Subscribe by RSSClinton Still Calling For Michigan, Florida to be Counted
Despite the fact that Florida, and now Michigan, have ruled out new primaries, Hillary Clinton is still calling for the votes to be counted. I can see Florida perhaps, but Michigan was a farce since no other candidates were on the ballot.
The report on it from Fox News:
Hillary Clinton strengthened her pitch to recognize the discounted Florida and Michigan primaries Saturday following the collapse of yet another re-do primary proposal.
The pitch potentially lays the groundwork for her to make the case to uncommitted superdelegates that she’s the popular vote favorite should she narrow the gap with Barack Obama in the upcoming contests.
“I will … keep fighting to make sure the votes of the people in Florida and Michigan are counted,” Clinton said in Hillsboro, Ore., Saturday. “2.3 million voters turned out.”
The New York senator won both primaries in January, but neither candidate campaigned there ahead of the vote and Obama was not even on the ballot in Michigan. The Democratic Party stripped the states of their delegations for holding early primaries in violation of party rules.
“Now some say their votes should be ignored and that the popular vote in Michigan and Florida should just be discounted. Well I have a different view,” Clinton said Saturday. “The popular vote in Florida and Michigan has already been counted. It was determined by election results, it was certified by election officials in each state. It’s been officially tallied by the secretary of state in each state.”
Clinton is arguing anew that those elections were bona fide tests of the candidates’ appeal among voters, after Michigan Democrats on Friday formally ditched the latest effort to hold a do-over primary. Florida has done the same, effectively killing chances of holding re-dos of any kind.
This is becoming a broken record from the Clinton campaign. She’s basically trying to “count” Florida and Michigan as a means to gain more of the popular vote. In return, she’ll be able to sway superdelegates by arguing she has won a good number of popular votes.
I guess I wouldn’t expect anything less since she doesn’t plan to drop out. Any backing off her original stands could be seen as a weakness and/or acknowledgment by her campaign that she can’t win.
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Why do the rules keep changing for Hillary? She knew she was going to loose those votes, and agreed. Now its ok for the delegates to change their vote! This is Florida’s second go round with messing with the votes..WHEN DO THE PEOPLE GET THEIR VOTE!!! STOP CHEATING!!!
Florida and Michigan should count, both in the interest of fundamental fairness and honoring the spirit of the Democrats’ 50-state strategy.
The voters of Florida and Michigan have a right for their voices to be heard - the last election clearly was not in the spirit of fair election. But they do deserve one, just like every other state.
However, when Hillary also says things like “there’s no such thing as a pledged delegate”, when she suggests that voters should not be able to control who their states delegates are pledged to - Well I hope voters in Michigan and Florida realize that the only reason Hillary Clinton is fighting for them now is that because to her, their votes are money in her bank.
She has spoken out against the democratic process, not for it. I do not feel it is an exaggeration to say that any person who speaks out against the ability of the people to elect their president is an enemy of democracy.
In the end I’d bet most of the money I have that all 50 states will have seated delegates somehow. It’s really just a matter of how, when, and how happy everyone will be with the outcome. I certainly hope that all those delegates will be based on popular votes, whether or not Hillary Clinton feels that’s the way it should be.
Florida and Michigan were given a chance to vote again. Obama would not agree to it. You cannot leave millions of people out of choosing the Democratic nominee. That is just wrong. Since Obama wouldn’t let them vote again (so much for being the candidate of the people), he should have to suck it up and let the first votes count. He had his chance. The only reason he wouldn’t let them re-vote is obviously because he KNEW he couldn’t win in those states.
Good grief, what ever happened to following the rules?? How can 48 states follow the rules, FL and MI do their own thing, yet now everyone is crying for those votes to count? Why have rules if they won’t be enforced? By all means, seat the delegates, but those votes should NOT count because those were the rules everyone agreed to. Now Hillary wants to forget those rules to get the popular vote count? I don’t understand the idea of changing the rules in the middle of the contest to accomodate Mrs Clinton.
Caleb,
Did Obama speak against the revote? I don’t recall hearing anything from his camp to that effect. To the best of my understanding I think he simply wants to stay out of the whole mess. He followed the rules he was given, and he doesn’t want to be punished for that.
I know Hillary has framed it otherwise in her speeches, but I’ve never read news reports saying that Obama has come out against a revote - so if he HAS please give me some sort of a news link?
In any case I wish he had come out in support of a revote instead of remaining more or less silent on the issue. It does diminish my opinion of him that he hasn’t pressed this from any side at all.
Lea,
do you belief your local government has the right to deprive you of your vote? Because that’s exactly what the governments of Florida and Michigan have done to their Democratic base. It’s both immoral and a terrible strategy for the democrats - because people who had no say over who their candidate was in the primaries are much less likely to vote for them again as their president. Democracy is a right, not a privilege to be taken away from the people by bickering officials.
People have died to give us the right to vote. Will you shrug it off so easily today?