Top Dems to Pelosi - Zip It!!

[Dallas]

WASHINGTON — Twenty top Democratic donors who are supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a letter asking her to retract her comments on superdelegates and stay out of the Democratic fight over their role in the presidential race.

In their letter, Clinton’s supporters said superdelegates “must look to not one criterion but to the full panoply of factors that will help them assess who will be the party’s strongest nominee in the general election.”

The letter also noted the donors “have been strong supporters” of the House Democrats’ fundraising arm. “We therefore urge you to clarify your position on superdelegates and reflect in your comments a more open view to the optional independent actions of each of the delegates at the national convention in August.”

Pelosi, who has not endorsed either candidate as chair of the Democratic National Convention, said during a March 16 appearance on ABC’s “This Week” that it would be harmful to the party if superdelegates don’t support the pledged delegate winner.

“This is an untenable position that runs counter to the party’s intent in establishing superdelegates in 1984,” the letter from the wealthy Clinton backers said.

No matter what the outcome of the 10 remaining contests, it will be nearly impossible for Clinton to overcome rival Barack Obama’s lead in pledged delegates, because they are awarded proportionally based on the outcome.
So it will be up to the nearly 800 superdelegates — party activists and elected officials who aren’t bound by any vote — to put one of the two candidates over the mark of 2,024 delegates needed to win the nomination.

Obama has 1,406 pledged delegates to Clinton’s 1,249, according to The Associated Press count.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton said, “This letter is inappropriate and we hope the Clinton campaign will reject the insinuation contained in it.”

“Regardless of the outcome of the nomination fight, Senator Obama will continue to urge his supporters to assist Speaker Pelosi in her efforts to maintain and build a working majority in the House of Representatives,” Burton said.

Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said Clinton had made the case superdelegates should exercise independent judgment about who would be the best for the party and the country.

“Few have done more to build the Democratic Party than Bill and Hillary Clinton. The last thing they need is a lecture from the Obama campaign,” he said.

The letter was first reported by the political blog Talking Points Memo.

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Gotta love Clinton and her machine telling everyone just how its going to be done. :laugh2:

Taking the vote away from the people. How flippin sad. I would lynch the Republicans if they took my vote from me. Let the people decide.

Discuss? No? Yes? Maybe? Probabably Not?

[Heisenberg]

These big donors are part of the old system. After watching Obama raise as much money as he has from nothing but small donors, these people are going the way of the dinosaur and the days of them having the pull they used to have within the party are over.

It's a last ditch effort on their part to try and keep some power in the party with their money.

[sacase]

Why are there even Super delagates?

[BrAinPaiNt]

Well normally I am all in favor of Nancy keeping her mouth shut, but in this case...Talk Nancy Talk.:laugh1:

[Bach]

Gotta love it when these liberals turn on each other.

*catfight*

[PosterChild]

Why are there even Super delagates?

A scheme to game the system if the party elite didn't like the outcome of the primary voting. Bob Beckel confessed a couple months ago that he helped install it; time to dump it because it's inherently unfair.

[Danny White]

Why are there even Super delagates?

It was a reaction by the Democrats to the 1972 and 1976 nominations of George McGovern and Jimmy Carter, respectively. Neither candidate met with the approval of the party elite -- in fact McGovern was seen as a plain foolish choice. So they instituted the Superdelegates who could then provide an "override" of sorts if the rank-and-file voters made an unpopular decision for a nominee.

Here's a good recap on the recent history of Democrat nomination quirks from The Nation:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080218/berman

Rewind to the 1968 Democratic National Convention, which showcased the undue influence of the party's old guard. Big-city bosses like Chicago Mayor Richard Daley handed the nomination to Hubert Humphrey, despite Humphrey's support for a deeply unpopular war and the fact that he hadn't won a single primary. As Rick Perlstein recounts in his forthcoming book, Nixonland, Eugene McCarthy won 79 percent of the vote in the Pennsylvania primary but got less than 20 percent of the state's delegates at the convention. The rest were picked by the party machine. The will of the voters was ignored at the convention, and protesters on the streets outside it were met with clubs and tear gas.

Despite the backroom double-dealing, supporters of McCarthy and Robert Kennedy were able to pass a rule at the convention mandating a study of how the party picked its nominee. This rather innocuous effort, initially led by Iowa Governor Harold Hughes, a popular liberal reformer, led to the McGovern Commission, whose 1970 report, Mandate for Reform, led to a sweeping revision of party politics, which greatly expanded the number of primaries and ensured that convention delegates were roughly proportional to primary vote results; drastically reduced the power of party officials to serve as delegates and dictate the choice of nominee; and mandated a greater role for rising forces within the party--young people, women, minorities. The new rules helped catapult two dark horses to the nomination, McGovern himself in 1972 and Jimmy Carter in 1976.


By 1980 the party establishment had seen enough. It struck back with a commission of its own, led by North Carolina Governor James Hunt. It returned power to elected officials and party regulars--the superdelegates, who will make up about 20 percent of the 4,049 delegates at the Democratic convention. They include all Democratic members of Congress and every governor, but roughly half of them are Democratic National Committee officials elected by state parties, who range from top party operatives to local city council members. Key interests in the party, like labor groups, can also name superdelegates. According to political scientist Rhodes Cook, superdelegates were created as a "firewall to blunt any party outsider that built up a head of steam in the primaries."

That's what happened in 1984, when Senator Gary Hart launched an insurgent challenge to front-runner Walter Mondale. Hart won sixteen state primaries and caucuses to Mondale's ten, and barely lost the popular vote. Yet Mondale locked up virtually all the party's 700 or so superdelegates even before the primary began. Hart likely would have lost anyway, but the superdelegates sealed his defeat. "I got almost none of them, because [Mondale] was considered inevitable," Hart told me.

[Danny White]

MoveOn.org is fighting back!

I'm on their email list (as a mole, of course :D) and I just got this email from them:

Dear MoveOn member,
This is pretty outrageous: a group of Clinton-supporting big Democratic donors are threatening to stop supporting Democrats in Congress because Nancy Pelosi said that the people, not the superdelegates, should decide the Presidential nomination.

It's the worst kind of insider politics—billionaires bullying our elected leaders into ignoring the will of the voters.

But when we all pool our resources, together we're stronger than the fat cats. So let's tell Nancy Pelosi that if she keeps standing up for regular Americans, thousands of us will have her back. And we can more than match whatever the CEOs and billionaires refuse to contribute. Clicking here will add your name to our statement:

http://pol.moveon.org/democracy/o.pl?id=12391-5165049-8GlsD0&t=273

The statement reads: "The Democratic nomination should be decided by the voters—not by superdelegates or party high-rollers. We've given money—and time—to progressive candidates and causes, and we'll support Speaker Pelosi and others who stand up for Democracy in the Democratic Party."


We're launching it today with our friends at the blog OpenLeft.com. Our goal is to deliver tens of thousands of signatures to Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders later this week.

A few weeks ago, Speaker Pelosi told ABC News, "If the votes of the superdelegates overturn what happened in the elections, it would be harmful to the Democratic Party."

She's right, but Clinton's top fundraisers want her to back off. According to the New York Times, their letter "carries an ominous tone, which stops just short of delivering a threat. The donors remind Ms. Pelosi that they are 'strong supporters' of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee." Their language was careful, but their implied threat was universally understood. (Roll Call carried this headline: "Clinton donors threaten Pelosi and DCCC.")

They're the old guard, and this is how the Democratic Party used to function—the big donors called the shots. But the small donor revolution has changed that. The 20 people who signed this letter have given Democrats an average of $2.4 million per year over the last 10 years. Small donations now dwarf that: In February alone, Obama and Clinton raised $47 million in small donations.

Still, old habits die hard. We need to send a strong signal that we, the small donors, will back Democratic leaders who have the courage to stand up and do the right thing. Please sign our statement today.

http://pol.moveon.org/democracy/o.pl?id=12391-5165049-8GlsD0&t=274

Thanks for all you do,

–Noah, Justin, Ilyse, Wes, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Thursday, March 27th, 2008

[BrAinPaiNt]

MoveOn.org is fighting back!

I'm on their email list (as a mole, of course :D) and I just got this email from them:

Sure it is as a mole.

LIBERAL LEFTY LIBERAL LEFTY!!!!

:laugh2:

[PosterChild]

This is rather off topic, but have you guys seen the cans on her? I'm telling you back in the day, pre-botox she would have been a hottie.

[Cajuncowboy]

Well normally I am all in favor of Nancy keeping her mouth shut, but in this case...Talk Nancy Talk.:laugh1:

:yourock:

You da woman Nancy!

[Dallas]

This is rather off topic, but have you guys seen the cans on her? I'm telling you back in the day, pre-botox she would have been a hottie.

Allllrighty then. Welcome to ignore.









:laugh2: :laugh2: j/k

[BrAinPaiNt]

Allllrighty then. Welcome to ignore.









:laugh2: :laugh2: j/k

:laugh2: :laugh2: Yes...that one worried me, which is saying a great deal due to me being a perv.

[Duane]

This is rather off topic, but have you guys seen the cans on her? I'm telling you back in the day, pre-botox she would have been a hottie.

I get what you're saying man. Back in the 1960's, not now in her 60's, she was attractive.

[burmafrd]

Female politicians. Just show me the good looking ones. should not take long.

[Dallas]

Female politicians. Just show me the good looking ones. should not take long.

You said the good lookin ones right? :D

PostrChild can have 60 year old Pelosi's dancing around in his head all he wants. Give me Sarah. ;)


http://www.netstate.com/states/government/images/ak_governor.jpg

Sarah Palin - Governor, AK.