THE NEW (CLINTON) MATH
27 May 2008, by Pirate Joe
O.K., I’ll admit it. I’m an Obama supporter. Yet my
own, deeply held commitment to fair play compels me want the people’s
will be done. I don’t support Hillary Clinton at all, but if that’s who
the people want, then so be it. Bill and Hill keep telling us that this
is indeed the fact, that although she’s behind, she’s ahead, that
although she has less votes, she really has more; that although Obama
is ahead in pledged delegates, “super” delegates, states won, etc, he
isn’t, she is. Confused? I sure am.
Bill’s latest claim is that a giant cover-up is in
operation obfuscating Hillary’s winning numbers, making it only seem that Obama has been winning,
when in fact he is not. Say what?
I can accept my candidate losing, geeze, it’s happened enough. But
this?
As I write this, 22:25 Eastern Standard Daylight
Saving Time, 27 May, 2008, the tally (according to the Washington Post)
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/delegates/d/
is: Obama: 1978 pledged, 319 super, Clinton: 1780 pledged, 281 super.
Hmmm..it sure seems that someone is having a little trouble with math
here. I want to be fair, but I just don’t get it. Can 1780 be more than
1978? Can 281 be more than 319? According to the New Clinton Math: Yes.
I suppose this shouldn’t surprise me. After all, she
got a 9.3 % edge over Obama in the Pennsylvania primary, (I’m giving
her the highest of the two figures I’ve seen), yet since she needed
ten, it became ten. No matter
that if rounding was used it would be nine. Not bad. Can I put $9300 in
the bank and have them make it $10,000?
Next we come to Florida and Michigan. The most
obvious point is the fairness question. She campaigned in Florida, he
did not. How can that be considered a fair reflexion of the voters’
intent? In Michigan, Obama’s name was not even on the ballot: (he was,
after all, following the rules in both instances) again, how can that
be considered a fair reflexion of the voters’ intent? Yet, Clinton
insists that all delegates are hers. According to reports, (which I
haven’t confirmed) she rejected a compromise in which she would receive
a bit more than half the delegates.
Perhaps both Bill and Hill were looking out the
window or playing hooky the day their second grade teacher explained
addition. Maybe it’s the strain. Maybe it’s just tough conducting
a campaign under sniper fire.
Maybe nobody ever explained to them that addition
(and math in general) follows certain rules. Rules.... while we’re on
the subject of rules, let’s discuss the DNC rules: first, the DNC (like
the RNC) and any other political party is pretty much like a private
club. Giving the people the right to choose (a primary) is to be
preferred, but they could, to the best of my knowledge, do it any way
they wish: a council of elders, a 100 meter dash, a spelling bee or the
best essay entitled “Why I Want To Be President”. Anything is
O.K. so long as everybody who participates knows the rules, and agrees
to be bound by them in advance, which
they did. As in a baseball game, we don’t change the rules in
the middle of a game, nor do we award an extra inning or two for the
team that lost.
Rules exist to give everyone a complete
understanding of the process, to set up a standard that everyone must
abide by,( a daylight metric to assure that noone sneaks anything by)
and as a framework for the people to hang their faith on. What is the
point of even having rules if we don’t abide by them? If Florida and
Michigan “get away with” their early primary, what’s to stop other
states from doing the same? Why not hold primaries in December? or
October? If the DNC wants to change the rules, fine, but not during the
“game”. All candidates, states and the DNC knew the rules before the
process started. Both Obama and Clinton agreed to the rules beforehand.
If we don’t abide by the rules, how can anyone feel that their vote is
real and won’t be overridden by a committee of elites in a smoke-filled
room?
Yet there is another aspect to all this that no one
(that I’ve seen) has mentioned. If the DNC and the “supers” conspire
either purposefully or with inverted serendipity, to award the
nomination to Hillary over the votes of the people, there will be a
backlash. Millions of white voters, angered at a blatant abridgement of
fair play, will loose faith in the process and stay home on election
day. Perhaps I should have said “blacklash”. I wouldn’t be surprised if
all black voters saw it for what it really would be: an underhanded
attempt to deny a black man of something he won fair and square. Think
they’ll be coming out to vote for Hill?
I hate to think of what they (Clinton
supporters) really
mean when they say that she’s more electable.
That’s the sort of thing that (to my way of
thinking), would destroy the Democratic Party, (leaving us with a one
party system for at least a time) while placing a stain on our national
reputation worse than anything Lady Macbeth ever had to deal with. And
you thought 2000 was bad?
One hundred years of war, anyone? Operation Chaos
indeed!
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