Wisconsin Primary

[Tyrone Bigguns]

Some people blame the US Supreme Court for handing Bush the election. All they decided is that the Florida Supreme Court could not act unconstitutionally in an effort to find 550 votes for Al Gore.

Several investigations have shown that Bush was going to win even if a recount was done. So in that sense, the Supreme Court decision didn't matter.

The U.S. Supreme Court contradicted the Florida Supreme Court, saying 5-4 that doing a recount was unconstitutional. This was an outrageous, politically motivated action by the 5 members of the Supreme Court that fancy themselves as enemies of judicial activism.
The court disgraced themselves, it's a low point that will be remembered like the Dred Scott pro-slavery decision.

Right. Just ignore the voters purged from the system.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Feingold, Edwards, Ed Rendell, Joe Biden.

I would take Joe Biden, Diane Feinstein or Richard Lugar ahead of Hillary. I would have to get drunk and do an absentee ballot for Lugar, if I went to a polling booth and tried to vote for a Republican, I'm sure I would lose my nerve.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Hate Springs Eternal
By PAUL KRUGMAN, Published: February 11, 2008

In 1956 Adlai Stevenson, running against Dwight Eisenhower, tried to make the political style of his opponent’s vice president, a man by the name of Richard Nixon, an issue. The nation, he warned, was in danger of becoming “a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland.”

The quote comes from “Nixonland,” a soon-to-be-published political history of the years from 1964 to 1972 written by Rick Perlstein, the author of “Before the Storm.” As Mr. Perlstein shows, Stevenson warned in vain: during those years America did indeed become the land of slander and scare, of the politics of hatred.

And it still is. In fact, these days even the Democratic Party seems to be turning into Nixonland.

The bitterness of the fight for the Democratic nomination is, on the face of it, bizarre. Both candidates still standing are smart and appealing. Both have progressive agendas (although I believe that Hillary Clinton is more serious about achieving universal health care, and that Barack Obama has staked out positions that will undermine his own efforts). Both have broad support among the party’s grass roots and are favorably viewed by Democratic voters.

Supporters of each candidate should have no trouble rallying behind the other if he or she gets the nod.

Why, then, is there so much venom out there?

I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration — remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again.

What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.

The prime example of Clinton rules in the 1990s was the way the press covered Whitewater. A small, failed land deal became the basis of a multiyear, multimillion-dollar investigation, which never found any evidence of wrongdoing on the Clintons’ part, yet the “scandal” became a symbol of the Clinton administration’s alleged corruption.

During the current campaign, Mrs. Clinton’s entirely reasonable remark that it took L.B.J.’s political courage and skills to bring Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to fruition was cast as some kind of outrageous denigration of Dr. King.

And the latest prominent example came when David Shuster of MSNBC, after pointing out that Chelsea Clinton was working for her mother’s campaign — as adult children of presidential aspirants often do — asked, “doesn’t it seem like Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?” Mr. Shuster has been suspended, but as the Clinton campaign rightly points out, his remark was part of a broader pattern at the network.

I call it Clinton rules, but it’s a pattern that goes well beyond the Clintons. For example, Al Gore was subjected to Clinton rules during the 2000 campaign: anything he said, and some things he didn’t say (no, he never claimed to have invented the Internet), was held up as proof of his alleged character flaws.

For now, Clinton rules are working in Mr. Obama’s favor. But his supporters should not take comfort in that fact.

For one thing, Mrs. Clinton may yet be the nominee — and if Obama supporters care about anything beyond hero worship, they should want to see her win in November.

For another, if history is any guide, if Mr. Obama wins the nomination, he will quickly find himself being subjected to Clinton rules. Democrats always do.

But most of all, progressives should realize that Nixonland is not the country we want to be. Racism, misogyny and character assassination are all ways of distracting voters from the issues, and people who care about the issues have a shared interest in making the politics of hatred unacceptable.

One of the most hopeful moments of this presidential campaign came last month, when a number of Jewish leaders signed a letter condemning the smear campaign claiming that Mr. Obama was a secret Muslim. It’s a good guess that some of those leaders would prefer that Mr. Obama not become president; nonetheless, they understood that there are principles that matter more than short-term political advantage.

I’d like to see more moments like that, perhaps starting with strong assurances from both Democratic candidates that they respect their opponents and would support them in the general election.

[SkinBasket]

Some people blame the US Supreme Court for handing Bush the election. All they decided is that the Florida Supreme Court could not act unconstitutionally in an effort to find 550 votes for Al Gore.

Several investigations have shown that Bush was going to win even if a recount was done. So in that sense, the Supreme Court decision didn't matter.

The U.S. Supreme Court contradicted the Florida Supreme Court, saying 5-4 that doing a recount was unconstitutional. This was an outrageous, politically motivated action by the 5 members of the Supreme Court that fancy themselves as enemies of judicial activism.
The court disgraced themselves, it's a low point that will be remembered like the Dred Scott pro-slavery decision.

Don't be retarded. No matter how you try to spin what the US Supreme Court did, the fact is the Florida SC was trying to change established legislated law, for a very specific purpose, and with nothing more than partisan politics as the motivation. That is not their job and is the very definition of unconstitutional. Blame Florida and Federal law if you want, but you can't fault the US Supreme Court who simply enforced the law as written.

Yes, the prize was great, but that doesn't mean you get to cheat to win. Unless you wanted Al to win, then courts rewriting laws, usurping the Constitution, counting hanging chads, and "interpreting the will of the voter" were all fair game.

And they didn't say 5-4 doing a recount was unconstitutional. They said changing law, the job of the legislature, not the judiciary branch, was unconstitutional. They said 7-2 that the ridiculous attempt at a "recount" was unconstitutional.

Unless you were being tongue-in-cheek. It's hard to tell when you're just reading words posted by a semi-retarded mutt.

[Harlan Huckleby]

And they didn't say 5-4 doing a recount was unconstitutional. They said changing law, the job of the legislature, not the judiciary branch, was unconstitutional.

This is something you just made up. The 5-4 vote, the second vote, was that the recount had to be stopped and cancelled because there wasn't time to refashion a fair recount.
This was a truly arbitrary, capricious and political decision. Disgraceful.

They said 7-2 that the ridiculous attempt at a "recount" was unconstitutional.

You are right about this part, this was the first vote and I was mistaken about the margin.
The bizarre thing about this vote was that it was decided by the Equal Protection Clause (specifically, the court decided that voting and recounting had to be done in an identical manner all across the state to be fair. )
Well, the bizarre part is that the conservative members of the court were famously unwilling to apply the Equal Protection Clause in other cases. They hopped on board here because it suited their purposes.

[SkinBasket]

This is something you just made up. The 5-4 vote, the second vote, was that the recount had to be stopped and cancelled because there wasn't time to refashion a fair recount.
This was a truly arbitrary, capricious and political decision. Disgraceful.

Others would argue that this perfectly describes the Florida's Courts actions in their attempt to find votes for Gore. Or Judge Breyer's attempt to disregard Florida law regarding the Dec 12 deadline, which brings us to the 5-4 count to stop the recount process that could not possibly meet minimum standards in the 3 days remaining before the deadline.

It would require not only the adoption (after opportunity for argument) of adequate statewide standards for determining what is a legal vote, and practicable procedures to implement them, but also orderly judicial review of any disputed matters that might arise. In addition, the Secretary of State has advised that the recount of only a portion of the ballots requires that the vote tabulation equipment be used to screen out undervotes, a function for which the machines were not designed. If a recount of overvotes were also required, perhaps even a second screening would be necessary. Use of the equipment for this purpose, and any new software developed for it, would have to be evaluated for accuracy by the Secretary of State, as required by Fla. Stat. §101.015 (2000).

The remedy - changing or ignoring the Dec 12 deadline would have meant an unconstitutional change to legislated law by either the Florida or, as Judge Breyer suggested, US Supreme Court. I'm no lawyer, but the US Supreme Court disregarding state law would probably have been a poor precedent.

[Harlan Huckleby]

I just remembered why the Equal Protection Clause argument was so outragous.

Florida had this horribly discriminatory patchwork of voting mechanisms. The poor, predominantly black areas were discarding ballots at a high rate, I think it was 8% or something. The rich districts had electronic systems that counted all but a fraction of a percent of ballots.

Would the Supreme Court ever intervene to correct this blatant violation of the Equal Protection Clause? Oh hell no! That would be liberal judicial activism. That's a local issue - state's rights.

Well, as soon as Republican power is in the balance, the court chooses to demand equal protection. Since the recount can't be done identically everywhere, can't do a recount.

I blocked this incident out of mind, had forgotten about it. But I've talked to fair-minded republicans about this ordeal, they agree the court went bananas. History is going to look at this as a terrible black mark on the Supreme Court, it really damaged their credibility.

[SkinBasket]

History is going to look at this as a terrible black mark on the Supreme Court, it really damaged their credibility.

The pillars of justice are tumbling around us.

[Zool]

"Halls of justice painted green money talking
Power wolves feast at your door hear them stalking"

[Harlan Huckleby]

Clinton's waiting for Texas & Ohio strategy is starting to have the faint wiff of Giuliani's waiting for Florida master plan.

In a close election, I can't believe that people will stand for Michigan & Florida just not voting. The only way out is to redo the vote, or people won't accept the results, it will be like Florida 2000. What was the democratic party thinking when they thought they could just cancel the elections? Punish the voters to get back at the local party officials!!?? I'll tell you what they were thinking - they figured the election wouldn't be that close and nobody would care very much.

I was listening to Randi Rhodes bloviate about this on Air America yesterday, she's right on this one. EJ Dionne just wrote an editorial about the situation, maybe I'll plop it here and you can not read it you aren't interested.

[Harlan Huckleby]

A Party Divided by Sensibility
By E. J. Dionne Jr., Tuesday, February 12, 2008

It's come down to this: Who can beat John McCain?

Winning that argument could allow Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton to reach beyond their respective demographic comfort zones. Only if one of them can build a clear majority will the party be saved from a descent into the mire of rules fights and backroom dealing. It will also take leadership to protect the Democratic village from chaos and recriminations.

For the moment, the world is moving Obama's way: He swept four states last weekend and is favored in today's primaries in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. Polling suggests that Obama can draw independents whom Clinton can't reach and can mobilize new and younger voters in a way Clinton never will.

Obama drove that perception by offering a brief against the politics of Clintonism: She "starts off with 47 percent of the country against her," he said in Alexandria on Sunday. Her husband presided over the Democrats' loss of Congress. It's hard to imagine that she can "break out of the politics of the past 15 years." The alternative: the antidepressant right there on the shelf in front of them. Its brand is Obama.

Yet there is another world in Democratic politics, a practical, mostly middle-aged and middle-class world that is immune to fervor and electricity. It is made up of people with long memories who are skeptical of fads and like their candidates tough, detail-oriented and -- to use a word Obama regularly mocks -- seasoned.

These are the Hillary people, and they gathered in Manassas last weekend in significant numbers at the Grace E. Metz Middle School, cozy schools being a preferred venue for a Clinton campaign aware that mammoth rallies are normally beyond its reach.

She does not lack for loyalists. Paulie Abeles of Derwood, Md., held aloft a hand-printed sign that did not mince words: "Talk Is Cheap. Mistakes Are Expensive."

Abeles explained that people who are being "swept along by the eloquence of Barack Obama's speeches" forget that at one time, George W. Bush was seen as "charming" and "inspirational." And electability was on her mind. If President Bush raised the terror alert level four days before the election ("I happen to be very cynical," she averred), the Democrats would want their most experienced candidate confronting McCain.

Clinton spoke directly to her audience's skepticism of good talkers -- ironic in light of her husband's oratorical gifts. "You're so specific," she quoted people as telling her. "Why don't you just come and . . . give us one of those great rhetorical flourishes and get everybody all whooped up?" The crowd actually whooped at that. But eloquence, she said, is not the point, since the election "is not about me, it's about us."

If Obama is passion, Clinton is bread and butter. If she needs more flourishes, he could afford to traffic a bit more in the staples.

Her speech is a well-crafted recitation of how government could ease the lives of those without health insurance, students burdened by college loans, homeowners facing foreclosure, veterans who have been abandoned, the working poor who deserve a hand up.

As she speaks, Doug Hattaway, one of her aides, notes that her practical litany is precisely what appeals to working-class and middle-class voters who respond to "tangible issues." They also rebel against the idea that they are not part of the cool, privileged masses for Obama. One of the signs at the Manassas rally defiantly touted "Well Educated High Earners for Hillary." This is a party divided not by ideology but by sensibility. Things have gotten very personal.

And that is why feelings would be so raw if this nomination were settled by something as grubby as a credentials fight over disputed delegates from Florida and Michigan. Two things are true. Delegations from those important states, currently in defiance of party rules, will eventually have to be seated. But if Clinton were to take the nomination because of her "victories" in primaries that all the candidates agreed not to contest, she would be seen by her adversaries as cheating.

The only solution is for the two states to agree to hold, before the process ends in early June, new rounds of voting that look as much like primaries as possible. Doing so would increase the chances that voters, not insiders, would pick the nominee. Democrats would not have to put up with invidious comparisons between their battle and the ugliness of Bush v. Gore. And one of these candidates might then actually be able to win in November.

A breakout, a fair deal or bedlam: Those are the Democrats' options.

[Harlan Huckleby]

History is going to look at this as a terrible black mark on the Supreme Court, it really damaged their credibility.

The pillars of justice are tumbling around us.

The country didn't riot in the streets after the Dred Scott decision either. Or the "Seperate but Equal" travesty. But thoughtful people know the score.

[SkinBasket]

The country didn't riot in the streets after the Dred Scott decision either. Or the "Seperate but Equal" travesty. But thoughtful people know the score.

Yeah. They know there's a buttload of crazies like you equating things like this with a straight face.

[Freak Out]

The country didn't riot in the streets after the Dred Scott decision either. Or the "Seperate but Equal" travesty. But thoughtful people know the score.

Yeah. They know there's a buttload of crazies like you equating things like this with a straight face.

Harlan please stop with the "crazy" anti American babble. Fucking traitor.

[Harlan Huckleby]

I'm not wise enough to put Gore vs. Bush into historical context, that's true. It sure seems collossal to me for a Supreme Court to take such an activist decision.

I did a google tour of opinions. Many people make the comparisons I did, guess there are a lot of crazies out there. A few scholars defend the court.

Skinbasket's attempt to sweep the whole thing under the carpet is funny.

[The Leaper]

I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody.

I saw this article as well.

Once I saw the sentence I quoted above, I stopped reading because the author clearly has an agenda and doesn't bother to research facts.

The exit polling done by CNN recently showed that the CLINTON supporters overwhelmingly would be more unhappy if their candidate did not win than the OBAMA supporters...and less likely to support the nominee if it wasn't their candidate.

So, how can this person possibly suggest Obama's camp wants their candidate to win more than Clinton's?

[swede]

Some people blame the US Supreme Court for handing Bush the election. All they decided is that the Florida Supreme Court could not act unconstitutionally in an effort to find 550 votes for Al Gore.

Several investigations have shown that Bush was going to win even if a recount was done. So in that sense, the Supreme Court decision didn't matter.

The U.S. Supreme Court contradicted the Florida Supreme Court, saying 5-4 that doing a recount was unconstitutional. This was an outrageous, politically motivated action by the 5 members of the Supreme Court that fancy themselves as enemies of judicial activism.
The court disgraced themselves, it's a low point that will be remembered like the Dred Scott pro-slavery decision.

To contend that the 5 members of SCOTUS were acting as political hacks in that instance rather than acting responsibly in enforcing the ELECTORAL RULES OF THE CONSTITUTION is silly. The shame is that the other four justices actually were acting politically rather than enforcing constitutional law. The four dissenting justices are an enduring reminder to conservatives of the consequences of seating Supreme Court judges who consider themselves and their elite points of view as superior to the constitution they are supposed to consult and protect.

[The Leaper]

Clinton's waiting for Texas & Ohio strategy is starting to have the faint wiff of Giuliani's waiting for Florida master plan.

I would agree on that. Continual losses don't make you look like a better candidate.

However, Clinton's strength with the less educated/Hispanics does give her a very good chance of winning in Texas and Ohio...which hold a huge number of delegates. Obama's strengths with blacks and the highly educated make Hillary's chances in the Potomac region pretty slim.

It is amazing how split down the middle this country is...both overall and in both parties. There seems to be equal numbers of far left crazies, moderate Dems, moderate Reps, and far right crazies. I don't know whether this is bad or good, but it makes for interesting politics.

[The Leaper]

The U.S. Supreme Court contradicted the Florida Supreme Court, saying 5-4 that doing a recount was unconstitutional.

As others have pointed out...because it WAS unconstitutional.

I'm hardly suggesting that what happened in 2000 was proper, or that the entire electoral and voting process is fine and dandy. The election was screwed up...and so is the entire process still to this day.

However, allowing a court to overturn standing laws (i.e. LEGISLATE when that is not their role as defined by the Constitution) would have been a greater assault to the Constitution than the 2000 election was.

[SkinBasket]

The country didn't riot in the streets after the Dred Scott decision either. Or the "Seperate but Equal" travesty. But thoughtful people know the score.

Yeah. They know there's a buttload of crazies like you equating things like this with a straight face.

Harlan please stop with the "crazy" anti American babble. Fucking traitor.

It's not anti-American. It's just dumb.