bravo, LaKeisha-

And if knowing my take on the timeline helps you place the phrase "I have consistently said that every vote must count" into context, you might be interested to know the following:

Just BEFORE the 'count the votes' phrase began being used - in fact BEFORE the Florida vote [in which, you recall, Hilary was highly favored as a known candidate], a Hilary surrogate from NY [Nita Lowey] went on MSNBC on Jan 21, '08 - and in what to me seemed a bald attempt to influence voters that Hilary was 'inevitable' claimed Hilary had won 'three' recent contests - and then listed Michigan among the three. Until then I had been a nominal Hilary supporter [vacillating between her and Edwards and Dodd and Obama] but saw this Potemkin village claim as beyond disingenuous as a means to exploit some Florida voters' lack of knowledge of the history of Michigan. A clever re-working of Clinton’s having eschewed the high road taken by Obama and Edwards by leaving her name on the Michigan ballot while making light of that fact by claiming AT THE TIME that everyone knew the Michigan vote was "moot" anyway. Thus, she was by January 2008 in the perfect position to list Michigan as one of three recent prior wins, just before the Florida primary.

Machiavelian.

I kept thinking, "Clinton should not need her surrogates to lie about the number of her wins just to convince undecided people of her worth - she's a good candidate - why lie?"

Then a couple days later, Hilary HERSELF began making the same claim and it was all over for me. The claim that Clinton ‘won’ Michigan was particularly distasteful to me in light of the Clinton camp’s complaints on that EXACT day - Jan 21, '08 that Obama was “violating” party rules by airing ads in Florida. The impression she wanted to leave everyone with was that Clinton followed the rules even though Obama wasn't. Except that she also wanted Floridians to know she'd won Michigan - so something was fishy even then...

Her Michigan claim got bad press right around the time she lost so many states on Febr 5th. It was then that Hilary moved out of the "I followed the rules and Obama didn't" meme and migrated to the "rules are unfair" meme, claiming that "all" [her] votes should count.

Her next migration was from FIRST claiming that 'everyone knew' that 'uncommitted' meant Obama in Michigan [in retrospect I believe she thought it was OK to 'allow' those uncommitted votes & delegates for Obama, who was not in a visibly insurmountable position] to THEN stating that Obama garnered zero votes in Michigan because those votes were 'uncommitted.' This is part of her 'I won the popular vote' meme.

I am amazed that I was ever a supporter.

I'm not sure why you were shocked. I didn't see anything here that she hasn't been saying publicly for months.
But we need Obama voices in this:
http://www.lobbydelegates.com
an independent web portal empowering grassroots Democrats to lobby the Party’s nearly 800 Super Delegates on the candidate to nominate for President..
It simplifies contacting them.

And what of the 700,000 Obama supporters in Michigan who won't get counted by Hillary's latest set of rules?

Desperation is the mother of more desperation...

Rec'd! Always good to hear about folks writing letters pushing back against BS.

Nevermind. Found it myself.

Are you suggesting that under Rule 11A, it would appear that IA, NH and SC also broke the DNC's delegate selection rules?

And that, accordingly, per Rule 20.c.1.a, all the delegates and superdelegates in those states should have been reduced by 50%?

If so, here's my stab at laying out what's *really* going on, as far as I can tell:

1) DNC stripped the MI and FL delegates BEFORE those contests took place. Was that not clear to you, your candidate and the voters? I think it was.

2) FL and MI violated not only the letter of the rules, but, more importantly, the intent of the rules.

The DNC's plan was to have one early contest in each region: Midwest (IA), North (NH), South (SC), West (NV).

No "big" states and no more than one state per region.

3) IA, NH and SC were originally intended and scheduled to go first. Only *after* MI & FL jumped their place in line did IA, NH and SC move to reschedule so as to preserve the original intentions of the DNC.

It has been widely accepted that Iowa goes first in caucuses, followed by New Hampshire first in primaries.

Last year, to include other regions in the early contest calendar, the DNC held a competition between state Democratic parties in the South and West to determine which other state would be allowed to hold an early contest.

Nevada and South Carolina won that contest, and were allowed to have early elections. Michigan and Florida knowingly violated the rules set forth by the DNC, and were penalized accordingly.

4) Even setting all the above aside, what is to be gained by pressing for an enforcement of Rule 20.c.1.a? Go ahead and reduce both Obama's and Hillary's delegates and superdelegates in IA, NH, and SC by 50%. Does that open a path to the nomination for your candidate? Only if you then insist on seating 100% of MI and FL delegates for your candidate - a solution a right-thinking supporter like yourself would no doubt be extremely uncomfortable with, considering your penchant for following rules.

First of all, thank you for recommending my blog, and for all the positive comments I received. Now that's over: Let me say this..

When I printed out the rules and read them, I was amazed. Here's what people don't know about how each primary and caucus was scheduled...Naturally, Iowa and New Hampshire are the first caucus and primary in the nation. Why? Well, historically Iowa has been first since 1972. Why? Because the NYT written several articles about how non-primary states vote. It was the McGovern campaign that made it possible for Iowa to have a January start. New Hampshire is different. Since 1977, New Hampshire law states that its primary is to be the first in the nation. By tradition, it's been the first since 1920. So that's significance of the reason why IA and NH are first.

Many of Clinton supporters want to blame Obama for the MI and FL mess. It's crazy to think that one candidate got that much influence. I just think that Hillary's thinking is clouded by one person, Terry McAuliffe. And you would think it would be Bill...Not. I really think that Bill has had some talks with Hillary about this, but she's probably said something like "Terry knows what he's talking about. He knows I can still win with MI and FL." Terry McAuliffe was a great fundraiser for the DNC when he was chairman, but we got tired of losing. Notice that now he's the chairman of Hillary campaign, she's winning some and losing a lot. Sorry for my rant. I just get hot about this issue.

Oh, one more thing...I am one of only 2 young democrats going to Democratic National Convention. And this is my first convention!! So I am excited. I'm raising money and just getting myself ready for Denver.

There is no guaranteed right to vote in a primary. None. This is not a governmental function. The Democratic Party is like the Rotary Club. It's a private organization and it gets to set the fucking rules that everybody has to play by.

Dean has bent over backwards to try to accommodate the Democrats in MI and FL. Ultimately, however, it does not matter, because this was not an election and people cannot be "disenfranchised" where there is no right to vote and there is no right to vote in a primary.

notice how the letter doesnt say anything about delegats-because they know the delegates will be seated one way or another. instead they focus on "counting the votes" because Hillary needs something to take to the superdelegates.

ugh...she won't get her way on may 31st which worries me that she'll take it to the convention. Watch all the interviews she does. she always says "hopefully we'll know about fla and mi by may 31st." she doesnt ever rule out taking it to the convention and causing the party a huge headache because queen hillary didn't get her way.