Days after the call with Muñoz, that facility was hilariously sprayed with misspelled graffiti: “No illeagels here. No undocumented Democrats.”

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O’Malley 1, White House 0.

The other bright light in all of this: Deval Patrick, Governor of Massachusetts. Announcing that his state would welcome a group of unaccompanied minors and fighting back tears, he said, “My faith teaches me that if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him but rather love him as yourself.” See his entire emotional speech at Mother Jones.

What Patrick and O’Malley are showing is leadership. I’ve heard that some in DC have seen polling showing that the border security frame is making American reactions to the crisis less than humanitarian. Leadership means looking at polls like these, understanding what’s right and what’s wrong about an issue, and deciding to do your best to change that popular opinion. By leading.

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